European Politics

I can't find much stuff for you to read that it's in English - mostly only Albanians and Serbians care about him :) But, in conclusion, guy confesses the crimes -> gets acquitted of all charges. It's ridiculous.
 
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/01/putin-gives-depardieu-russian-passport/
“My father was once a communist and listened Radio Moscow, this is also a part of my culture,” Depardieu wrote. He called R “a great democracy.”
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I read that, I have no idea why anything is being made of it.
 
Not sure if in Mexico, if you're a friend of the president and if he's a big fan of your acting (and drinking), you might get offered a position as a minister and a house as well. If it works you might get a better treatment than most citizens on account of their tax money.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20921208

Now for some other news I'm shaking my head about:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20957406
Amazing that there's no cooperation from these German bishops. Then again, in much more catholic countries, such as Poland, this is not going to happen in many a year.
 
Friday, David Cameron will hold an anticipated EU-speech in the Netherlands, the country of his political friend, prime minister Mark Rutte. The speech is expected to be important because he might announce plans for a future referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU.
More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21009375
Margaret Thatcher made a speech on this topic in Brugge (Belgium), in 1988.
 
The anti-EU sentiment in the UK is often emotive and nationalistic rather than carefully considered. There are opponents of the EU who do have economic or political reasons for it, but I hear a lot of people who are just suspicious of 'foreigners', and prefer dealing with English speaking countries like the US. There's not a lot of objective reporting on UK/EU relations in the British press, it often follows a theme of 'look what the Germans/French are forcing us to do now'. I find that really sad
 
Meanwhile, in a global city...

berlin-imagekampagne.jpg


The above image is a very clever piece of satire, summing up that my beloved hometown of Berlin is currently the butt of most political jokes in Germany. At the top is the official logo of the city administration, and the three symbols at the bottom are an airport symbol (obviously), the logo of the S-Bahn, a network of public commuter trains in town, and the logo of the Bundesliga. "Wir können Alles, außer" literally means "we can do anything, except" ("Alles" should not be capitalised, though). It is a reference to a well-known slogan actually belonging to the state of Baden-Württemberg, originally saying "Wir können alles. Außer Hochdeutsch", which would best be translated as "We can do anything. Except speak high German", a reference to the fact that Baden-Württemberg is the most prosperous state in the country, always topping nation-wide polls in economic stability, high living standards, and perceived happiness. It is the only state in the country to never have suffered a household deficit. The people are reputed to be extremely conservative, very philistine, penny-wise and speaking an unintelligible dialect, called Swabonian. By all means, they are to Germany what the Scots are to Britain. Swabonians have been particularly unpopular in Berlin since way into the days of the Wall. They are the symbol of an immigrant population from rural Germany that tries to establish their conservative ideals in the city, which conflicts with the liberal and cosmopolitan attitude of the urban population (although that is sometimes more myth than reality). Recently, a formerly high-ranking German politician living in a part of the city which has a high Swabonian population spoke out publicly against them, causing anonymous troublemakers to deface a popular local monument with what is called their national dish, a certain type of pasta called Spätzle.

So the usage of the slogan is a reference to the Berlin-Swabonia dualism, but what do the three symbols mean? I'll round it up from right to left. The Bundesliga logo is a reference to the fact that Berlin's favourite and best football team, Hertha BSC, sucks. They are currently in the Second Bundesliga, having gone down and up in recent years. And Hertha has always sucked. So, Berliners can't play football.

The green logo with the "S" is the logo of a public commuter rail service called "S-Bahn", which suffered a major breakdown in 2009 that left wide parts of the city without service for weeks. The reason was severe cuts in staff and maintenance. Ever since, there have been annual breakdowns, especially in the winter. The trains are almost always late, and filled to the rim in rush hours because the number of carriages is still not close to what it should be, and the service is generally unreliable and poor. Delays of five minutes are so common that you don't even take notice anymore. Ten or fifteen minutes are hardly unusual either. I try to avoid using it as much as possible, preferring the underground service that is maintained by a different company and barely ever has a late train. It's not always possible though. Most other major German cities have an S-Bahn service too, which is generally reliable and well-maintained, so the Berlin S-Bahn is the only one that's a failure.

