The many faces of a news item

/ huh? /
OK, so Finnish Unions took a Finnish ferry company, Viking, to court because it replaced the crew on one of its ships with Estonian workers and relocated to Estonia to achieve this. The court ruled. The essence of the court's decision however is a highly subjective matter, at least if one judges by the title of the relevant stories in various international publications. A brief selection:

- BBC: Blow for unions in EU labour row

- The Guardian: EU court backs unions on business relocating in EU

- EUBusiness: EU court defends right for firms to move abroad to save costs

- EUObserver: Unions may take action over cheap labour, EU court says

- Jurist: European Court of Justice limits right of labor unions to strike

- EurActiv: EU court upholds right to strike but sets limits

- Maritime Global Net: International Transport Workers Federation WELCOMES VIKING JUDGEMENT

So what's up? Who won? I must suspend judgment on this, although I hope the ITF wouldn't be welcoming the judgment if it really was a "blow" for unions. People just try to understand what's happening, the media's point however is to spin it.

Rushing Kosovo

history repeating itself

So let me get this straight: In 1991 the EU hastily recognized Croatia and Slovenia, in a move that, rather undoubtedly, contributed (and I'm putting this rather mildly) to igniting the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Yesterday, Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband, advocating immediate EU recognition of Kosovo's independence said that:

...European nations must decide whether they want to "take a lead" on Kosovo and prevent a return to the bloodshed of the 1990s, when Yugoslavia broke up in a series of wars.

... neglecting to mention that, in fact, the EU's "lead" in the 1990s, helped the create the "series of wars" he refers to, in a process precisely described by NPR's Sylvia Poggioli, in a lecture back in 1995.

In fact Jonathan Steele writing in the Guardian a year ago, bizarrely acknowledged a need for haste, while suggesting that:

...As current president of the EU, Germany has a chance to show leadership on a major European issue. Many Europeans charge Germany with helping to precipitate the Balkan wars of the 1990s by hasty recognition of Croatia. It would be ironic if Germany over-compensates now by delaying the recognition of Kosovo, and thereby precipitating Balkan violence again.

Thus, drawing historical lessons is a form of over-compensation. The fact that hasty recognitions, in the name of "stopping the conflict" or "not precipitating violence", in the past led to all-out civil war in the same damn region, somehow is deemed as irrelevant and in fact it is claimed that a delay (that would include say some sort of UNSC deal, or even - God forbid - some sort of mutually tolerable solution) would prevent violence. As long as no-strings-attached independence id guarantied, the Kosovar Albanians don't have anything to negotiate about, no reason to make the slightest concession. The talks were theater, with deadlock as their foregone ending.

Nowhere is there even the slightest mention of the domino effect that might ensue and the precedent that this unilateral recognition will establish. The fact that Cyprus steadfastly rejects a EU recognition of Kosovo, is exactly because this would set a legitimizing precedent that might open a future recognition of the "Republic of Northern Cyprus" and half the world in fact. It will bolster bellicose separatism in Europe and certainly the Balkans, creating instability in the region that bodes ill for its future. The wheels that might be set in motion by such a recognition of Kosovo as an independent state, don't have to start immediately, nor are they inescapable. But they will be moving, and they might roll out of control in the event of any serious crisis in the Balkans, Caucasus and beyond. Awkward prevarications such as "In every case, it must be made clear that the case of Kosovo is legally unique and must not create a precedent which will have repercussions in the respect of the borders", are to be used as alibis in the event of an avalanche of resurgent secessionism, in the wake of widespread recognition of Kosovo as an independent state. Note that the affected areas will be as distant to Mr. Miliband as Bosnia was to Mr. Genscher.

I still insist on my Regional Conference idea.

Secession: beyond economics

/ is breaking up so hard to do? /
I was following, a month ago, the whole brouhaha surrounding the Belgian government crisis. Possibly the best summary of what was and is at stake in Belgium was written by Ingrid Robeyns, at Crooked Timber, a post that offers coprehensively both background and analysis of the current crisis' main events. Today, as the issue of Belgium's political impasse moved past record-breaking territory, into a major crisis, previous claims that the country quite probably is not heading towards a break-up, although quite possibly accurate, might seem less than 100% convincing. Everybody seems to agree that the financial imbalance between Flanders and Wallonia, which led to the Flemish having to subsidize the Walloons through their taxes, is a factor in the Belgian equation. It quite probably is, but the interesting thing here is that in the event of secession, both countries will remain partners within the EU, with some sort of transfers certainly flowing again from the State of Flanders to the State of (Rump) Belgium, through the Union's many funds and subsidies!

