Due respects to Herman van Rompuy

The new President of the European Council is changing the tone. For the first time, only the heads of state and government were allowed at the table of the European Council. Foreign ministers were banned from the room, as were all political advisors. What used to be a big circle of delegations sitting opposite each other now became a very cosy setting. The heads of state didn't need their TV screens any more to see their counterparts as all 27 convened at the same table in the middle of the room, writes Le Monde. It probably goes too far to say that Herman van Rompuy assembled his "cabinet" for the first time, but the new Council President has definitely made an impression on the country leaders.

His first tones are absolutely pro-European. Van Rompuy sees himself as a federalist, not shy of using the "f-word". In his speech at the dinner on Thursday, he clarified that he sees the European Council as a working institution, not a talking institution. "We have to focus on taking political decisions rather than our traditional conclusions", he said (my translation).

Next Tuesday, van Rompuy will fly to Spain to talk to Zapatero about the Spanish Council presidency - and to make it clear that he is in charge now, according to Le Monde.

My dear hope is that Van Rompuy will continue on this way and disprove his critics. Many thought he was too diplomatic and would not take position. Now, he will be judged by his achievements. Let us hope for the best!

French blogosphere organizing a No Sarkozy Day on March 20th 2010

The French press hasn't picked it up yet, the Italians were quicker. This article was in La Repubblica yesterday. After the success of No Berlusconi Day in Italy, organized through Facebook, French bloggers are up to do the same.
Their actions were less successful when they tried to mobilize people against the candidacy of Sarkozy's son Jean for the principal administrator of business district "La Défense". Yet, after public outrage was voiced through the media over weeks, Jean Sarkozy decided to drop his candidacy.

All the best to the French bloggers in organizing the protests! As the country with the biggest demonstration culture in Europe, France should be able to pull off a decent protest on March 20th.

Football and politics - an analogy?

I don't often go to watch football games, but today I did. Inter Milan - Rubin Kazan. Champions League. Interesting game. Inter won 2:0.

What I found just as interesting as the victory was the observations I made about the fans. The fans were the perfect barometer to show when the game was going well and when it was not going well. A Milan player lies on the ground, tries to defend the ball against two attackers, manages and plays it further. Applause, standing ovations. Another player has the ball, shortly before the penalty box, he could shoot it!! but he misses - a Kazan player takes the ball. Resounding whistles in the entire stadium.

Within a split second, the fans see the situation, understand it and react upon it. They become active and state their opinion. Why does this not happen in politics? You see that a minister screws up (my favorite at the moment is German education minister Annette Schavan, refusing to understand why German students would protest against the run-down university system), and within minutes of the press conference, thousands of protest emails block her mailbox, thousands of comments are posted on her homepage. It's not reality, is it? Instead, people leave it to the media to give opinions and directions.

But why leave it to the media? I'm not waiting for the media report to judge if the Inter guy really got fouled or not. I curse the referee if he doesn't call it. Instantaneously. And I'm pretty sure it really was a foul - if that gives my team a nice free kick.
If it is possible to form a wave of protest for a penalty or a free kick that wasn't given, why is it not possible for a more equal society? For fair immigration procedures without discrimination? For better pay of interns?

Sometimes football is described as politics on the grass. But maybe it's farther away from politics than it would seem...

Flip HD Camera and citizen journalism

For the Th!nk2 about it-competition on climate change, the European Journalism Center (EJC) gave every blogger a Flip Mino HD Camera to support the blogging. It's as big as a normal cell phone and produces videos of outstanding quality. The camera is especially good for interviews and picks up sound very well in a range of one meter, even if the environment is noisy. I recently used it on a trip to Trento (sorry Joe); have a look here to see the quality. Current market price for an HD cam (you want HD, not the regular one) is about 190 EUR in Europe, $160 in the US.

This camera offers new opportunities for euroblogging as well. Raymond Frenken of EUX TV has been using it for short reports in the car or from a train station. Furthermore, we've been at the election night in the European Parliament with a small webTV-team from Maastricht (even though we used a bigger camera then) and found a lot of interesting people to talk to. These people would normally never be heard. But through short interviews with the Flip Cam, the world of the grey suits in the EP or the Commission can be illuminated.

Some NGOs like the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) already use videos to enhance their communication. Some MEPs also use videos. The same is possible for a witty blogger attending a panel discussion in Brussels.

And if the quality of the video is decent and the message is interesting, the MSM might even take interest in your footage!


Update: My excuses for providing a wrong link to the "tricky situations"-video. The correct link has now been put in.

Franco-German friendship: Symbols are not enough

Three months ago I was ringing the alarm bells for the Franco-German friendship by enumerating the problems between the two countries:

• the difference between French deficit spending and German frugality,
  
• the different security politics within NATO,
  
• and the ministerial shift of pro-German agriculture minister Bruno LeMaire.

I might add another example for controversy with the German solar power plans in northern Africa, rivalling with French nuclear power plans in Morocco. And what about division between Merkel and Sarkozy about the future President of the European Council?