The airport symbol points out the farce that is currently making a laughing stock of the city nationwide. I am a bit embarrassed to call myself a Berliner at that, seeing how the scandal even made the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/b...of-german-efficiency.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Essentially, the city administration wanted to build one big Berlin airport (The Berlin-Brandenburg Airport "Willy Brandt") to replace the three commercial airports the city had after re-unification (for a short while, there were even four). So they started building one amidst massive protests against the chosen location, closed down one of the existing city airports just because they could, and announced an opening date for June 2012, with the remaining airports due to close on the exact same day. Flights were scheduled, arrangements were made, and then, just a few weeks before the grand opening, legal concerns about fire safety prevented that from happening. Ever since, the date has been pushed back to late 2012 to early 2013 to late 2013 and now stands at an undefined date. The checklist of errors and shortcomings in the construction keeps rising and would actually be hilarious to read if it wouldn't cost billions in taxpayer money. That's right: It's the government that is responsible for this giant clusterfuck. Members of the Berlin senate are calling for the mayor, who was re-elected last year, to resign, which of course he won't do because he doesn't see how he is responsible for it.

All this is even on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_S-Bahn#Service_reductions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport#Delayed_opening_and_construction_flaws

Sometimes I think I live in Calcutta.
 
“My father was once a communist and listened Radio Moscow, this is also a part of my culture,” Depardieu wrote. He called Russia “a great democracy.”
Click to expand...

I guessed he ditched communism after his son got rich. His comment on great Russian democracy is just sucking up to the public.
Everyone knows what happened, he likes Moscow because it houses most millionaires in Europe (per absolute measurement), Putin likes him because he's going to pour up a couple of millions into his wallet; tax may be lower than in France, but it's there alright. And it was good for PR. Putin's.

So this jacking off about it (and by that I mean Mr. Depardieu's quoted text above), is completely unnecessary.
 
Brigantium said:
The anti-EU sentiment in the UK is often emotive and nationalistic rather than carefully considered. There are opponents of the EU who do have economic or political reasons for it, but I hear a lot of people who are just suspicious of 'foreigners', and prefer dealing with English speaking countries like the US. There's not a lot of objective reporting on UK/EU relations in the British press, it often follows a theme of 'look what the Germans/French are forcing us to do now'. I find that really sad
Click to expand...
Cameron gave his speech today. Unfortunately I can't find the whole speech but here are key quotes (copied from BBC):

