FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

realjohnboy wrote:

Damn. What in the hell is going on in Germany today? 140 police injured in some sort of riot? Anarchists with a motiive or just street thugs?

Whenever there's a G-8 meeting, there's riots..

Here's the Guardian article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,2092812,00.html

(The picture you posted above, part of a portfolio of about 10, does have, in my mind, a pro-demonstrator bias. No pictures of injured policeman. But I am sure that you posted in good faith with what you had access to.)

Three million Romanians live in poverty

Radio Netherlands
29-06-2007

Romania has been experiencing steady economic growth - 7.7% in 2006. While GNP per capita was only 6,800$ in 2000, it is now 9,165$. A leap forwards, but still a long way from the West-European average, and Romania is a country with no social safety net. 15% of Romanians still live below the poverty line. "We're seeing new phenomena: parents emigrate and leave their children behind. It's not clear how the children survive," warns Mariana Stanciu.

Fascist Overtones From Blithely Oblivious Rock Fans

The New York Times
July 2, 2007

When the Croatian rock star Marko Perkovic shouted a slogan from World War II, thousands of fans responded with a Nazi salute. Some wore black Ustashe caps. But the gesture seemed to lack any conscious political overtones. What has shocked Jewish, Serbian and other minority groups most is that in the ensuing debate, many senior politicians and journalists said they did not see the problem. The concert was broadcast on state-owned television, in prime time.

Doomed to drown: the desperate last calls of the migrants no one wanted to rescue
The Independent
2007-05-25

A young Eritrean looks straight at the camera, waving a red shirt above his head. The mother near the bow clasps her small baby as the propeller of the outboard engine twists uselessly in the water. A swell begins to lift the waves over and into the woefully crowded boat.

The photograph showing this was taken from a Maltese armed forces reconnaissance plane on Monday morning. At the same time, people on the boat were begging friends and relatives in Europe by satellite phone to call in help, saying the engine had stalled and the sea was rising.

Nine hours later, a patrol vessel of the Maltese army reached the place - but the boat was gone. Why the vessel, capable of top speeds of more than 80mph, took so long to arrive is a mystery.

"Imagine if there had been 53 white Europeans on that boat, what would have been done to rescue them," said Laura Boldrini of the UNHCR. But the case was no exception.

Human Rights agency: Racist crime "serious social ill" in EU

Expatica
27 August 2007

Summary:

Racism and discrimination remain a serious problem across the EU, with countermeasures handicapped by a lack of information and inadequate sanctions. Moreover, "racist violence and crime remains a serious social ill across the EU," concludes a new report by the EU's Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).

The report notes that although the provisions of the EU's keystone piece of legislation on the subject, the Racial Equality Directive, have been widely adopted by EU member states, "in many countries there is no indication that a single sanction had been applied, or compensation awarded, in cases of ethnic discrimination during 2006".

Those countries were the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Spain.

"As a stark illustration of the difference in awareness and the variation in data collection policies, the UK collected more reports of racist crime in a 12-month period than the other 26 member states combined," the FRA report pointed out.

On the other hand, NGOs and pressure groups are increasingly active as collectors and collators of information: "Where official state-produced criminal justice statistics are lacking, NGOs continue to fill a gap in many member states with respect to documenting and highlighting racist incidents".

Racist crime on the up in eight EU states

EU Observer
27.08.2007

Summary:

The first major report from the EU's recently established Fundamental Rights Agency deals with racism and Xenophobia in the EU member states, and concludes that unequal treatment and ethnic discrimination, especially of migrants and Roma, continue in employment, housing and education.

It also shows that racist violence has increased in a number of member states, though data collection is still insufficient in many countries. Furthermore, the new report points out that "there are continuing disturbing reports of violence and malpractice against vulnerable minorities by agents of the state - namely police, immigration and border control personnel." The agency does argue however, that the EU's legislation on racial equality is gradually stimulating positive change.

Six years on, most Ohrid Accord provisions are met

Southeast European Times
22/08/07

This month, Macedonia marked the sixth anniversary of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, which in August 2001 put an end to several months of armed conflict. Decentralisation and a double majority requirement for some legislation are among its key results. Vlado Popovski believes about 70% of the requirements have been implemented. "Large steps have been made (regarding) just representation of almost every community except the Roma community. The Agreement will be completely fulfilled with the adoption of a general law on use of languages".

Macedonia: Fatal Clash May Point To Rising Tensions Over Kosovo

September 11, 2007
RFE/RL

Violence involving ethnic Albanians in Macedonia has made headlines and prompted parliament to call emergency sessions. The incidents could be tied to tensions in Kosovo over its thwarted demands for independence from Serbia, but a regional analyst for RFE/RL adds that the violence "may involve matters of smugglers [or] other criminal relations" as well. "It could involve family feuds, politics, or any combination of these factors. They all overlap there."

The first incident came in early August, when a police station was attacked near the border with Kosovo, in the area that had been the base of the ethnic-Albanian insurgency in 2001. Then came reports of a clash on August 31 between ethnic Albanians and Macedonian security forces there, and the former leader of a local group of guerrillas during the 2001 conflict told media that he and his supporters drove back police after they tried to enter the village. Xhezair Shaqiri also announced that the village of Tanusevci was preparing a referendum on seceding from Macedonia and uniting with Kosovo. The most recent incident came on September 10 when a police commander and a gunman were killed in a clash in an ethnic Albanian village near the Kosovo border.

