Blogoir

The Daily Telegraph reports that the new EU Ambassador In Washington Joao Vale de Almeida is bent on elbowing out of the way such diplomatic minnows as HM Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald:

Mr Vale de Almeida has stressed to Washington officials and politicians that under the EU's' Lisbon Treaty, he has more power than his predecessors. "I'm the first new type of ambassador for the European Union anywhere in the world," he said. "I'm supposed to have a wider mandate than my predecessors."

Mr Vale de Almeida said: "Our delegations now cover a wide spectrum of issues well beyond the economic dimension, trade dimension and regulatory dimension, to cover all policies in the union, including foreign policy and security policy...

In a comment that has come to symbolise the American view of the EU, Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state, is once said to asked: "When I want to talk to Europe, who do I call?"

In a response to that question, Mr Vale de Almeida declared: "In this area code, you call me." The ambassador insisted that he did not wish to "impose myself" on member states' ambassadors, who will continue to oversee "bilateral matters." But he declared: "Where we have a common position, I am the one leading the show."

Where to start?

Let's start here, with Mr Vale de Almeida's appointment to this top job. A controversial choice.

His mainstream diplomatic and sharp-end overseas credentials? Nil, other than an important job running Commission Chairman Barroso's office in Brussels, reached via the giddy heights of the EU's policies on something called Youth:

Youth, Society, Communication. Particular responsibility for Youth policies and programmes, including White Paper on future of Youth Policy in Europe and Open Method of Coordination on Youth

So when Hillary Clinton picks up the telephone at 0300 hours to ask the new EU Ambassador about a sudden crisis, she is not likely to get an informed and operationally nimble response (unless of course the issue involves Coordinating EU Youth, in which case she has hit the jackpot).

Surely there's more to it than this? As Mr Vale de Almeida himself says, where the EU has a Common Position he leads the show.

But therefore what exactly?

Common Positions tend to be limp, unreadable texts drawn up from lowest common denominator drafting exercises expressing such agreement as might be manageable as between 27 countries.

See eg this one on Cuba which has floated listlessly, dead in the water since 1996(!). The point being that there is no consensus to say anything simple and reasonable such as "The EU calls on the Cuban leadership to hold free and fair elections".

On perhaps the one basic issue where the USA might expect the EU to take a robust and united view, namely which countries in Europe exist, there is no Common Position: various EU member states do not recognise Kosovo.

In other words, if there is a Common Position it probably means that the subject is operationally unimportant or at least politically routine, even if various and not unworthy EU spending activities will flow therefrom.

Moreover, the EU Ambassador in Washington has a tough job in maintaining even that Position. He dare not stray far if at all from it, lest he annoy one or other member state who approved that Position and only that Position.

This means that if Hillary asks him what direction EU policy is likely to take if (say) things get worse in N Korea, he'll have no mandate to have a sensible conversation with her. Because the direction of said EU policy - if there is to be one going beyond mere declaratory noises - will be shaped mainly by the EU Bigs (London, Berlin, Paris and so on) ,as always. As he will have to tell her if she rudely asks.

In other words, the EU has indeed given Washington a single telephone number to call.

But all Washinghton really gets is a telephone answering service with a complicated digitalised menu leading to monotonous readings of assorted Common Positions which the USA already has in its files.

For a sensible conversation looking at a wide range of options including top-level handling of the N Korea portfolio at the UN in New York, here's the place they need to call.

On this site I have warned readers about the pernicious impact of the EU's several attempts to limit working hours by law, especially in the UK National Health Service.

See eg here.

And here.

My best friend happens to be an NHS consultant. He has warned me for years about the way the Working Time Directive has scaled back training hours for doctors, which must lead to more blunders in treating patients when the doctors are finally working alone.

Plus he made a not so obvious point about 'information decay'. The more shifts you introduce into hospital work as caused by the WTD, the information about patients has to be passed from doctor to doctor more often and so tends to decline. Decisions become less smart. 

Not to forget the fact that a new trend must emerge, namely slowing down one's effort as a shift draws to an end and leaving any tricky issue to the next doctor.

All of which is duly happening:

Consultants who took part in the study were most damning about the impact of the changes on their trainees.

Among responses from more than 500 senior surgeons taking part were repeated warnings that the rules were creating a generation of "clock-watchers" with a "lazy work ethic" who no longer felt personal responsibility for their patients.

Trainees were now spending so little time in operating theatres that they would lack the "cutting skills" required to perform safely when they became consultants, many warned.

College president John Black urged the Government to take urgent action to address the concerns, having pledged in its Coalition agreement that it would work to limit the application of the EU rules in the UK.

He described the situation facing the NHS as "acutely urgent".

