International Politics Thread

[vektorboson 8]

How about minus votes?

Instead of giving your vote to a party, give a 'minus' vote to a party. So that specific party looses one vote; that's for the people who don't like every party, so they can just choose which party they don't like most.

   

[Necromancer- 0]

I really wonder why the liberal parties are overall in the minority...

Denoir is right.. most left parties don't really have "Create more jobs" in their political program and still... people vote for it.

Why??? Is it because people only think about themselves??? Short-sighted?

[Bordoy 0]

Robert Kilroy-Silk said he wants to wreck the EU, and expose it for what it really is.

[Bordoy 0]

It's kinda embarrasing that UKIP got so many seats When Kilroy was asked what they were gonna do with the EU he said "wreck it", so a nice man... At least the BNP didn't get much. (i think)

If I recall correctly they didnt get a single one.

Yer, the BNP didn't get any seats but they got over 808,200 votes which is a fair few considering they were on a budget of Å250,000.

[denoir 0]

Robert Kilroy-Silk said he wants to wreck the EU, and expose it for what it really is.

Kilroy-Silk... hmm.. sounds awfully familiear. [Google]

Aha! He's the BBC host who got fired after going on an anti-Arab rant.

(Anger at Kilroy 'anti-Arab rant')

Although, the UKIP may have a more legitimate front, I'd say that it's the same shit with a different last name as the BNP.

[Bordoy 0]

Robert Kilroy-Silk said he wants to wreck the EU, and expose it for what it really is.

Kilroy-Silk... hmm.. sounds awfully familiear. [Google]

Aha! He's the BBC host who got fired after going on an anti-Arab rant.

(Anger at Kilroy 'anti-Arab rant')

Although, the UKIP may have a more legitimate front, I'd say that it's the same shit with a different last name as the BNP.

your fucking quick Sherlock

*hint the sarcasm

edit: just read it, so what do we owe arabs? There co-ordinating attacks on western countries using western technology. If they don't like the west why can't they revert back to camels with notes attached to them.

[DarkLight 0]

Robert Kilroy-Silk said he wants to wreck the EU, and expose it for what it really is.

Kilroy-Silk... hmm.. sounds awfully familiear. [Google]

Aha! He's the BBC host who got fired after going on an anti-Arab rant.

(Anger at Kilroy 'anti-Arab rant')

Although, the UKIP may have a more legitimate front, I'd say that it's the same shit with a different last name as the BNP.

your fucking quick Sherlock

*hint the sarcasm

edit: just read it, so what do we owe arabs? There co-ordinating attacks on western countries using western technology. If they don't like the west why can't they revert back to camels with notes attached to them.

Will you please stop calling all arabs "terrorists"...

sheesh

What moron introduced that word anyway...  

Calling whole groups of people "terrorists" sounds more like racism to me...  It's like saying "Oh you are black so you're a criminal"

What the fuuuuck?

Sure maybe everybody doesn't mean it that way but that sure is what it looks like...

edit: You are right, what the fuck are they attacking us for? It's not like we're discriminating anyone, are we? The East and West have always been such good friends!

[Bordoy 0]

dam, i forgot to put that. some arabs as the few who are terroists. The Few not the Majority.

[Placebo 28]

Bordoy - at the very least your comments (and the way you've been making them) have given off rather racist overtones, I hope that's not your true nature showing through.

Edit: "your fucking quick Sherlock" is pretty much flamebaiting, please avoid such a tone

[Bordoy 0]

Bordoy - at the very least your comments (and the way you've been making them) have given off rather racist overtones, I hope that's not your true nature showing through.

Edit: "your fucking quick Sherlock" is pretty much flamebaiting, please avoid such a tone

Sorry, i had a bad day yesterday. Won't happen again.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

How to make a referendum on the European constution winnable(-Guardian)

This admittedly is a side issue in this thread but im in a slight hurry (not wishing to dredge up older 'euro' threads).

Quote[/b] ]If Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's draft constitution for Europe is approved in Dublin this week it will be the worst inter-governmental agreement since the treaty of Versailles.

Even if "red lined" by the British government, it will endorse qualified majority voting which can bind the minority on a vote, undermine the authority of national parliaments and overrule national electorates. It does nothing to redress the deflationary debt and deficit conditions of Maastricht, facilitate growth and employment, or fund economic and social cohesion.

The price for joining the euro offered to newly acceding states is the unemployment and austerity on which extremism feeds. Xenophobes will exult. Well-meaning internationalists concerned for national democracy will vote against. The call last year of Tony Blair and the Portuguese premier, Durao Barroso, for Europe to create 15m jobs over 10 years, if noticed, will be dismissed as rhetoric. Referendums will be lost. Governments will fall.

