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How the world turns

By
Richard
 – 20/05/2012Posted in: Blog, Quotebank

Niall Ferguson (picture Harvard)

It is not only the world of politics that is turned upside down by the European banking crisis and the ineffectual way in which political leaders are dealing with it.  Historical and cultural commentators, too, are in turmoil.

Niall Ferguson, poster boy of Atlanticism, is interviewed in the Sunday Times (£) today, advocating a federal union of Europe:

I am not a federalist, but the costs of the single currency disintegrating are really so high and would impact so many people, that the only responsible thing for me to do is to argue urgently for the next step to a federal Europe. I see no alternative at the moment that isn’t a great deal worse.

Mind you, he has quite a good track record of supporting European integration, for many of the same reasons as this website.  See here, for example:

The choice is no longer between national foreign policies and a European foreign policy, but between national irrelevance and collective influence.

 and he was a supporter of the European constitution, as he explained here.

Will Self

But the traffic is not only one way.  The BBC website carries a piece by novelist and journalist Will Self, in which he writes that

For myself, I had always been an enthusiastic pro-European and an unashamed believer in a federal European state. Like many English people of my tastes and proclivities, I rather fancied myself propping up zinc bars, sipping pastis and listening to the musical chink-clank of petanque.

However, the experience of the EU is changing his mind:

But times and opinions change: the continent’s sixty year double-thinking reverie has turned the European dream into something of a nightmare … And you know, perhaps they – and we – should give up trying; an end to the European Union in its current banjaxed form might allow all of us to experience a new dawn,

Will Self’s despair at the difficulties encountered by the European Union is comprehensible, but Niall Ferguson’s explanation of the reasons why Europe needs to unite remains important enough for the project to be worth preserving with.  The world turns, but not that much.

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The lady in the lake

By
editor
 – 03/02/2012Posted in: Blog, Quotebank

Robert Montgomery plays Philip Marlowe in the 1947 film version of "The lady in the lake"

Taking a break from thinking about the future of the eurozone or the prospects for a UN Parliamentary Assembly, I took a trip to 1940s California in the company of Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s iconic, hardbitten private detective.  But amidst the glitz of Hollywood and the grime of Bay City, I found the same worries about public life and public behaviour as inhabit the rest of this website.

Here is police captain Webber, in “The lady in the lake”, explaining to Marlowe after two police officers have assaulted our hero while in the course of looking after a client:

“Police business,” he said almost gently, “is a hell of a problem.  It’s a good deal like politics.  It asks for the highest type of men, and there’s nothing in it to attract the highest type of men.  So we have to work with what we get – and we get things like this.”

Somewhere in a society, there will be power, and power can be misused.  In a democracy, we place most of that power in the hands of people we have chosen to hold it, but that power can still be misused.  So we need other constraints on the way in which power is used, outside of those imposed by elections.

The future of the eurozone will only be secured if the power of politicians to run up debts is controlled, given that the countries in the eurozone no longer have the power to print money to pay their bills instead.  World peace can only be secured if national governments are constrained in their ability to cause environmental or economic harm to other countries, or indeed their own citizens.  Captain Webber of the Bay City Police Department does not trust politicians limitlessly, and neither should you.

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The democratic deficit is the price Norway pays for being outside the EU

By
editor
 – 26/01/2012Posted in: Quotebank

Outside and Inside - Norway’s agreements with the European Union (published by Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Some British Eurosceptics continually refer to the Norwegian model of being outside the EU but able to trade with it.  As it happens, the Norwegian government has just published a comprehensive review of its relationship with the European Union (“Outside and Inside – Norway’s agreements with the European Union”, http://www.regjeringen.no/pages/36798821/PDFS/NOU201220120002000EN_PDFS.pdf)

Of particular note is the following section (starting on page 7):

The most problematic aspect of Norway’s form of association with the EU is the fact that Norway is in practice bound to adopt EU policies and rules in a broad range of issues without being a member and without voting rights. This raises democratic problems. Norway is not represented in decision-making processes that have direct consequences for Norway, and neither do we have any significant influence on them. Moreover, our form of association with the EU dampens political engagement and debate in Norway and makes it difficult to monitor the Government and hold it accountable in its European policy.

