FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

Will this problem grow into the EU?

Greek elections give fringe parties a boost

17/09/2007
Southeast European Times

Smaller parties made gains in Greek parliamentary elections, reflecting disenchantment with the two main parties. The New Democracy party of PM Karamanlis won the elections, but with a sharply trimmed majority, and its left-wing rival PASOK also lost over a dozen seats.

The Communists and the Radical Left however together won 18 extra seats, winning a pooled 13% of the vote, while the far-right LAOS debuts in parliament with 10 seats after getting 3.8%.

EU sees numbers of asylum seekers drop

EU Observer
08.10.2007

The number of asylum seekers in the EU has progressively decreased since the 1990s. From 2001 to 2006, the number of applications has dropped by almost 50%, with a 15% drop in 2006 alone. 192,300 asylum applications were received in 2006. The UK and France received the most, but Cyprus and Malta received the most relative to the size of their population.

Human rights: does the EU practise what it preaches?

Thu, 04 Oct 2007
Earth Times

For countries wishing to join the European Union, the rules are clear: only those who can prove their commitment to human rights need apply. But experts are now asking whether the bloc's 27 member states and its Brussels-based leaders are playing by the same rules. [..]

In recent months, several EU states have come into conflict with human-rights supporters in Brussels over their apparent promotion of intolerant attitudes [..]. Last October, the Latvian parliament provoked controversy when it appointed the country's most prominent anti-gay-rights campaigner as the head of its parliamentary human-rights committee. A month later the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, refused to allow an EU-sponsored "tolerance bus" to make a presentation because it was promoting gay rights among other tolerance issues.

Incidents such as these show both how superficial some member states' dedication to non-discrimination is, and how little power EU central authorities have to influence them, experts say. "In around half of (EU) member states, even with laws and procedures in place, there were no indications of any sanctions (in discrimination cases) being applied" in 2006, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency pointed out in its annual report in August. [..]

In some cases, EU supporters of human rights have shown their teeth in debates with national governments. In 2004, the European Parliament forced the recall of the Italian government's proposed EU justice commissioner, Rocco Buttiglione, after he called homosexuality a "sin" and said that married women's proper role was to have babies and let their husbands "protect" them.

And last year, pressure from EU officials forced Latvia to reinstate the word "sexual orientation" in an EU-backed law banning discrimination in the workplace, after anti-gay ministers of parliament had erased it. [..]

But even the EU's two anti-discrimination directives have come in for criticism. One deals with discrimination on racial grounds, the second deals with discrimination in the workplace - leaving uncovered the question of non-racial discrimination outside the workplace. "There are gaps in the EU's own legislation... There has to be more political action to answer those gaps," said [Natacha] Kazatchkine, [EU expert at EU office of the human rights group Amnesty International].

And while the racial-equality directive has been adopted in practically all member states, the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) points out that some of those states cannot even provide information on whether or not specifically race-based crimes have been reported in their territory. "Not all specialized bodies disclose the grounds of discrimination for individual complaints, which makes it impossible to ascertain how many cases of ethnic discrimination were processed [..]."

"There is a taboo on member states criticizing each other, but human rights should be a collective responsibility. You can`t say you are a union of values and not lead by example," Kazatchkine added.

EU Boost to Greens in Bulgaria and Romania

BIRN Balkan Insight
18 09 2007

Gathering little public support, ignored and often under pressure, environmentalists in Bulgaria and Romania had very little opportunities for influencing their countries' decision-making before 2007. But EU membership changed everything, and did it overnight. The outcome of a bitter fight over the EU's nature preservation programme, Natura 2000, may emerge as the first proof of the new balance of forces.

Police clash with immigrants at shantytown

Expatica
19 October 2007

Police trying to evict a Moroccan family from a shantytown near Madrid clashed with residents, leaving 23 people injured, including 17 police officers.

"Some Moroccans had knives and one of them stole a gun from the police," said a police spokesman, but an immigrants association denounced the "police aggression".

Around 30,000 people live in the Canada Real Galiana shantytown, where comfortable homes exist amidst irregular dwellings.

Spain begins anti-migration ads

BBC News
20 September 2007

The Spanish government has begun airing emotional television adverts across West Africa as part of its attempts to combat illegal immigration.

The $1.4m media campaign is to run for six weeks and has begun in Senegal.

The aim of the campaign is to discourage potential migrants from attempting the dangerous 12-day voyage by boat to the Canary Islands.

"My son left ... and we haven't heard from him in eight months," a distraught Senegalese woman says in one advert.

It then cuts to a boy lying face down on the rocks, apparently drowned.

"You already know how this story ends," continues Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour.

"Thousands of destroyed families. Don't risk your life for nothing. You are the future of Africa."