Mr Black said: "Without action we are going to see a generation of specialists with less experience than any that have gone before."

As previously noted, the vile Precautionary Principle is used to stop all sorts of actions by citizens on a 'just in case' basis. But when it comes to official policies which are obviously likely to lead to people dying at the hands of the state, it is nowhere to be seen.

Madness:

The heart surgeon, 48, said that by the time she became a consultant, nine years ago, she had undertaken 900 cardiac operations. The current generation were likely to become senior doctors after performing less than 300, she said.

A London court has rejected Serbia's application to get former Bosnian/Bosniac leader Ejup Ganic extradited to Belgrade to face charges on the infamous Dobrovoljacka Street killings in Sarajevo in 1992.

The word 'rejected' perhaps does not do justice to District Judge Timothy Workman's demolition of Serbia's case. Perhaps 'blew to smithereens beyond all recognition' would be more accurate.

The judge probed behind the Serbian application, exploring not so much the substantive merits of the case itself but rather the implicit and explicit motivations of the plaintiffs. He examined the fact that other substantive and credible war crimes processes (ICTY and in Bosnia) had found no case for proceeding against Dr Ganic:

On the first day of this extended hearing I was satisfied that there was prima facie evidence of an abuse of process and as a result of that ruling evidence has now been adduced in relation to that issue.

No evidence having been adduced to show a striking or substantial change in the evidence available to the ICTY or to Mr Alcock, I have concluded that there is no valid justification for commencing proceedings against Dr Ganic.

But much worse, from Belgrade's point of view, was this: 

I am satisfied from the evidence of Mr Arnaut that during the course of these extradition proceedings attempts were made to use the proceedings as a lever to try to secure the Bosnian Government’s approval for the Srebrenica Declaration.

If indeed the Government [of Serbia] was prepared not to pursue these extradition proceedings in return for Bosnia co-operation, that in itself must be capable of amounting to an abuse of the process of this court. Some corroboration of Mr Arnaut’s evidence could be found in the unusual circumstances in which an application to vary conditions of bail was made to this court to enable Dr Ganic to return to Bosnia.

It would appear that that application was founded upon attempts at diplomatic agreements. I am also satisfied that the descriptions in the request [of the alleged grave breaches of Geneva Conventions] are as described significant misrepresentations.

The combination of the two leads me to believe that these proceedings are brought and are being used for political purposes and as such amount to an abuse of the process of this court.

The Serbia side says it will appeal against the ruling.

My assessment? See (if they use it) my piece for the Independent tomorrow.

But for now...

There is a maxim of Equity which says that equity must come to court with clean hands.

In this case Bosnian/Bosniac hands are far from spotless. The Bosniac leadership wail in rage at anything which suggests that they themselves and their predecessors may have made any unwise or immoral moves in the chain of events culminating in the violent collapse of Bosnia, or in their conduct of the ensuing conflict.

Instead they park on one big principle: that the Serbs (and indeed just Serbs) are Guilty.

Which means - as they see it - that an attempt by Belgrade to open episodes such as the Dobrovoljacka Street killings and cast some blame on senior or any Bosniacs must be at best ill-intentioned, and at worst downright evil.

(For about as reliable a view of what actually happened as we are ever likely to get, see this interview with Jovan Divjak, a senior Serbian JNA officer who bravely decided to fight on the Bosnia side of the conflict.)

Meanwhile the Serbs in Belgrade and Banja Luka try forlornly to salvage something from the wreckage of Milosevic's policies.

They (mainly) accept that Milosevic, Karadzic and the rest of that cast of weird second-raters pursued ruinous immoral policies, but they then froth up arguments that, bad as Belgrade's leaders were, others leaders were not really much better and even, perhaps, worse.

And this argument does have some merit. One of the very best things Robin Cook achieved as Foreign Minister was to act upon the proposition that Croatia's leader Franjo Tudjman was in much the same category as Slobodan Milosevic, ie a zany and pernicious national socialist cum fascist menace to European values. Cook stubbornly held the line against all sorts of EU pressures to 'show flexibility' towards Tudjman. Tudjman then helpfully died, isolated and unmourned by moderate opinion round the planet.

The Bosnian case is a harder one for Belgrade to prove. OK, Izetbegovic was a convinced if (by many standards) moderate Islamist, but he was defending a weak position.

Belgrade had all sorts of options to deal with the BH conundrum, but Milosevic chose to let rip Arkan and all sorts of vicious gangsters as a political tool. Far from using its weight and intellectual resources to show modern leadership, Belgrade went on a massive binge of greedy violent cynicism, seemingly relying at each stage on erratic improvizacija and Western lack of resolve.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that any London court is likely to have in mind the fact that sixteen years on Belgrade has still not arrested General Mladic and thereby confronted the horror of Srebrenica. And that, accordingly, Belgrade's claims to be able to deal fairly with war crimes trials may well be true, but somehow held hostage to deeper political manipulations.