Two moves could avoid this. The first is to amend the draft's article I-24 to allow member states to call for an enabling majority vote [EMV], which would bind only the member states voting for it. This would avoid the authority of national governments being undermined. An EMV proposal could be voted on by national parliaments, unlike QMV which does not even allow them to be consulted, and would offset nationalism, other extremism and electoral apathy by showing that national democracy still counts.

Enabling majority voting implies a variable-geometry Europe. But there already is one. Not all member states are in the eurozone and only some are in the Shengen border agreement. Most member states do not count borrowing from the European Investment Bank against their national debt, though some do. All are central European policy issues. A majority EMV council decision could carry political authority for initiatives in policy areas such as foreign affairs, security, peace-keeping and defence.

National parliaments could vote on an EMV proposal, which in the Giscard draft they cannot. Governments initially declining to vote for an EMV proposal could do so later. That later vote also could amend the policy to improve it by enhanced majority consent, facilitating best practice. An EMV procedure would not deny the principle of federal policies but by not binding the minority it would avoid federalism without consent.

The second move is simply to highlight reality. The EU already has the means to finance social investment and employment without breaching the Maastricht debt and deficit conditions - through its European Investment Bank. Most member states do not count borrowing from the EIB against their national debt, because its borrowings are European, not national. The parallel is US treasury bond borrowing, which does not count on the debt of California or Delaware, and is how the Democrats financed the 1930s New Deal.

Project financing through the EIB means member states can reduce their national borrowing and debt servicing, observe the Maastricht debt and deficit limits, and increase social investment and employment. With borrowing and lending already bigger than the World Bank's, the EIB is equal to the task.

This is not an 11th-hour idea to fix the stability pact but the outcome of a decade of design and decision-making. US treasury bonds were the model for the union bonds to finance Jacques Delors's 15m jobs target in his 1993 employment white paper. The EIB was allowed to issue the bonds to finance investment in key cohesion areas: health, education, urban renewal and the urban environment. Since 1996 a new European Investment Fund has offered EU venture capital for employment-creating small and medium-sized firms.

The Giscard draft constitution does not even note these post-Maastricht decisions. Its tail-end reference to the EIB under "other institutions" is lifted straight from the 1957 Rome treaty. Neither the EIB's new remit to finance social investment, nor that its borrowings need not count on national debt, nor the new European Investment Fund appear in the draft constitution at all. They should, centrally, before any government signs it or asks anyone to vote for it.

With enabling majority voting also safeguarding national democracy, governments not only could justify the amended constitution in referendums, but also win them.

- Stuart Holland, a former Labour MP, is visiting professor at the University of Coimbra

Article raising some of the concerns i have had about the constitution/federalism etc.

[denoir 0]

In the news:

The Joys of EU  

Looks like we're heading for yet another Eurocratic compromise.

And a bit more positive news:

Croatia given official candidate status

Probably joining up in three years.

[Gollum1 0]

edit oh yes I didn't read the thread, sorry

[denoir 0]

Quote[/b] ]

Two moves could avoid this. The first is to amend the draft's article I-24 to allow member states to call for an enabling majority vote [EMV], which would bind only the member states voting for it. This would avoid the authority of national governments being undermined. An EMV proposal could be voted on by national parliaments, unlike QMV which does not even allow them to be consulted, and would offset nationalism, other extremism and electoral apathy by showing that national democracy still counts.

Enabling majority voting implies a variable-geometry Europe. But there already is one. Not all member states are in the eurozone and only some are in the Shengen border agreement. Most member states do not count borrowing from the European Investment Bank against their national debt, though some do. All are central European policy issues. A majority EMV council decision could carry political authority for initiatives in policy areas such as foreign affairs, security, peace-keeping and defence.

...

With enabling majority voting also safeguarding national democracy, governments not only could justify the amended constitution in referendums, but also win them.

It would be a terrible mistake to put in an EMV. It would reinforce the problem that is in the core of the EU cooperation right now: national good rather than a common European good. It's the lack of belief that the EU could be more than the sum of its parts.

Right now most nations are trying to grab as much power as possible, without regard for long-term effects. And the UK just happens to be the ring-leader in that area.

The real issue should however be the separation of state and union decisions. Some things are just idiotic to handle on a national level: foregin policy, military etc European foregin policy can only work if united. Even the four big ones, Britain, France, Germany and Italy are all powerless in a global perspective. The current Iraq war diplayed that very well. Germany and France could bitch a lot, but that's about it. Britain got a voice at all just because they attached themselves to the back of the US  - but it was a very weak voice too. And in the area of foreign policy, there is a wide popular support in Europe for having a common one.