In the past two years Spain has signed co-operation and repatriation agreements with Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia, Guinea, Mali and Ghana.

Repatriation, together with tougher policing, including European naval patrols, have led to a sharp fall in arrivals in the Canary Islands this year.

Between January and August 6,659 Africans landed in the Canaries, a 66% decrease from the same period last year.

But 2006 was a record year for the immigrant boats, fishing canoes known as cayucos.

Officials list 31,678 people reaching the Canaries, against 4,767 in 2005.

An estimated 6,000 died of drowning, thirst or starvation [..]. This month, 10 people drowned off Gran Canaria when a boat struck rocks close to shore. [..]

Spain's Socialist government has encouraged legal migration and foreigners now make up about a tenth of the overall population, but has ruled out any repetition of the 2005 amnesty which allowed some 600,000 illegals to stay.

Europe needs immigrants, report finds

Expatica
27 September 2007

Europe is losing its youngsters and rapidly aging, according to a report by the Institute for Family Policies. The share of the population aged below 14 has slumped from 22.1% to 16.2% in the 27 EU states between 1980 and 2005. It is immigration which is now sustaining growth "in almost all European countries."

EU 'Blue Card' to target skilled
BBC News
23 October 2007

The European Commission has unveiled a Blue Card for skilled immigrants, based on the US Green Card. It says the EU needs 20m skilled workers over the next 20 years, and is short of expertise in engineering and ICT.

The scheme would need the approval of all 27 EU member states, but is very controversial; Austria condemned it as "a centralisation too far". Other critics fear it will only encourage a brain-drain from poorer nations.

Bosnian nightmare returns to haunt EU

Simon Tisdall
Tuesday November 13, 2007
The Guardian

With Kosovo's US-backed ethnic Albanian leadership edging doggedly towards a unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia next month, Belgrade has opened a dangerous new front in the struggle over the province's future. Twelve years after a war that cost 100,000 lives and displaced millions, the Bosnian nightmare is returning to haunt the chancelleries of Europe.

In case anyone missed the connection, Serbia's Russian-backed nationalist prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, spelled it out last week: "Preserving Kosovo and the Serb Republic [the north-eastern half of Bosnia-Herzegovina] are now the most important goals of our state and national policy." Recent developments in Kosovo and Bosnia posed "an open threat to the essential interests of the Serb people".

Disturbed by scary echoes of Slobodan Milosevic's "Greater Serbia" policy, western diplomats are scrambling to hold the line with Belgrade. But time is running out, with talks about a Kosovo settlement stalemated and a December 10 deadline for agreement fast approaching. Adding to the urgency, the mandate for the EU's peacekeeping force in Bosnia expires on November 21.

The Belgrade embassies of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and US have jointly protested at Serbian government statements attacking Miroslav Lajcak, the UN high representative in Bosnia, after he publicly fell out with Bosnian Serb leaders over proposed reforms. They also told Belgrade that its Kosovo-Bosnia linkage was unacceptable.

At the same time, the EU last week hastily swallowed concerns about Serbia's failure to apprehend Bosnian war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic and offered Belgrade an association agreement - the first step towards membership. Balkan commentators said the EU volte face was a blatant attempt to reconcile Serbia to the impending loss of Kosovo and stop the fallout destabilising Bosnia.

Haris Silajdzic, a Bosnian Muslim who serves as one of the country's three presidents, denounced EU machinations and warned that Belgrade was encouraging Bosnian Serb talk of a secession referendum and unification with Serbia. "Someone is fomenting that trouble," he said, suggesting that a Bosnian crisis, precipitating a full-blown regional crisis, might suit Mr Kostunica.

Belgrade was certainly quick to back Bosnia's prime minister, Nikola Spiric, an ethnic Serb, when he resigned last week after the reform row with Lajcak. Egged on by Serbia, his supporters also threatened to leave the government. Russia - a traditional ally of Serbia and opponent of Kosovan independence - warned in turn that the high representative was in danger of exceeding his powers.

The European commission's latest assessment of enlargement prospects, published last week, concluded that Bosnia's ethnic tensions, rival nationalisms, and Byzantine government structures had jeopardised its progress. As in Kosovo, recent reports also speak of the availability of large caches of arms and covert efforts on all sides to remobilise militias. "There is some nervousness, certainly," a senior European official said yesterday. "We cannot allow the Bosnia war to start again."

Yet immune to the consequences for Bosnia, the US, Britain and France appear bent on recognising Kosovan independence under a novel system of EU-supervised sovereignty, no matter what Kosovo's ethnic Serb minority, Serbia, Greece, Russia and the UN may say. Counting on the trio's support, Kosovo's prime minister, Agim Ceku, insists independence is inevitable by the year's end.