Belgrade here looks to have made a blunder in trying to trade behind the scenes with Sarajevo: 'Ajde bre, we'll end the Ganic extradition application in London if you guys cut us some slack on the Srebrenica declaration going through our Assembly...

Whereas in normal Balkan bazaar terms this sort of thing makes perfect sense, a steely London court not unreasonably could conclude that the whole extradition application had nothing (much) to do with Justice and was more about shady political machinations.

Result?

Serbia has taken a severe tonking in a London court today, following a pretty miserable result at the ICJ last week. The Bosniacs will be exultant, feeling that this represents a historic day of vindication for their core 'narrative'.

All of which said, anyone watching the evasive interviews with Ganic and other leaders on the gripping Fall of Yugoslavia video series will feel that something dark and dishonourable did occur at Dobrovoljacka Street. Not much chance now of justice being done for the victims of that war crime, alas.

Bottom Line?

Belgrade under democratic and fair-minded leadership can make all sorts of important points about the collapse of Yugoslavia. Not all Belgrade's arguments were bad just because Milosevic made them.

But until Belgrade bites the bullet and arrests Mladic, those arguments look contrived and morally hollow.

Washing those dirty hands is much better than pointing with them at the grime on others' dark fingers.

Toy Story 3 is just superb. Go and see it.

One highlight is Barbie abruptly hollering out one of the greatest ideas of Thomas Jefferson:

Authority should derive from the consent of the governed; not from the threat of force

Hurrah!

Yet ... what if those governing start off that way, but then slowly but surely change the rules towards rewarding themselves first and looking after the governed second?

How are the governed to withdraw their consent from this situation, when the governors of all main political parties seem to have more in common with each other than with those who pay taxes and vote?

This problem featured in a very different context in the famous 1957 book by Milovan Djilas, The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System.

Djilas had been one of the very top Titoist communists after WW2. Some older Serbian staff working in the Embassy in the early 1980s hated his memory, as (they said) he had dominated Belgrade after the war wearing jackboots and carrying a whip brutally to impose comunist rule.

With the publication of this book Djilas was sent to prison by the Yugo-communists and achieved international glory as the first senior communist leader to renounce communism in its Stalinist-bureaucratic form.

Djilas' core ideologically devastating argument was that far from replacing a class-free society, the new communist elite themselves had become an effective class, hoarding power and privileges for themselves at the expense of the masses.

Which leads us now, via Barbie, straight to this:

The current state of American politics can be summed up in this poll data, published today by Rasmussen Reports:

75% of Likely Voters prefer free markets over a government managed economy. Just 14% think a government managed economy is better while 11% are not sure.

Well, one would hope so. But here is the kicker:

America's Political Class is far less enamored with the virtues of a free market. In fact, Political Class voters narrowly prefer a government managed economy over free markets by a 44% to 37% margin.

... It strikes me that these data largely explain the political turmoil of the last year. The political class, now firmly in the saddle in Washington, wants to substitute government control for free choice wherever possible.

Since members of the political class communicate mostly with each other, they evidently underestimated the extent to which such policies would be unpopular with mainstream Americans.

A point also made eloquently by Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit).

All of which applies to the European Union too. Whatever its merits in allowing all sorts of processes to be 'harmonised' for general public benefit, the fact remains that the 'consent of the governed' is not exactly something which preys upon EU elite minds as they pile on new 'Directives'.

Where is all this heading?

Somewhere dangerous, I fear.

Welcome Browser and other new readers. After reading my thoughts below, check out this piece I wrote back in 2008 about inat. If you don't understand inat, you can't understand Kosovo or Serbia or anything about former Yugoslavia. Sorry, but there it is.

* * * * *

The International Court of Justice has ruled that the declaration of independence "is not in conflict with international law".

The ICJ site is overwhelmed so I can not yet share with you my wise thoughts on the full text of the decision.

Quickies anyway.

The ICJ decision was likely in view of the strange question which the UN General Assembly posed at Serbia's request:

Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?

Since international law loftily takes no view about declarations of independence, unilateral or otherwise. As I previously wrote:

Because in a trite sense a declaration of independence (or of anything else for that matter) has to be 'in accordance with international law', since it has no relevance in international law. International law does not deign to take any notice of declarations.

Thus, for example, if the town council down the road here in the UK makes a solemn unilateral declaration of the town's independence from the UK, the rest of us will make a wry smile and go back to blogging or working.