But given the new German government and its expansionary fiscal policy, Sarkozy fell in love with Germany again. Now France and Germany are demonstrating symbolic unity: The chancellor flew to France first thing after she was sworn in. Sarkozy will be in Germany to celebrate the 20th annivesairy of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 11, followed by Merkel travelling to France, commemorating the end of the First World War.

For Sarkozy the honeymoon could well go a little bit farther than that:

• German ministers joining French cabinet meetings and vice-versa.
  
• A French minister for Germany and a German minister for France.

The SPIEGEL 45/2009 writes that this goes too far for Merkel's new government. French love for symbolism meets German love for pragmatic and output-oriented organization. In the chancellory, they don't think it would lead to any concrete results to have a French tourist with a political opinion at the cabinet table.

I like the message that would emanate from a French minister for Germany and vice-versa. But rather than on symbolism, the Franco-German friendship has to be based on concrete political results (as in the cooperation on the CAP). It has to be based on common positions in the international organizations and the EU. A German ministry for Europe, as argued by Deutsche Bank Research, could coordinate the positions of the German ministries in the Council and create more coherence between them. It could thereby coordinate policy with the French government which already has a ministry for European affairs.

In addition, the Franco-German partnership should support a strong diplomatic service of the European Union. If the European motor states don't back a common European position vis-à-vis China, India and the United States, Europe will become marginalized on the international scene. Recent actions by the US government show this very clearly.

But more important than political cooperation between France and Germany, there has to be a continued exchange between the citizens of our two countries via sister cities, study exchanges, language courses, scholarships and internship opportunities. The Franco-German friendship can only last if the citizens do not lose the interest in one another.

Deutsche Welle Radio quit Euranet consortium

In 2007, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and the French counterpart Radio France International launched "Euranet", a consortium of European radio stations. The cooperation gives national radio stations access to valuable information about other countries and makes joint radio productions about European topics possible.
I was shocked to learn that Deutsche Welle quit the consortium only two years after it came into existence. I love to listen to the German language podcast "Treffpunkt Europa", a weekly 25-minute radio show about European cultural life. Now it's cancelled, without any explation in the podcast or on the Deutsche Welle website.

In a document of the German Bundestag (the radio is publicly funded), I learned that Deutsche Welle quit the radio network on 30 June 2009 because Euranet had turned into the legal form of a European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG), which can directly accept commissions by the European Commission. In other words, the network has moved from an independent news provider to a client of the European Commission. On the Euranet website, I only find a short article commenting on the decision (in Spanish, all others seem to have been removed from the cache), which doesn't really explain anything. Apparently, the EEIG was established in the so-called "Warsaw Declaration on Pan-European Cooperation and Communication", but a short notice on a Polish radio station website is all I can find about it.

I saw that Thierry Vissol, advisor of the DG Communication in multimedia communication, had also been present at the meeting, but I couldn't find any information about the meeting neither in Commission documents, nor in enquiries of the European Parliament Education and Culture Committee (of which I doubt whether it has any rights whatsoever to enquire actions of Euranet as a non-EU body).

So in the end, the degree to which the Commission may influence Euranet productions remains vague. We should probably be more cautious in using Euranet now. I'll rely more on EUX.TV; there I'm absolutely positive that it's an independent news provider and that it will remain like this for a while.

A German commissioner Peer Steinbrück would be a wise decision

After the German elections are over, the question is on the table who will be the German commissioner for the next Commission. The names put forward in the press have not been very convincing. They include

• neo-liberal finance expert Friedrich Merz (CDU, without support in his own party),
• MEP Elmar Brok (CDU, little known to the public),
• MEP Martin Schulz (SPD, unlikely after losing the European Elections),
• interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble (with no interest to go to Brussels)
• economic sherpa Peter Hinze (CDU, little known to the public).

All of these candidates would not find a lot of support by the public and cause a further distance of the citizens towards the European institutions. And I doubt whether they could negotiate with a Baroness Ashton on the same level.

The idea to nominate former finance minister Peer Steinbrück (SPD), put forward by MEP Jo Leinen (SPD), is a good option for both political competence and public acceptancy. Steinbrück has been on of the central figures in the financial crisis and earned respect of politicians all over Europe for his far-sighted positions. In Germany itself, Steinbrück was probably the SPD minister closest to Angela Merkel. The finance expert would be one of the first to hope for a nomination by the chancellor. And he is not only respected in politics but also viewed as an honest broker by the German public. Steinbrück speaks out what he thinks and I perceive him to care about future generations as much as for current unemployment figures.

The Commission post would fit Steinbrück's CV pretty well. He was economy and finance minister in several German states, then became minister president for the state of North-Rhine Westfalia in 2002. When his state government was voted out of office in 2005, Steinbrück didn't have to wait long to get his next job. The national elections in the same year brought him to the post of finance minister in Germany. Becoming European commissioner now seems like the next possible step in a steep political career.

The question remains, what portfolio Steinbrück would get. A major industrial country, Germany is pressing for the portfolios industry, economics and finance, monetary affairs or trade. But I could also imagine him being the head of the common market portfolio and of competition policy - it fits very well given his watchdog role as a finance minister in Germany.