The military issue is more a question of cost. Sure there is some national pride in one's military, but that is looking objectivly a pile of horse shit. Europe is very weak militarily and yet we spend a shitload of money on it. And that's of course because work is being duplicated. As a big money saver (we're talking hundreds of billions of euros), a common EU military should be set up.

On the other hand, there are issues that should not be handled on the union level. For instance taxes, pensions etc. As for social security etc, I only think that the union should define minimums and that the practical implementation should be left to the states.

There are local issues and there are union issues. You need to know how to make a proper separation. And I believe that there are natural boundaries for that.

[Grizzlie 0]

denoir, i wish it would be so easy...

U bet u have heard what Germany said about taxes in new members of EU.

Same is with military. Lets say we have common military, as u said - costs cut. True, but from the other hand - who would produce stuff? How many project have been broken because they couldn't aggree what part would be produced in certain country... Do u think that smaller and poorer countries would aggree to buy weapons from big and rich? And rich countries would pass productucion of some important (and expecive) parts to small countries?

Wasn't it Portugal be "punished" by removing they air industry from A400M program for cancelling buying it? (not sure if Portugal, so it is question)

[denoir 0]

Indeed it's difficult with the big economic differences between the states. But that's why I believe in the common currency and economic harmonisation. It will of course be anything but a harmonic process - it is the brutal forcing of economies to be synchronized and at the same level. The payoffs in the end will be huge however. An optimal market is only achievable when you have the same conditions everywhere.

So I think they're on the right track, both with common interest rates as well as the economic support given to economically weaker countries. Ireland is a great example of a situation where it worked.

Common tax levels is  a bit more difficult question. Right now they might be necessary or the system is exploitable. A custom tax system can lead to a state setting a null tax and declaring no income. Hence union money will be used to finance it.

That's the basic reason why the Germans want higher taxes for the new member states. They have lower taxes than the EU average while at the same time they'll be getting union money because they are relatively poorer.  So the German position is a logical one: the new states should get as much as they can with taxes and the union will pay the rest in support.

I can also understand why it won't be very popular in the new member states. And once sychronicity has been achieved, I think taxes should most certainly be a local state question and not a union question.

It's a difficult one and I think it will hurt to synchronize the EU state economies, but the payoff will be much greater.

Edit: EU summit agreement 'close'

Quote[/b] ]Leaders from 25 countries of the European Union are "tantalisingly close" to reaching a deal on a new constitution, a top official says.

Not that it means too much as it has to be ratified by all member states and in several through referendums. And the current odds giving by bookies are 16:1 for a fail in certain member states whose name I wont mention *caugh* *caUKgh*

[Grizzlie 0]

That's the basic reason why the Germans want higher taxes for the new member states. They have lower taxes than the EU average while at the same time they'll be getting union money because they are relatively poorer.  So the German position is a logical one: the new states should get as much as they can with taxes and the union will pay the rest in support.

It is only one side of problem. Most new members have weak economies. Raising taxes will cause bigger "gray zone" and even  can cause crash. And taxes income will lower, they would need more support, ect.

But i think in long terms (10-20 years) it can be done.

[denoir 0]

Indeed. Another alternative is to leave the taxes alone and give full economic support. This will cause a migration of business from the old to the new member states. This in turn will increase the states' income and hence reduce their need for union support money.

But good luck selling that idea to the old member states as they will be paying support so that their own income will be reduced and unemployment raised..

[Grizzlie 0]

I know.

But if business would migrate, they would rather choose other countries like Russia, China, ect.

It is really big problem.

[denoir 0]

Agreement on EU constitution reached

No details yet available on the specifics of the compromise. It remains to be seen if getting it shot down by a referendum would be a good thing or not.  

Btw, I wonder how on earth they got anything done in the middle of Euro 2004. Perhaps that was the reason they agreed so quickly - they wanted to go home and watch football.

It makes me wonder if we'll be reading something like this in the new constitution:

Quote[/b] ]

For a law to pass the double majority principle will be applied. In a football turnament the proposers of the bill must win at least 55% of the matches and scoring 65% of the goals.

[raedor 8]

cool

good news!

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

Is the constitution agreed upon and is definitely coming?

[raedor 8]

Is the constitution agreed upon and is definitely coming?

sure.

ard news

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

Is the constitution agreed upon and is definitely coming?

sure.

ard news  

So in other words, the British referendum on it is meaningless, as its already in place?

[denoir 0]

No, this is just the first step. Now it has to be ratified by the national parliaments of every member states. In some there will be referendums.

A failure in any state to ratify it will result at least in delays or quite possibly that the whole thing is scrapped in favour of two constitutions - one for the 'willing' and one for the 'unwilling'. It's the wet dream of every federalist.