The declaration is 'in accordance' with UK law - free speech and all that. But it is just that, and no more. It's what happens afterwards that counts one way or the other in legal terms, in domestic as in international law. 

If citizens of our town en masse support the declaration of independence, put up road-blocks, stop paying taxes to Westminster and proclaim Vladimir Putin their new king with his consent, things begin to get more interesting.

Norms are being created and broken in all directions. Realities start to be created. Loyalties start to shift...   

Why did Serbia pose the Kosovo question in this odd form? Maybe because it did not want to force the ICJ to answer head-on the Kosovo independence question (eg Is Kosovo now a state recognised by international law?) in case the Serbs lost, thereby incurring an epochal defeat?

This 'advisory' ruling on this curiously open-ended question allows Belgrade to say that nothing significant has been decided one way or the other, so its struggle against Kosovo's independence blithely continues.

The ICJ ruling itself confirms that view in a sense, saying that the Court has not taken a view on whether the consequences of Kosovo's independence declaration have included Kosovo acquiring statehood.

According to B92 in Belgrade (in Serbian) Russia has been quick to confirm that it will not recognise Kosovo for (in effect) this very reason.

If other global big-hitters such India and China and Brazil and South Africa likewise decide to stay put and not shift their view, Kosovo's awkward half-in, half-out international status will drag on indefinitely - the map at the link shows how poorly Kosovo has done with the East/South of the planet.

On the other hand, the headlines round the world will tend to present this as a Win for Kosovo's cause, which in due course might well lead a larger number of countries to recognise Kosovo as a full independent state.

Basically, Kosovo falls into the All Too Difficult box for international law and policy.

Why? Because it is astride two huge tectonic plates underpinning global order and so is bang in the middle of a jurisprudential, political and moral earthquake zone. 

One plate is all about the right of identified peoples to be independent - the principle of self-determination).

The other is all about the circumstances under which existing states can split up into smaller or different formations (or not) - the principle of territorial integrity.

So it all wends its way back to the cynical deals done within the EU and between key European capitals and Washington back in the early 1990s. Basically, it was agreed to recognise Slovenia as an independent state since it (sort of) ticked both boxes simultaneously.

Slovenia was dominated overwhelmingly by Slovenes (self-determination).

And it had an undisputed geographical/political identity as a republic within the former Yugoslavia (territorial integrity), so its independence flowed neatly in parallel with the recognition of Russia and the other former Soviet republics as independent states.

Kosovo certainly makes its mark in the self-determination box, but as it was 'only' a province within Serbia (albeit with many attributes of a full republic, including membership of the eight-person SFRY Presidency itself) the territorial integrity issue is far less clear.

The more so since our cherished Helsinki Process norms basically lay down that there shall be no change in borders within Europe without the consent of all concerned. Which in this case there manifestly isn't.

Here is a tidy Russian look at the wider issues of principle at stake for Europe as these two tectonic plates grind away against each other. 

Implications for Bosnia? Not many.

The Republika Srpska leadership (more or less in coordination with Belgrade) will continue to press the self-determination argument: if Kosovo's declaration of independence is not against international law, why should Republika Srpska too not make a similar declaration at some point?

Down the road in Sarajevo the Bosniacs will noisily insist that the territorial integrity principle is supreme, and that RS itself is in different ways 'illegitimate'.

The Balkans. Where nothing is ever settled.

The legal processes surrounding the attempt by Belgrade to get former BH Presidency member Ejup Ganic extradited from London to Serbia to face war crimes charges rumble on.

The latest hearing has ended. According to the Sarajevo media, judgement is expected on 27 July.

Needless to say, media reports of the detailed legal issues at stake have been fitful. Some attention has focused on the various claims made by the Ganic team:

• that Serbia's application was flawed on its face or substantively
• that it has no substantive merit and/or presents no evidence which has not been presented in other courts and dismissed as inadequate
• that Ganic can not expect a fair trial in Belgrade

Lawyers representing Serbia have replied:

• that there is enough evidence to launch a substantive prosecution in Belgrade
• and that the Hague Tribunal and other courts are cooperating well with the war crimes courts in Belgrade, and indeed congratulating Belgrade on its work in this difficult area - a fair trial will be assured

My barrister training back in the mists of time taught me one thing: to look at the merits of the case in hand.

The point here (as far as I can see - I may be wrong) is that this is not a case about war crimes. It is about extradition law.

The London courts are not expected or even empowered under the relevant law and guidlelines to delve far into the substance of the allegations against Mr Ganic.

They are dealing with allegations made by state A and against a citizen of state B. Their task is primarily to ascertain whether as a matter of law state A (here Serbia) has met the standards required for Mr Ganic to be transferred to Belgrade.

