On Libertas

Cross posted at Re:Europa.

Despite my misgiving about Decaln Gangley and his Astroturf organization Libertas, I can not deny that the election would be extremely boring without him. Well, in fact the election is still boring, but Libertas creates at least some interest. Via Julien Frisch I found this blog that is solemnly dedicated to anti-Libertas work*.

Additionally Ralf Grahn has an interesting write up of the Libertas congress that happened yesterday:**

• Declan Ganley & Libertas: One big mess?
  
• For Libertas Brussels is Washington
  
• Libertas’s big catch: Lech Walesa
  
• Who are Libertas? And what?

So far the webpage of Libertas does not of all that much information about specific policies. I also was not able to find some list about the national canidates. That would be most interesting. According to the everything I have read so far the Polish chapter of Libertas is consists essentially of the League of Polish Families. A strongly anti-EU party.

The leading candidate from Spain seemed to have a fascinating vision for the future of the EU (via the anti-libertas blog):

And Senor Duran won one of the biggest cheers of day during his address, when he announced: "I want to find with Declan a new Europe, a white Europe, not a black Europe."

Maybe he just wants to say that he wants Europe to have bright future, but it sure sounds strange.

The head of the German Libertas branch is Carlos A. Gebauer. From what I found. He seems to be a standard issue economic liberal. His personal webpage contains a huge amount of his writings on all kinds of subjects. However, a quick search shows that only three contain anything about EU issues. This leaves it unclear, what kind of institutional structure of Europe Mr. Gebauer envisions. Furthermore his articles on European issues display the typical Eurosceptic structure of total outrage against some rather inconsequential and technical decision taken in Brussels.




*I did not only find the link to the blog on Juliens page, I also use the exact same turn of phrase to describe what it does. I hope Julien can forgive my for plagiarizing his work.

**Mmhhh... ok I actually copied these links from Julien as well...so why write a post at all. I guess I have to add some independent "analysis".

The Romas Italy Problem

Cross posted on Re:Europa

Around the Euroblogosphere the treatment of the Roma in Italy has become an issue. A Handfull of Euros has a good rundown of the situation, the Turko Files and the European Tribune write about the generally bad treatment of the Roma in Europe, the Yellow Stars Blog strongly condemns the Italian Government and Gravitas Free Zone has a very interesting take. Excerpt:

The western Europe countries with a relatively high Rom density are amongst the more tolerant, while east Europe countries, with the higher number of Roma, are slightly below average but show, interestingly enough, a positive trend (higher Rom density = high tolerance). Therefore, the claim that in Italy there is a reaction to the too high number of Roma starts to look a bit fishy. What’s so special about Italy, then? Somebody particularly malignant could be tempted to answer that Italy is the only EU country with a prime minister with a dominant position in the mass media and a very strong interest first in creating dissatisfaction with the previous government and then in distracting the public from more important issues (for which he has no clue about possible solutions).

Anti-Europe

Cross Posted at Re:Europa.

Since the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty Ralf Grahn has turned his blog into an excellent source of interesting commentary. The suggest made in this blog post I found especially noteworthy.

Names and Labels matter and the conjure certain images. That is why it is important to be careful how to apply the label Eurosceptic. Somebody who opposes the institutional order of the current EU, but has his own ideas how this order should be is clearly a Eurosceptic. But for those who oppose any type of institutional order in Europe, the label Anti-EU, or what I like even more anti-Europe, should be used. This puts things better into perspective.

New World Order

Cross Posted at Re:Europa.

Questions regarding the shady connections of Declan Ganley, the head of the anti-EU group Libertas have gone mainstream. Certain Ideas of Europe, calls it conspiracy theories, but I think one should take a closer look at the finances of Libertas.

However, I am with Nanne on this one:

The Lisbon Treaty did not fail the Irish referendum due to evil American defence corporations, rich Irish corporate hacks, or because it had some elements that irked a small post-marxist Irish party. It failed because it failed to take into account basic emotional responses that any European electorate would have had.

Personal Log

Due to the fact that I'm just finishing my PhD and really have no idea how much time I'm, able to/allowed to spend on this reading and blogging stuff, I agreed with rz from Re:Europa to cross post all relevant posts from now on on both blogs.
This does not necessarily mean that we agree on all scales, but that we are able to endure the presence of each others opinion....sort of.

News for tomorrow

Turkey defeats Germany with 1:0. In Ankara another person dies in a celebrating crowd. In Berlin and Cologne 30 people with immigration background are seriously injured in riots after and during the match. Beer sales go up by 50% in the rural areas in Germany.

Update
Ok, so I was wrong. The German team won - good for them and good for all the Turkish in Germany.
The Turkish coach expressed it like this after the match: "We played well, but we have a tendency to loose games. And that's why we lost."
Well said. And indeed, I think they played better. They just didn't make enough goals to win...
I am now looking forward to the match Russia:Spain. I hoope Spain is going to win, because they never got that far, although they play good soccer.

Daniel Hannan hit by care-bear stare!

This post has been cross posted at Re: Europa.

Oh my, what are those evil parliamentarians doing to the Irish NO voters and Daniel Hannan!
Not only did Hannan et al. first have to explain to the world why the Lisbon Treaty is evil (what exactly was it again? I guess I missed the points somehow), now they have to find out that some people obviously still don't understand that No means No and that Daniel Hannan together with 53% of the Irish voters layed down the law and that there cannot be possibly a "but" to it.


Did you hear that they are in fact talking about continuing the ratification process? They can't be serious, can they? I mean, there has been a clear no by the Irish and this, of course, condemns the rest of Europe to do nothing.
Did you hear this danish guy saying "we respect the Irish, as we respect every other member states' decisions. Let's continue the process." Boy, if I was Irish or Daniel Hannan, I would consider such a statement a serious attack and a sign of disrespect and ...stuff, you know... to my vote. It is really not necessary to use a care-bear stare at the first sign of trouble! What the hell are they thinking? I mean, even if they do not agree with Daniel Hannan (a contradiction in terms, btw) and 800000 Irish voters, couldn't they formulate their opinion somewhat more diplomatic? Couldn't they make some useful suggestions about how to proceed -like Hannan does all the time? No, obviously they can't. I guess those "funny" parliamentarians just don't have the brains to get that. Instead of that they sit around in their parliaments and go like "but, but, but...". As if this would lead anywhere! Isn't there a way to find a, say, more constructive solution? One that allows us to move on?
Dear, dear. Daniel Hannan should really go over next thing in the morning and have a word with them and explain to them again, that they can't possibly do anything anymore and that they indeed can go home now. Can you imagine that he has to deal with such idiots every day? Tss.

Seriously, Mr. Hannan, are You in fact criticizing that the MEPs care about the Irish referendum? What part of "you get what you asked for" don't You understand?

Behold: The above post may contain residuals of irony, sarcasm, parody and fragments of the auhtor's emotional state and may cause allergic reactions. No personal offense meant.