The question of independence and secession from a country, within the EU, is a novel twist to the "subnational" issue, that enhances the viability of the secessionist project and the vision of secession advocates, in many parts of Europe. To name but a few cases, this prospect has been part of the rhetoric of the Catalans, the Basques, the Scots, the Welsh, the "Padanians" and of course the Flemish. The EU offers a "safe haven" of sorts to various independence movements, a guarantee that "much will remain the same" even in the event of secession, especially regarding the economic viability of such a project. Thus, economic motives for secession can be reasonably seen as enhanced by the prospect of EU participation. Indeed, given the current ideological climate and raw economism, the concept of nation-building as an exercise in revenue maximizing state-branding, isn't beyond contemplation at all.

Economic motives for secession, or market-driven "ethnogenesis", seem very "contemporary". But is economics the driving factor (instead of a driving factor) in secessionist movements? Can states be built on economic considerations alone? Does the Flemish secession movement exist principally because of taxation issues?

I think not.

First of all it is far from obvious that the EU itself is comfortable with the idea of internally multiplying its member states. As the Economist has pointed out:

The EU is also unlikely to support moves leading to any disintegration of member states. Regional movements often point to the EU as a trans-national safeguard, allowing them more easily to dispense with their nation-state affiliation. But the EU may be more concerned about any process that upsets its own delicate institutional balance, to say nothing of making it harder to gain a consensus for a new EU constitution. Having put the brakes on further external enlargement, the EU will not welcome a form of internally-generated expansion.

In fact Prodi had warned explicitly (Scotland in that instance), as President of the EC that EU membership is not a given for any wannabe breakaway republics:

Three years ago... Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission, warned that if Scotland... breaks away from the United Kingdom, Edinburgh would have to reapply for membership of the European Union (EU). "A newly-independent region would, by the fact of its independence, become a third country with respect to the (European) Union and the treaties would not apply any more in its territory," Mr. Prodi said.

One might also add that the regionalisation of Europe (as intent for the time being and not as actual pervasive policy) and the role that regions seem to be playing in EU development strategy, can act as a counterweight to separatism, as they deliver plenty of self-government to local entities, circumventing (up to a point) the hold of the national government. The prospect of a purely regional Europe however is a non-starter, among other reasons because of scaling problems. I quote from a highly relevant interview with Nicolas Levrat, the director of the Institute of European Studies at the University of Geneva, questioned by eurotopics:

Q: Could you imagine a European Union made up of regions and not of nation states?

NL: A Europe of the Regions wouldn't work. We see that the Committee of the Regions is quite inefficient. We are talking about 200 or 300 entities trying to make decisions. Imagine the procedures necessary to reach a qualifying majority in a decision making body with 300 members! It's not like your average parliament, it would be much more difficult as is already the case in the present European council with 27 members.

Then there is the issue that, apart from problematic parts of the world such as Africa and the (Western) Balkans, there is little that suggests that independence or autonomy movements are directly tied to solely economic considerations - see for example the paper by Elliot D. Green On the Endogeneity of Ethnic Secessionist Groups, which presents the theoretical context of the debate and evidence that shows that the relation between economic opportunity and secessionist power is not linear at all.

Ethnogenesis is a complex process and certainly not one that can be reduced to a purely economic cost-benefit analysis. If this is the case for well established secessionist movements, it is even more so for ad hoc potential entities constructed on economic considerations alone. In fact the only case of a country built on principally economic considerations in Europe that I can think of is Montenegro. Whether that was a wise move, is another discussion, as it isn't at all that obvious that Montenegro is more independent now (under any meaningful definition of the term "independent") than it was when it was federated with Serbia. Anyway, the post-Yugoslav Balkans, home of the smuggler-state, doesn't lend itself towider generalizations.