In terms of where the matter stands procedurally, the Home Office guidelines for cases involving Category 2 territories (which both Serbia and Bosnia are) suggest that we have just had the 'extradition hearing'.

This is interesting (emphasis added):

Some countries are not required to provide prima facie evidence in support of their request for extradition. These countries are (as of 1 January 2007):

Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Liechtenstein, Macedonia FYR, Moldova, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Russian Federation, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the United States of America.

Then there's this:

The judge must satisfy himself that the request meets the requirements of the 2003 Act, including dual criminality and where appropriate, prima facie evidence of guilt; and that none of the bars to extradition apply (the rule against double jeopardy; extraneous considerations; passage of time or hostage-taking considerations).

Finally, he is required to decide whether the person’s extradition would be compatible with the convention rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998.

If he decides all of these questions in the affirmative, he must send the case to the Secretary of State for the latter’s decision whether the person is to be extradited. Otherwise, he must discharge the person.

In other words, Serbia does not have to clear too high a legal hurdle on the substance of its extradition request, since Serbia (like Bosnia and Herzegovina) is among the countries whose word and processes are deemed by English law to be respectable enough not to merit deeper investigation.

If the judge decides in favour of extradition, the case goes to the Secretary of State, but only for further consideration under three headings. The Secretary of State is not to look at the wider merits of the issue:

Secretary of State

Where a case is sent to the Secretary of State she (sic) must consider whether surrender is prohibited because:

1. the person could face the death penalty: This is an absolute prohibition unless the Secretary of State receives an adequate written assurance from the requesting state that the death penalty will not be imposed, or will not be carried out, if imposed
2. there are no speciality arrangements with the requesting country: The condition of “speciality” requires that the person must be dealt with in the requesting state only for the offences in respect of which the person is extradited (except in certain limited circumstances)
3. the person was earlier extradited to the UK: this might require the Secretary of State to obtain the consent of the earlier extraditing country, before the person can be extradited on to the requesting state...

If the Secretary of State does find that surrender is prohibited, she must order the discharge of the person. If none of the three prohibitions apply, or appropriate assurances have been given, the Secretary of State must order the person to be extradited.

In the Ganic case the three rather technical prohibitions applied at the political level do not (I assume) apply. So if the Secretary of State is in due course presented with a ruling from the judge confirming Ganic's extradition to Serbia, on the face of it that ruling will have to be upheld.

If the Secretary of State does order extradition Ganic can appeal, just as Serbia can appeal against a decision in favour of Ganic by either the judge or the Secretary of State.

And who knows, maybe wily lawyers on either side will come up with other proceedings (eg based on UK or EU Human Rights norms) to add new complications.

In short, plenty of legal juice - and juicy fees - remain to be squeezed before Mr Ganic very finally gets on a plane bound for either Belgrade.

Or Sarajevo. 

Democratist is someone who follows the goings-on across the former Soviet Union in some depth.

Here he takes up William Hague's recent speech on UK foreign policy, and makes an interesting point about how the UK invests in foreign policy outcomes in that complicated region:

OSCE election observation is about the best value for money currently available to the UK in terms of its overseas aid/foreign policy in relation to the former Soviet Union. Election observation played a key role in the development of the Baltic States in the 1990′s, and more recently in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova (considerably improving the relationships of each of these countries with the UK, and allowing for far higher levels of co-operation than had previously been possible).

It retains huge potential to positively influence developments in countries as diverse as Belarus,  Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, and even (over the longer-term) Russia itself. All this at a total average cost of just over £600,000 per annum (apparently less than the current value of the FCO’s wine cellar).

Sounds reasonable. But is it true?

Election observing has grown into a busy lifeform in the past two decades, with sizeable numbers of international observers using rights under OSCE and other arrangements to watch the conduct of elections across Europe and far beyond.

Good grief, they even look at our beloved UK elections - and find them wanting.

The laudable aim is to bring an outside and supposedly independent eye to bear on elections, to check and confirm that they have indeed been 'free and fair' and thereby (it is hoped) to deter abuses and help 'cement' democratic process and values.

The problem is that observers necessarily observe the observable, and only a tiny proportion of that.

It is not much use international observers dutifully watching voting and counting of an election where some candidates have been unfairly excluded and/or where the media coverage of the campaign has been skewed massively to favour one side (ie the ruling tendency).

On the contrary, the very fact that international observers are observing such an election might be said to give its outcome a legitimacy it richly does not deserve.