Security
"What Churchill described as the twin marauders of war and tyranny have been almost entirely banished from our continent. Today, hundreds of millions dwell in freedom, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, from the Western Approaches to the Aegean.
"And while we must never take this for granted, the first purpose of the European Union - to secure peace - has been achieved and we should pay tribute to all those in the EU, alongside NATO, who made that happen.
"But today the main, over-riding purpose of the European Union is different: not to win peace, but to secure prosperity."
Isolationism
"I never want us to pull up the drawbridge and retreat from the world. I am not a British isolationist.
"I don't just want a better deal for Britain. I want a better deal for Europe too. So I speak as British prime minister with a positive vision for the future of the European Union. A future in which Britain wants, and should want, to play a committed and active part."
Exit
"There are always voices saying: "Don't ask the difficult questions." But it's essential for Europe - and for Britain - that we do because there are three major challenges confronting us today.
"First, the problems in the eurozone are driving fundamental change in Europe. Second, there is a crisis of European competitiveness, as other nations across the world soar ahead. And third, there is a gap between the EU and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years. And which represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent that is - yes - felt particularly acutely in Britain.
"If we don't address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift towards the exit.
I do not want that to happen."
Frustration
"There is a growing frustration that the EU is seen as something that is done to people rather than acting on their behalf. And this is being intensified by the very solutions required to resolve the economic problems.
"People are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity or their taxes are used to bail out governments on the other side of the continent.
"We are starting to see this in the demonstrations on the streets of Athens, Madrid and Rome. We are seeing it in the parliaments of Berlin, Helsinki and the Hague.
"And yes, of course, we are seeing this frustration with the EU very dramatically in Britain."
Trade
"At the core of the European Union must be, as it is now, the single market. Britain is at the heart of that single market, and must remain so.
"But when the single market remains incomplete in services, energy and digital - the very sectors that are the engines of a modern economy - it is only half the success it could be.
"It is nonsense that people shopping online in some parts of Europe are unable to access the best deals because of where they live. I want completing the single market to be our driving mission."
Institutions
"Can we really justify the huge number of expensive peripheral European institutions? Can we justify a Commission that gets ever larger?
"Can we carry on with an organisation that has a multi-billion pound budget but not enough focus on controlling spending and shutting down programmes that haven't worked?
"And I would ask: when the competitiveness of the single market is so important, why is there an environment council, a transport council, an education council but not a single market council?"
National interests
"The members of the eurozone should accept that we, and indeed all member states, will have changes that we need to safeguard our interests and strengthen democratic legitimacy. And we should be able to make these changes too.
"Some say this will unravel the principle of the EU - and that you can't pick and choose on the basis of what your nation needs.
"But far from unravelling the EU, this will in fact bind its Members more closely because such flexible, willing cooperation is a much stronger glue than compulsion from the centre."
Powers
"Power must be able to flow back to Member States, not just away from them... Countries are different. They make different choices. We cannot harmonise everything. For example, it is neither right nor necessary to claim that the integrity of the single market, or full membership of the European Union requires the working hours of British hospital doctors to be set in Brussels irrespective of the views of British parliamentarians and practitioners.
"In the same way we need to examine whether the balance is right in so many areas where the European Union has legislated including on the environment, social affairs and crime.
"Nothing should be off the table."
Democracy
"There is not, in my view, a single European demos.
"It is national parliaments, which are, and will remain, the true source of real democratic legitimacy and accountability in the EU."
Referendum
"Democratic consent for the EU in Britain is now wafer thin.
"Some people say that to point this out is irresponsible, creates uncertainty for business and puts a question mark over Britain's place in the European Union.
"But the question mark is already there and ignoring it won't make it go away.
"In fact, quite the reverse. Those who refuse to contemplate consulting the British people, would in my view make more likely our eventual exit.
"Simply asking the British people to carry on accepting a European settlement over which they have had little choice is a path to ensuring that when the question is finally put - and at some stage it will have to be - it is much more likely that the British people will reject the EU.
"That is why I am in favour of a referendum. I believe in confronting this issue - shaping it, leading the debate. Not simply hoping a difficult situation will go away."
Timing
"The next Conservative Manifesto in 2015 will ask for a mandate from the British people for a Conservative government to negotiate a new settlement with our European partners in the next Parliament.
"It will be a relationship with the single market at its heart.
"And when we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice. To stay in the EU on these new terms; or come out altogether.
"It will be an in/out referendum."
Potential pitfalls
"Hundreds of thousands of British people now take for granted their right to work, live or retire in any other EU country.
"Even if we pulled out completely, decisions made in the EU would continue to have a profound effect on our country. But we would have lost all our remaining vetoes and our voice in those decisions...
"While Norway is part of the single market - and pays for the principle - it has no say at all in setting its rules: it just has to implement its directives."
Diplomacy
"I say to our European partners, frustrated as some of them no doubt are by Britain's attitude: work with us on this.
"Consider the extraordinary steps which the eurozone members are taking to keep the Euro together, steps which a year ago would have seemed impossible.
"It does not seem to me that the steps which would be needed to make Britain - and others - more comfortable in their relationship in the European Union are inherently so outlandish or unreasonable...
"It is hard to argue that the EU would not be greatly diminished by Britain's departure."
Pledge
"With courage and conviction I believe we can achieve a new settlement in which Britain can be comfortable and all our countries can thrive.
"And when the referendum comes let me say now that if we can negotiate such an arrangement, I will campaign for it with all my heart and soul.
"Because I believe something very deeply. That Britain's national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable and open European Union and that such a European Union is best with Britain in it.
"Over the coming weeks, months and years, I will not rest until this debate is won. For the future of my country. For the success of the European Union. And for the prosperity of our peoples for generations to come."
I'm afraid Cameron wants to profit from the EU without investing in it, like everybody should. The referendum sounds like a bad idea. An ill informed electorate will easily be swayed by xenophobic press.
 
Right, but I do not think that is what he said. From my understanding (assuming he is still in government), there would not be a vote until 2017, giving the EU plenty of time to make reforms ... which I think most agree need to happen, though there is obvious conflict over exactly what those reforms should be
 
I wonder how much he really wants to contribute to make reforms. It takes certain measurements to make Europe competitive vs "new" markets as India, China etc. The UK are not collaborating in this process.
Instead, Cameron sees Europe as a shopping mall in which he can shop as he wishes.
 
No, I'm afraid I think the UK will vote to leave based on petty dislikes and suspicion, rather than informed argument
 
Ahhh, the old people that vote against what you are want are stupid and anyone pro is clearly well informed
 
Not really. There are people who come up with good reasons to leave the EU, usually economic factors, but there are lots who just think France and Germany are out to get the UK
 
On the other hand, there is probably a segment of the population that has the opposite view and would vote to join based on some world/euro/let's all hold hands government view whether it made sense or not
 
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