Note also that were regional economic inequalities a driving force for "nation building" alone (either through the logic of "liberation" from paying for the "backwards" regions, or through the aspiration of a better economic future for disadvantaged regions), the phenomenon would be vastly more widespread than it is now. The economic gaps that exist in almost countries between certain regions are often quite larger than the corresponding gaps between secessionist regions and other regions within the same country, yet not all regional income gaps lead to demands for autonomy or secession. Thus Nicholas Levrat's assertion (in the abovementioned interview) that "Contrary to what is commonly said - that the rise of regionalism is linked to the funding structure and federal EU policy - the facts suggest that it is not the regions that are heavily subsidized by the EU that are pushing for independence but rather the rich regions", is a generalization that is not even statistically valid: Not all, not even most, but just a handful of "rich regions" are pushing for independence. The ones that do are riding on and succeed because of a preexisting national identity.

Thus, the sort of mechanistic reductionism that sees national or regional aspirations of independence as a result of solely, or even principally, economic forces and motives, isn't convincing. The EU separatist movements in fact are, if anything less prevalent today than they were in the past, because political issues such as minority rights, language issues and local government are guaranteed inside the EU. There is a political primacy here that cannot be generated at whim, and is dependent on factors such as local history and past grievances. Countries are not corporations. They presuppose (and impose) a vastly deeper loyalty than any brand-name ever could. History cannot be fast forwarded nor reduced simply to the pursuit of profit.

Hot on eBay: Titan Missile Base Central Washington

/ Bargains : Cold War Missile Base /

For only $1,5 million bucks (that's about 1,25 million Euros) you too can own a Titan Missile Base!

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16 UNDERGROUND buildings including

3 - 160' Tall Missile Silo

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Check out the Silo's site and learn more about Cold War Missile Bases at SiloWorld!

According to the Strategy Page:

Hundreds of ICBM silos have been sold off in the last twenty years, as new missile forces were reduced with the end of the Cold War, and the enactment of arms reduction treaties.

The site warns however that

...No one has found an economically useful function for demilitarized missile silos, but the allure is still there, and people still buy them...

... which is not completely accurate as, apparently, there is the option of turning them into homes, a prospect not without certain difficulties, since:

...The interior receives little or no natural light (unless, for example, you replace the gigantic hatches and doors with skylights). Your cell phone and radio probably won’t work inside. And you’ll have to spend an enormous amount of money to make the silo habitable if someone else hasn’t already done so. (One major complication: some of the silos filled with water over the years, becoming in effect giant wells.)

Via Monochrom

The draft reform treaty for the EU, in plain English

/ daft or draft /
Given that the new EU draft reform treaty was deliberately made unreadable, in order to avoid the nuisance of public acceptance through national referenda, and some hold that it is 96% the same as the European Constitution document that was rejected by French and Dutch voters a couple of years ago (although the BBC insists that there are some important differences), there is a rather pressing need to figure out what the damn thing says.

To this end, the kind folks over at Statewatch, a European State and Civil Liberties watchdog group, were kind enough to wade through the mire of existing treaties and present us with an analysis of the draft treaty which, while not exactly constituting easy reading by any means, makes it possible to see what the changes are about. As they put it:

...the text of the Reform Treaty is completely unintelligible unless it is read alongside the existing Treaties. Furthermore, the full impact of many of the amendments to the Treaties set out in the draft Reform Treaty needs further explanation. Finally, there has been much public discussion of whether or not the draft Reform Treaty is essentially identical to the EU's Constitutional Treaty of 2004.

In order to further public understanding of and debate upon the draft Reform Treaty, the following Statewatch analyses make the text of the draft Treaty comprehensible, by setting out the entire texts of the existing TEU and TEC and showing precisely how those texts would be amended by the draft Treaty. There are explanatory notes on the impact of each substantive amendment to the Treaties, and each analysis includes general comments, giving an overview of the changes and pointing out exactly which provisions of the draft Reform Treaty were taken from the Constitutional Treaty, and which provisions are different from the Constitutional Treaty.

There are 3 analyses, divided into ten parts.

Se also an ongoing series of articles on the proposed treaty by Francis Wurtz (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), who is President of the Group of the United European Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) in the European Parliament and a member of the French Communist Party. Further installments of Wurtz's analysis will appear (I assume) on Spectrezine, the Dutch Socialist Party's online magazine.