Read, for example, this full and frank account of the lot of the Short-Term Observer in an EU-funded observation in Venezuela:

We make our first report of what is to be a long day. Then we move on, spending only 20 or 30 minutes at each polling station. At various intervals we must phone our LTO team and read out, question by question, our results. The tick-box approach is evidence of the EU’s lack of trust in our judgment. We are data collectors, not observers. It speaks of a bureaucracy keen on statistics that it can brandish scientifically.

The trouble is that it is quasi-scientific: a lot of the data we have to take on trust, such as opening times – and the polling staff are rarely going to admit to tardiness.

Which helps explain why in some cases the 'international community' is keen to pronounce an elections outcome 'good enough' despite manifest and radical flaws. There is no obvious alternative to doing so.

Even when an election is obviously unfair and international observers say so (as in Sudan this year), the self-proclaimed winner just brazens out the criticism and carries on regardless of EU hand-wringing:

"These elections have struggled to reach international standards. They have not reached them all," said Veronique de Keyser, the head of the EU observer mission in Sudan.

Mrs De Keyser said that, especially in the oil-producing south, there had been cases of harassment and intimidation of voters "which has nothing to do with a democratic process".

She praised the enthusiasm of voters and said opposition parties had been free to voice complaints throughout the process.

That's a good example of what I hate about such EU or wider 'Western' missions. They typically are loath to say what is blindingly obvious, viz that they have watched a farcical parody of democracy and that no-one should treat the outcome as legitimate.

Why? Because the governments sending and supporting these missions suspect (not unreasonably) that whatever happens they are stuck with a bad outcome dragging in to the indefinite future, and so condemning it outright makes their job harder. Plus there is no outcome so scandalous and unjust that the UN will not proclaim it legitimate.

Thus our Observers act like unhappy chickens and peck in the local dust for crumbs of comfort to include in their Report, such as the fact that 'opposition groups have been free to voice complaints'.

Huh?

That merely shows how bad the abuse is - the ruling elite have skewed the process to the point that they are so confident of winning that they can allow the opposition to make some puny oppositionist noises!

Still, the fact that there is some sort of scrutiny, however limited it might be, arguably cheers up local people a little and does (perhaps) edge things towards less flagrant abuses.

Which often is the best or only scrawny progress available.

One story of British election monitoring.

The Yeltsin administration in 1993 opened up the whole Russian election process to international scrutiny, and an army of observers duly appeared.

We wily Brits decided that it made little sense to limit our effort to staring at lines of stolid Russians casting votes. The only place which really mattered was the national nerve centre where all the regional results were sent and aggregated.

So waving OSCE identity badges a few British obervers including people from the Embassy gained admission to that national election nerve centre in Moscow, much to the bewilderment (and some annoyance) of the Russian officials there. They then had a fascinating time spending the night watching results pour in from all those time-zones and be tallied for overall outcome purposes.

And, indeed, as far as we could see the nation-wide votes as finally announced fully and fairly reflected the results as fed in from local and regional voting centres.

As for the British role in all this, my guess is that for reasons of economy and general reluctance to 'rock the boat', this new coalition government will opt for the quiet life option of doing such exercises through an EU framework, thereby diluting a distinctive steely British voice.

In other words, that Democratist is right to have concerns:

... if the UK does not put people forward to work as observers, it means that certain, perhaps less well-intentioned countries gain proportionately more influence in the process of observation, and will be able to have greater influence on subsequent OSCE  statements and reports over the coming years.

In a worst-case scenario, such an outcome could do significant damage to the OSCE’s reputation – and (as the Foreign Secretary so correctly noted in his speech) such damage is not easily repaired.

Quite.

Remember Richard Murphy? The man who wants more tax, closely followed by lots more tax?

Watching him and Tim Worstall slug it out is one of the UK's best blog battles.

Anyway, Richard is taking up the government's willingness to let the public suggest stupid laws for abolition. He suggests getting rid of Low Value Consignment Relief:

Low Value Consignment Relief (LVCR) relates to the import of goods, very largely from the  Channel Islands on which VAT is not charged because of the exemption provided in UK law, and allowed under EU law, which permits with a sale value of less than £18 to be imported VAT free, even though VAT would be due on such imports if worth more than £18.

Tesco and other retailers are, according to RM, 'abusing' this facility:

... ship goods from the UK, largely to order, and then post them back again. The export from the UK is VAT free. The return is VAT free and the UK High Street price including VAT is undermined, so undermining UK tax revenues by more than £100 million a  year, undermining the UK High Street by forcing shop closures and undermining UK jobs as a result: a massive triple whammy.

Zounds. What will clever accountants think of next? Although presumably this scheme works only because the goods sold are a bit cheaper and some people get work running it, so should not the utility for workers/consumers of all that  be factored in to the overall social cost/benefit calculation?