This is not surprising; the democratic deficit is a well-known aspect of the EEA Agreement that has been there from the start. It is the price Norway pays for enjoying the benefits of European integration without being a member of the organisation that is driving these developments. Although the democratic problems are as great today as they were 20 years ago – and have in fact increased – this is a situation that the broad political majority has been willing to accept and that many have become accustomed to.

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Radoslaw Sikorski: I fear Germany’s power less than her inactivity

By
editor
 – 29/11/2011Posted in: Quotebank

Radoslaw Sikorski (picture Poland Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

The break up of the eurozone would be a crisis of apocalyptic proportions, going beyond our financial system. Once the logic of “each man for himself” takes hold, can we really trust everyone to act in a communitarian way and resist the temptation to settle scores in other areas, such as trade? Would you really bet the house on the proposition that if the eurozone breaks up, the single market, the cornerstone of the European Union, will definitely survive? After all, messy divorces are more frequent than amicable ones.

…

What, as Poland’s foreign minister, do I regard as the biggest threat to the security and prosperity of Poland in the last week of November 2011? It is not terrorism, and it is certainly not German tanks. It is not even Russian missiles, which President Dmitry Medvedev has just threatened to deploy on the EU’s border. The biggest threat to the security of Poland would be the collapse of the eurozone.

…

I demand of Germany that, for its own sake and for ours, it help the eurozone survive and prosper. Nobody else can do it. I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say this, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear its inactivity. You have become Europe’s indispensable nation. You may not fail to lead: not dominate, but to lead in reform.

From a speech by Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, in Berlin on 28 November 2011.

Read the whole speech here Sikorski on the EU Nov 2011

And a commentary in the Economist here http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/11/polands-appeal-germany

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Charles Darwin: man ought to extend his social instincts

By
editor
 – 23/11/2011Posted in: Quotebank

Charles Darwin

“As man advances in civilisation, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races.”

Charles Darwin (1809-1882), from “The descent of man” (published 1871)

 

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“State, Faith and Nation – the European Conundrum” (14 September 2011)

By
editor
 – 04/08/2011Posted in: Past Events, Quotebank

The 33rd Corbishley Lecture will be given by Professor Joseph Weiler on “State, Faith and Nation – the European Conundrum”, on Wednesday 14 September at 6.30 pm in the House of Lords

by kind courtesy of WPCT Patrons Lord Tomlinson and Lord Williamson, and with special thanks to the Mercers’ Company for their generosity

The lecture will be preceded by a reception from 6 pm and is free of charge

The 2011 Corbishley Lecture will explore the many challenges to secular and religious relationships of Europe’s new plurality  and the implications for integration and peaceful co-existence of its multiple identities and allegiances. The lecture will be followed by a wide-ranging discussion.

This year’s distinguished Corbishley lecturer is Professor Joseph Weiler, Joseph Straus Professor of Law and European Union Jean Monnet Chair at the New York University School of Law. From 1978 to 1985 he was a member of the Department of Law at the European University Institute, Florence, where in 1989 he was co-founder of its Academy of European Law.

Last year Professor Weiler acted as attorney for the Italian and other governments in the landmark Lautsi case on the prohibition of the crucifix and other religious symbols in public schools. Speaking after the successful outcome of their appeal against the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling he said,

“Europe is special in that it guarantees at the private level both freedom of religion and freedom from religion, but does not force its various peoples to disown in its public spaces what for many is an important part of the history and identity of their states, a part recognized even by those who do not share the same religion or any religion at all”.

Professor Weiler is a committed member of the Orthodox Jewish community in the Bronx. In 2003 he published a best-selling book “A Christian Europe”.

The 2011 Lecture is the 33rd in the series held in memory of Father Thomas Corbishley, former Master of Campion Hall, Oxford, and Superior at Farm Street, London.