Stuff I've been writing

/ hiatus interrupted /
Have been both busy and away, and when I wasn't I was busy writing diaries over at the European Tribune, the latest of which is about today's elections in Greece and the penultimate about last month's deadly and unprecedented forest fires.

Hopefully I'll be returning to some sort of normal schedule after the elections and will post more frequently.

Quantum Cheney

/ quantum politics /

I couldn't resist posting this, as it is a great example of a correct (ok it should have been executive/legislative duality, but lets not nitpick...) use of quantum metaphor in the service of political humor, and funny to boot. Go read the whole thing. Up next: quantum Cheney tunneling, in which Cheney escapes from a steep potential well of impeachable felonies in a mysterious yet scientifically explainable way.

Greek wiretaping scandal redux

/ bugging people /
IEEE Spectrum has an excellent article, written by two Greek Computer Scientists (V. Prevelakis and D. Spinellis) about last year's wiretapping scandal, a scandal about which I reported here and in the European Tribune at the time (1, 2, 3, 4, see also the relevant Wikipedia article, and former US diplomat's Brady Kiesling summary of the affair)

The article provides an astonishingly detailed investigation on the technical aspects of the wiretap, and explains the highly sophisticated methods used. This highlights the fact that the operation was surely the work of highly skilled professionals, with intimate knowledge of Vodafone's and Ericsson's systems (Prevelakis and Spinellis mention in a sidebar the various scenarios circulating). It's also a great introduction to various technical aspects of mobile telephony BTW.

I note that, while the official investigation did not uncover the culprits of the physical attack, it did fine Vodafone (for misdeeds and omissions mentioned in the IEEE Spectrum article) a quite substantial sum of 76 million Euros. Worth noting is that Vodafone, as the scandal was still under investigation, promoted Vodafone-Greece's CEO to regional director.

[Crossposted in the European Tribune]

The men in black: the police contingent

/ agents / provocateurs /
Victor Grossman, writing about the protests during the recent G-8 summit, reconfirms that certain police tactics are world-wide standard procedure against demonstrators (as we had the chance to observe in the recent student unrest here in Greece):

"But something was funny about four members of the black-clad contingent. One of them, possibly the leader of the little group, wore a jacket with the red logo of a music group called 'Slip-Knot,' popular with globalization opponents. This was unusual, since the others avoided any details which would make them easily identifiable on police videos. And then, as the line of cops took up position nearby, ready to end the blockade, it was these four who started picking up stones from between the railroad tracks and lobbing them over towards the police and shouting, 'Get the bulls'! Then one of the other protesters took a good look at the young man with the logo before he had a chance to pull up his bandana mask.

'That's the same fellow who arrested me during a demonstration in Bremen last year!' he cried, and he and his friends made a grab for the four. Two of the four made it to police lines, one disappeared, but they caught the one with the red logo, presumably the leader. They did not treat him exactly gently, it must be admitted, but one of the group organizers took hold of the man, sheltering him from the crowd, and dragged him over and delivered him to the police line -- and safety."

This is the same type of actions that were reported in Genoa (2001):

A moderator of the Black Bloc meetings held in Genoa declarated "All the independent property I saw destroyed was done by police provocateurs and the police were being as confrontational as possible". (US3). Nevertheless, he sums up - among other actions - one which was evidently made by agents under cover (reported below): his group had come later on and unknowingly joined the provocateurs in their action. This supports the thesis that it is difficult - even for Black Bloc members - assess what was done by infiltrated agents...
... While the Black Bloc was involved in the attempt of defending Piazza Rossetti (where the peasants had their stands) and avoid the breaking of the rally (which eventually happened) I personally saw a group of "pseudo-Black Blocs" getting to Piazza Kennedy closely followed by a crew of video-operator. This is not in their style: the Black Bloc does not want to be object of cameras attention during their actions. The pseudo-Black Bloc pretended to destroy bank windows which had already been destroyed the day before.

Besides producing nice pictures of vandalic acts to be stigmatized on the press, the pseudo-Black Blocs were locating themselves in a strategic position: inbetween the advancing police and the rally. For, they were diverting the demonstrators' attention from the real danger. In fact, the police was coming up with the clear intention of attacking the rally, breaking the river of people in two parts - despite the attempt of resistance opposed by few groups, including true Black Blocs...