Anyway, this posting led to a libertarian-inclined RM reader commenting that if the government here and elsewhere in the EU wants to set up such rules, it is right and proper that businesses operate within such rules to maximise their advantage. Leading RM to say this, after some to-ing and fro-ing in the comments:

... you are also hopelessly wrong. Greed never was and never can be the basis for morality. And without morality these (sic) is no society

A bold and ambitious claim indeed. Not clear to me where 'greed' comes into the issue. So I penned the following (admittedly rather condensed) observation:

Sure, greed is bad. But ‘greed’ comes in many forms and includes people in government and trades unions and feckless welfare scroungers as well as errant high capitalists.

The only thing between us and the Stone Age is human creativity, energy, ambition and determination. You seem to characterise much of those vital forces as ‘greed’, juxtaposing such greed against the inherent righteousness of government and bureaucracy funded by levies on the results of creativity, energy, ambition and determination, and extracted by force by the state.

Having worked for HMG for nearly 30 years, most of it serving in authoritarian/communist and former communist countries wrecked by excessive state power, I utterly disagree with you.

Prompting Richard rudely to draw on the logic of Roger Irrelevant and say this (emphasis added):

Respectfully, if that is an argument you have a great deal to learn about the art

I made the point that greed (and all those other characteristics you attribute to it) are pointless without morality.

You seem to observe that you have no perception of what morality is because you worked in communist countries fr thirty years - the latter being a point so irrelevant to any current consideration it is hard to see why you mentioned it, except to prove the lack of evidence for your position.

If you can’t do better than that please don’t bother to comment again.

Charming!

My latest reply:

The second and final round of Poland's Presidential elections takes place today.

Bronislaw Komorowski (Citizens Platform) is hoping not to get pipp'd at the post by Jaroslaw Kaczynski (Law and Justice), twin brother of President Lech Kaczynski who died in the Smolensk disaster.

Which of them is the more 'right-wing'?

I have written before on the difficulty of applying our political labels to Polish politics:

A much better way to look at these things which gives a spread of views for Poland at least is to have two different axes:

• Economic:  State - Market
• Belief:  Religion - Atheist

Looked at this way much more articulated differences appear between the parties.

Civic Platform occupy a blob mainly on the Market side but dipping down into the Atheist camp. Law and Justice occupy a blob which overlaps significantly with Civic Platform but which is also notably more Religious/State. The former communists rebooted as social democrats are a blob with both Market and State but notably more Atheism.

As Poland is, yes, a Catholic country it is not surprising that the two parties (Civic Platform and Law and Justice) which now express in different ways a not too extreme combination of State and Market but with more Religion than Atheism occupy nearly 75% of the popular vote.

True to form, Jaroslaw Kaczynski has been making more overtly 'State' noises to try to woo poorer voters, although as you know Citizens Platform too have been moving in an etatist direction recently. Kaczynski even said some nice things about communist-era leader Gierek ("a communist, yet also a patriot"), a brazen nod to former communist voters.

On private morality issues (divorce, gay marriage, abortion, women's rights) there is nothing between the two candidates. If anything Komorowski is rather more 'conservative' by instinct at least.

On EU questions, Komorowski and his party are notably more EU-enthusiastic than Kaczynski and his. But Kaczynski has cleverly added some new, more mellow European tones to his post-Smolensk rhetoric and talks about greater CAP support for Polish farmers - not an issue where he might easily find common ground with the UK in the looming EU Budget negotiation.

That said, insofar as there may need in the coming years to be far-reaching EU measures to tackle the Eurozone and other structural problems, Kaczynski and David Cameron should easily agree on a rebalancing involving more member state and less Brussels. Kaczynski squeezed in a flying visit to London during the campaign.

Who's going to win?

It looks increasingly like a re-run of the 2005 election, when Citizens Platform Donald Tusk had a solid lead after the first round but was overtaken in the final days of the campaign by Lech Kaczynski.

So, don't be surprised if Komorowski fails to win in the final count, after leading comfortably in the polls for many months.

If Kaczynski does win, it will be down to his brilliant political calculation and canny execution carried out amidst intense private pain after the Smolensk crash - he and Lech were as close as any two siblings can be.

Life in Poland will proceed fairly well, with a mainly market-inclined, technocratic Citizens Platform in government dealing with the Polish Body, and quirky, grumpy, and very patriotic Law and Justice keeping a close eye on the Polish Soul.

A good outcome for the Conservatives here as well.

Belgium emits the usual confidence that the UK even under the Conservatives will be absorbed into EU processes ... nicely:

Belgian negotiators are convinced that Mr Cameron's hard line opposition to giving more sovereignty up to the EU, a pledge written into his coalition government's agreement, will be sacrificed in the interests of pragmatism.