To register, please e-mail wpctrust@gmail.com or write to Mrs Win Burton, Secretary, WPCT, 134 Main Road, Long Hanborough OX29 8JY;  a ticket will be issued shortly before the event with instructions for security and entrance to the House of Lords.

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Donald Tusk: European integration is not a threat to sovereignty

By
editor
 – 01/07/2011Posted in: Quotebank

Donald Tusk, prime minister of Poland (picture: Archiwum Kancelarii Prezydenta RP)

“We lived for many years as a non-sovereign country, under Soviet occupation. For us European integration is not a threat to sovereignty because we experienced not long ago a serious threat to our sovereignty.”

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, 1 July 2011

Reported at http://euobserver.com/9/32578/?rk=1

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Eurelectric: a European energy policy

By
Richard
 – 27/01/2011Posted in: Quotebank

Electricity pylons, bringing power from Carlisle to Workington (picture Phil Gravell / geograph.org.uk)

From “Key Messages on: “Energy 2020 ‐ A strategy for competitive, sustainable and secure energy” COM (2010)639 Final”, published by Eurelectric, January 2011:

“Priority should be given to implementing and enforcing existing internal electricity and gas market legislation without delay to ensure proper functioning of electricity markets.”

…

“Integration of electricity markets should be placed at the heart of national and EU policies and seen as a major tool of efficient introduction of renewables into the market.”

…

“We need a European vision of the development of renewables, including provision for flexible back-up generation.”

…

“In terms of the EU speaking with one voice in external energy relations, the Commission should be encouraged to implement a real integration of the EU energy markets. By uniting Member States by common interest, market integration will greatly strengthen the position of the external European energy policy.”

Read the whole document at:

http://www2.eurelectric.org/DocShareNoFrame/Docs/5/FEPHJLEABJNHNEKIPNIEEAFF59VLOL5RVG5C574AVT4C/Eurelectric/docs/DLS/EURELECTRIC_En_Str_Key_messages_FINAL-2010-030-1086-01-E.pdf

Reported in the Financial Times, 27 January 2011 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aae679a2-29a1-11e0-bb9b-00144feab49a.html#axzz1CFP1xp00

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Louis Susman: “all key issues must run through Europe”

By
Richard
 – 27/01/2011Posted in: Quotebank

Louis Susman, US ambassador to the UK (picture US State Department)

Remarks by Louis Susman, America’s ambassador to the UK, at the European Parliament, 25 January 2011:

“I want to stress that the UK needs to remain in the EU.

“The US does not want to see Britain’s role in the EU diminished in any way.

“The message I want to convey today is that we want to see a stronger EU, but also a stronger British participation within the EU.

Susman, who took up his current post a year ago, added, “This is crucial if, together, we are going to meet all the global challenges facing us, including climate change and security.

“But let’s be clear: all key issues must run through Europe.”

Susman, who was addressing a group of British MEPs at a private event in parliament, also praised the so-called “special relationship” between the US and Britain, saying it was “stronger than ever.”

Reported in http://www.theparliament.com/latest-news/article/newsarticle/uk-urged-to-rule-out-any-chance-of-leaving-eu/

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John Lanchester: action on the banks has to be international

By
Richard
 – 18/10/2010Posted in: Quotebank

Whoops! by John Lanchester

This new Lehmans scandal sums up two of the biggest problems that we – the voting, taxpaying general public – still have with the banks, almost two years after they blew up and we bailed them out.  First, the operation of capital markets is international, but the legislative regimes why try to control it are local.  Financial institutions are constantly on the alert for ways in which they can exploit differences between jurisdictions – the Repo 105 is merely a glaring public example of something which goes on all the time.  Even Sarbanes-Oxley, the all-time monster crackdown on tricky accounting by the world’s dominant economic power, turned out to be wholly ineffective.  Any action on banks has to be coordinated and international, or it is worthless.  Unfortunately, that coordination is much easier to call for than to achieve.  This is on the main reasons why we have as yet had no effective action to restrain the banks.

From “Whoops! Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay”, by John Lanchester (Penguin, 2010)

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