The question now is, who or what is behind these incidents? The short answer is it's unclear, but crime and politics are the main suspects.

Macedonian Interior Minister Jankulovska denied politics had anything to do with the September shoot-out. "This is a case of crime," he said: it "cannot be put in the context of politics. This is not a security question."

But the Social Democratic opposition leader said, "Do you think that this happened by accident, and that there is no security risk for the Republic of Macedonia, when in Kosovo they [last month] seized 90 kilograms of explosives and a serious amount of weapons? The Kosovar authorities and international officials said these weapons may have arrived in Kosovo from Macedonia." Macedonia's main ethnic-Albanian opposition party, the Democratic Union for Integration, has not commented on the incidents.

Some analysts have warned about the consequences of a possible partition of Kosovo between its mainly Serbian north and its ethnic-Albanian parts. "The main case against partition has always been the precedent that it would set for Macedonia and for Bosnia," says former U.S. ambassador William Montgomery. Today, Bosnian PM Spiric appeared to underscore those concerns when he suggested that his country fears a resolution of Kosovo's final status could spark separatist ambitions among its Serbian, Croatian, and Muslim communities.

The Dutch government rejected mounting calls for a referendum on Europe's new reform treaty last night, two years after Dutch voters killed off the European constitution in a referendum that stunned the EU.

After a cabinet meeting yesterday of the coalition of Christian and Social Democrats, the Christian Democrat prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, announced that a second referendum was not needed on the grounds that the new treaty was not a constitution and that Dutch concerns had been assuaged in the treaty negotiations this year.

But Mr Balkenende's determination to avoid another referendum after the fiasco he faced two years ago could still fall foul of the parliament in The Hague, where three small parties are demanding a popular vote on the treaty that is supposed to be agreed by the 27 EU governments next month.

Fall-out at the top reveals French finances in freefall

By John Lichfield in Paris
Published: 25 September 2007

A deepening crisis in French public finances has exposed a growing rift between President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Prime Minister, François Fillon.
M. Fillon, criticised at the weekend for saying that the French state was "bankrupt", is believed to be pushing for an "austerity" programme to reduce public spending.

He has at least partially aligned himself with the European Central Bank governor Jean-Claude Trichet and other EU governments who are anxious about President Sarkozy's relatively cavalier attitude to European Union rules on public debt.

In a radio interview yesterday M. Fillon said that an accumulated ¿1trn (£700bn) debt made French public finances "no longer sustainable". His government later announced measures to reduce a shortfall of nearly ¿12bn - 50 per cent higher than expected - in the health, pensions and unemployment budget. Amongst other things, French people will be expected to make a slightly higher personal contribution for some kinds of health treatment.

M. Fillon's government will today announce its overall national budget for 2008, which will, on paper, meet President Sarkozy's target of a deficit of 2.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) next year (which itself overshoots the EU target).

To make the books balance, Paris is assuming a growth rate of 2.25 per cent this year, far higher than independent forecasts. It has also "brought forward" more than ¿1bn in taxes from 2009, a piece of creative accounting which is unlikely to please Brussels and other EU governments.

Over the past three days, M. Fillon has made a series of public pronouncements in which he has made it clear that such book-keeping tricks are no longer sustainable. He has suggested that reducing the public debt should become a government priority. In Corsica last Friday, he said that France was "bankrupt".

President Sarkozy accepts the need for a radical reduction in state spending in the long term but wants to push ahead, cautiously, with his promised deep reforms of the French "social model". He does not want to be forced into emergency spending cuts, which could damage an already faltering economy and generate opposition on the streets.

In effect, the President is paying the price for a first failed experiment in "Sarkonomics". He gambled soon after his election in May on a ¿12bn package of tax cuts, mostly benefiting the wealthy or reasonably well-off. This was supposed to kick-start the economy but its main effect has been to increase the black hole in public finances.

Le Monde newspaper said yesterday that there was now a clear divergence between the two top men in economic thinking. The President and his advisers in the Elysée Palace were still thinking in terms of "relaunching" growth by boosting spending power and demand. M. Fillon, backed by the Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde, and M. Trichet, wanted an "austerity" cure.

* In an interview with The New York Times, M. Sarkozy said France would be ready to rejoin Nato's military command structure provided top positions were reserved for the French in the proposed European defence integration. The French, under President Charles de Gaulle, abruptly withdrew from Nato's command in 1966 and negotiations to bring the French back into the fold since then have foundered.

The 2005-2006 edition of the report on "The Social Situation in the European Union" focuses on such a new intergenerational balance. It describes the relevant demographic trends and analyses the income situation and living conditions of people in different ages and households/family circumstances.

Quote:

In effect, the President is paying the price for a first failed experiment in "Sarkonomics". He gambled soon after his election in May on a ¿12bn package of tax cuts, mostly benefiting the wealthy or reasonably well-off. This was supposed to kick-start the economy but its main effect has been to increase the black hole in public finances.