...In Miami (2003):

Police infiltraitors in Miami were photographed behind police lines during the Miami FTAA protests. There were also reports that some protesters were kidnapped off the streets, and that provocateurs dressed as Black Bloc participants and other demonstrators (with buttons , banners, ect.) used tasers on real demonstrators, and were seen trying to start fights...

... In Prague (2000):

The Citizens' Legal Patrol, or OPH, which had been monitoring and documenting legal rights' violations during the demonstrations surrounding the meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Prague, has revealed materials allegedly pointing to the presence of police provocateurs among protestors. At a press conference on Wednesday, the group presented videos, eye-witness accounts and other materials documenting the violent activities of people who were later allegedly able to easily pass through police blockades upon showing identification. According to the group's spokesman, Marek Vesely, OPH is gathering evidence of such activities and will present it to the Interior Ministry for investigation.

... In Barcelona (2001):

"Reporters saw a group of men and women in masks gathered on the fringes of the demonstration in the park. Some wore earphones, and though carrying sticks they were able to walk freely past police, pull on their masks and position themselves between police and protesters.

"One man in the group grabbed another and pulled him to the ground, and other members of the group began kicking and slugging each other.

"When demonstrators saw what was going on and joined the fight, the police charged into the park. The masked men and women involved in the scuffle walked through the police line and boarded vans.

"A reporter asked one of them if they were police. He at first said yes, and then said no, before walking by police to the vans."

... In Oaxaca (2006):

Demonstrators have appeared on the radio to denounce the presence of “provocateurs” who say have been launching rockets and rocks at police, and trying to burn police buses.

...In Gothenburg (2001):

During actions of the weekend, police continuously escalated violence by attacking demonstrators with dogs and horses unprovoked. Some non-uniformed police provocateurs destroyed private property in order to discredit demonstrators. In Saturday 16th of June a group of masked police armed with submachineguns invaded another school in which people were staying, claiming to search "arms and terrorists" which they never found. Some demonstrators did involved themselves in fighting with police, but vast majority of the demonstrators were calm even when police behavior
was endangering their lives.

... In Gleneagles (2005):

Back on the coach, I found that the nice Scottish woman I had sat next to on the way up to Gleneagles had since turned into a Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown. I told her of something I had witnessed: a group of three people dressed like activists who were huddled round a CB communicating about positions in the field - almost definately police agent provocateurs. In turn she said that a cabbie had told her of having nervously picked up a group of 'scruffies', only to find that all of them had police badges. Given that the police will go to these lengths, protesters will have to show a lot more ingenuity than they have this week if they are to seriously disrupt summits in future.

And pretty much anywhere there is any sort of massive demonstration - a practice that isn't exactly new.

Darfur, an analysis

/ deeper understanding /
As the Sudanese government has finally accepted a UN presence in Darfur, I'd like to bring to your attention this rather detailed analysis of the situation in Darfur by the (small but still a target in Sudan) Communist Party of the Sudan, which is refreshingly free of the pseudo-marxist rhetoric that plagues not a few of the Communist Parties of the world, and seems to make valid and informative points and proposals in general. It also offers quite a bit of context and background regarding the history and the recent developements in the area.

My knowledge of the situation in Darfur is whatever I get from the world media, which isn't saying much, but the analysis offered by the CPS, seems quite a bit more detailed and subtle than your average media commentary.

Excerpt:

The continuous marginalization of Darfur since independence, and the letdown by the traditional political forces who failed to fulfill the demands of the people of Darfur, in addition to the policies of the Islamic Front government which are marked with violence and suppression: all these factor encouraged the youth of the tribes in the region to organize themselves and rebel against the status quo through the waging of armed resistance to achieve the rights of the Darfurian people to an equitable sharing of power and wealth, within the frame of a united Sudan.

On the other hand, the policy of the partial approach to the problems of the Sudan which was imposed on the country by the international community through concentrating on the civil war in Southern Sudan and recognizing as the only negotiators the armed group SPLA and the Khartoum government encouraged other regions to wage rebellion since it was seen as the only way to attract attention to their demands. Thus the region of Darfur witnesses a true civil war that raises the slogans of genuine political, social and economical equality and justice.

For another look at the developments in Sudan regarding Darfur, see also this recent Al Ahram Weekly aricle.