North Sea grid: A test case for European leadership

With the new power grid that nine European countries are planning to install in the North Sea, the EU can easily increase the share of renewable energy to 30% by 2020, Justin Wilkes, policy director of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), told Deutsche Welle. It can only be hoped that the EU will indeed raise its commitments and start to be a veritable leader in the development of stable renewable energy sources.

Unlike the Desertec projects in the MENA countries and in Southeast Asia, the project headed by the Commission can produce results within ten years. Its success or failure will be an important milestone for the other two projects. It will show whether the ambitious projects can work or not. The essential questions for success or failure in the North Sea are:

• will the participating countries fully cooperate, invest their resources and clear out legal obstacles? Or will fearful national politicians maintain a backdoor? (in which case everybody loses according to the prisoners' dilemma)
• will the participating enterprises and credit agencies make a long-term commitment that can endure setbacks?
• will citizens be prepared to give attention and donations to the project so that it can become a space for personal investment and personal identification?
• will the media continue to report about the issue, so that the climate change discussion can maintain the momentum it has at the moment?
  

If the European aspiration is to be the leader in renewable energy in the world, this project must not fail. Since Copenhagen, the international negotiations are even less of a common effort and even more of a national power game. The Chinese lion has woken and will claim a greater say in global politics. After the soft power approach has failed in Copenhagen, the EU can win back its influence through enormous, astonishing success in its own front yard. The North Sea grid will be a test case: Can European countries unite for the greater good, or will we have another lose-lose situation as in Copenhagen?


Cross-posted on Th!nk about it

Interacting with politicians? It's possible

Germany is just struggling with a question of German-Polish relations. It's about the appointment for a cultural foundation that works on remembering European reconciliation after the second World War. The Chancellor wants a Polish-hostile CDU politician to sit in the commission; our Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is against her appointment.

Inspired by a discussion on the news portal tagesschau.de and by Conor Slowey, I wrote an email to the minister, trying to give support. What was I thinking? Maybe my email is one of tens of thousands that arrive in these days. Maybe not. Maybe the foreign minister does not get a lot of popular feedback, apart from newspaper comments and articles. And these, as we all know, come from journalists in the high political echelons that are remote from the common people. So I thought a little popular feedback might be a good think. Never expected to get a reply. But today it came, certainly written by his deputy staff rather than himself.

Dear Mr Feldhof,

thank you for your email on 6 December 2009 and for the support that you expressed. I was very happy to receive it.

As the German Foreign Minister, I have to represent the interests of our country. One of them is to increase relations with our neighbors. To me personally, it is an important point to project the profound relation that Germany has with its western neighbors to Poland as well. ... I will continue to support this direction.

Again, thank you for your email and your support. Personally, all the best to you.

Guido Westerwelle

(my translation)

It doesn't sound like a standard answer they send to all their respondents, does it?

I believe that everybody with the courage to voice his opinion can reach someone in political life. We just have to start writing emails.

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.