The European commission's Kosovo chapter makes particularly grim reading, raising serious questions about the province's viability. Corruption is endemic, institutions are weak, and minority rights are routinely infringed. The overall picture is hardly one of a nation state ready for self-rule.

Hans-Jochen Witthauer, commander of EU troops in Bosnia, put it bluntly. "The resolution of Kosovo's status creates problems that have an impact on the entire region," he said. "The entire western Balkans is still a fragile and unstable region. Ethnic tensions are powerful. The international community should pay special attention."

Xenophobia destroys EU's ultra-rightwing MEP group

Ian Traynor in Brussels
Thursday November 15, 2007
The Guardian

Europe's first international grouping of neo-fascists, extreme nationalists and ultra-rightwingers collapsed in disarray yesterday, with its members incapable of overcoming the nationalist hostilities pitting them against one another.

The Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty grouping of MEPs from Italy, France, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Britain in the European parliament fell apart in acrimony because of the disputes between Italy and Romania over immigration and crime.

This week Alessandra Mussolini, the Italian neo-fascist, MEP and granddaughter of the Italian dictator, declared that all Romanians were criminals, triggering outrage among MEPs from Romania's extreme Greater Romania party. Five quit the ITS caucus in protest, meaning that the transnational club failed to muster the 20 MEPs needed to qualify as a caucus in the European parliament and to benefit from funding and perks.

Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in January, with their batch of far-right MEPs making it possible to form the caucus.
Parliament burst into applause on the implosion of the extremist grouping, which was formed just 10 months ago.

"Members of this rightwing group have been fighting among themselves like ferrets in a sack. They can't even agree on the day of the week," said Gary Titley, a Labour MEP.

Ashley Mote, previously of the UK Independence party and currently serving a prison sentence for benefit fraud, was the sole British member of the caucus.

The caucus linked France's National Front with Italy's neo-fascists, a former disciple of Jörg Haider, the Austrian nationalist, and xenophobes from Romania and Bulgaria. But the grouping struggled to hold together, not least because of mutually antagonistic nationalisms.

Martin Schulz, the German leader of the socialists in the parliament, said: "The good news is that the 'international' of the ultra-nationalists no longer exists and cannot use the money of the European taxpayer to support its xenophobia and neo-fascism."

Kosovo: A Chapter Closes

BIRN Balkan Insight
26 11 2007

SUMMARY:

Serbian and Kosovan leaders are meeting one last time under the aegis of the international Troika of mediators. No results are expected. So what next?

Pressure could be put on the Kosovo Albanians to delay declaring independence until well into the New Year. That could facilitate the re-election of Boris Tadic as president of Serbia, over the Radical Party's Tomislav Nikolic. Tadic should then be in a strong position to finally assert influence in government - especially now that Prime Minister Kostunica's belief that Moscow could save Kosovo for Serbia has backfired spectacularly.

Until a few weeks ago, it appeared that the EU was going to be badly split over Kosovo. What appears to have happened is that the countries which were ambiguous or hostile to Kosovan independence were alarmed by the way Russia was using the issue to divide the EU, prompting them to line up behind the independence option in order to show their unity.

Final Kosovo talks end in failure

BBC News
28 November 2007

SUMMARY:

Serbs and Kosovo Albanians have failed to resolve the future status of Kosovo at a final round of internationally-brokered talks. The UN had set a 10 December deadline for a settlement.

Both sides say they will avoid a return to violence, but the US envoy to Kosovo has warned the "peace of the Balkans is very much at stake". The EU cautioned Kosovo's leaders against a unilateral declaration of independence.

We risk sleepwalking into another war in the Balkans

November 18, 2007
The Observer

UK party leaders are not talking about it, but within weeks we could be facing a desperately grave crisis in the Balkans.

At the heart of the crisis is a 10 December deadline on the future status of Kosovo. Meanwhile, the mandate for the EU's peacekeeping force in Bosnia expires this week.

Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox warns that 'we might be on the verge of the biggest crisis in the Balkans since the early Nineties', and the commander of the EU forces in Bosnia has warned about the need for Europe to be able to intervene militarily 'in the event of another outbreak of war'. Smoke alarms are shrieking, but most of Westminster is still asleep.

Croatia's parties race to form cabinet

2007-11-27
Southeast European Times

Prime Minister Sanader's Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and the rival Social Democratic Party (SDP) raced to line up enough support in parliament to form a cabinet. The HDZ appears set to win 66 seats, while the SDP received 56 seats but has secured the support of 68 lawmakers.

In other news, suspected war criminal Branimir Glavas was elected for the Croatian Democratic Alliance of Slavonia and Baranja. His party says the win gives him immunity from prosecution for the abduction, murder and torture of 12 Serbs in Osijek.