The senior source observed that no EU agreements would ever be possible if all European leaders stuck to the "totality" of their election manifestoes.

"It is impossible to have compromise with total programmes," he said.

Pragmatism. There's a word.

Meanwhile back in Europe-as-it-really-is, have a look at this excellent piece over at Transconflict looking at the way Belgiam is creaking at the seams, with separatist elements cleverly using EU iconography and language to advance their cause.

Note especially the idea of 'rational nationalism':

The N-VA has managed to make people forget the old, vague, romantic and not particularly mobilizing notion of full Flemish independence and reframe its nationalism as a moderate political demand for autonomy. The party employed a number of metaphors to communicate this message.

“We don’t want a revolution, just evolution”, said N-VA leader Bart De Wever repeatedly. We do not want to split Belgium, we will just let it “evaporate”, was another slogan...

... But the idea that more nationalism is needed, and not less, to unblock the political debates between language groups at the federal level has worked extremely well as an electoral slogan ...

“Rational” Flemish nationalism was thus presented as an antidote for the confusion of Belgian “politics as usual” and as a discourse of clean efficiency, not one of exclusion or lack of solidarity across language groups...

Are the Flemish N-VA and Milorad Dodik in Republika Srpska by some chance related?

And if Belgium itself as it currently exists is being challenged to this extent, what legitimacy do Belgium's leaders have in expecting the UK to fall into line?

Just asking.

Brian Micklethwait asks a pertinent and subversive question.

If we know which Euro currency notes are issued by which country, why not start insisting to be paid only in notes issued by countries which are unlikely to default?

... supposing lots of people do know this, or get to know it, does it not provide a mechanism by means of which mere people might hasten the collapse of the more dubious EUrozone economies, by demanding, when being paid in actual money, to be paid only in Euros printed by the undubious countries?

Perhaps the answer might go: but making such judgments would be, in EUrope, illegal. Maybe so, but that won't stop a black market making minute comparisons between differently lettered Euros, nor will it stop tourists in other parts of the world, planning their EUropean trips, demanding, once they hear such stories, to receive only the kinds of Euros that they would like.

They could, for instance, refuse to accept the wrong kind of Euros, or, if given a mixture of good Euros and bad Euros, sort out the good from the bad and swap the bad ones back for pounds, or dollars, or whatever.

The wrong kinds of Euro notes, from the dubious countries, could soon be treated exactly as if they were forgeries, could they not? The big difference being that these forgeries will be easier to spot...

Wikipedia tells us that we can indeed ascertain which country has issued which notes:

Unlike euro coins, euro notes do not have a national side indicating which country issued them (which is not necessarily where they were printed). This information is instead encoded within the first character of each note's serial number.

The first character of the serial number is a letter which uniquely identifies the country that issues the note.

Thus X denotes Germany, U France and so on. Greece as it happens is Y.

Scope for mischief-making here?

Not much, according to numerous sagacious commenters including Tim Worstall:

... the cash euro is such a tiny part of the money supply across the EU zone. Electronic euros are vastly more important and there is no differentiation between them.

So there.

We all agree that government spending in many Western countries is too high - stupidly high.

We are cranking up debts to pay for current consumption at a rate which suggests to the markets that we have lost our minds. The markets look to charge us higher interest rates, as lending to possibly mad people starts to look more risky.

Once that happens we drift towards Greek-style crisis - the interest on the debt we owe goes far beyond what we can ever afford to pay back. The risk that cash-machines across the Western world suddenly will stop issuing money grows apace...

The latest ploy is to announce 'cuts' in government spending. Shock! How dare they hurt our feelings?

But what exactly is a cut?

Any normal person would think that if the government in any one year spends £Xbn, a cut occurs if the government announces that it will spend only £Ybn, where Y is less than X. And then in fact does spend £Ybn, as promised.

That turns out to be a slippery idea.

Cuts can mean all sorts of things, some of them simultaneously. Thus:

• spending in cash terms goes down in 2012 compared to 2011
• spending in inflation-adjusted terms goes down in 2012 compared to 2011
• spending over the period 2011-2015 will be less than in the period 2009- 2013 (but we'll still spend more)
• the rate of increase of spending will be cut sharply (but we'll still spend more)
• we'll spend much less than we previously said we'd spend (but we'll still spend more)
• the proportion of government spending within the overall economy will go down (but we'll still spend more)

And so on. Guido helps us see what is really happening. No cuts.  

We'll still spend more. Instead of paddling fast to the waterfool of doom we'll paddle much more slowly. Relax! 

What no-one appears to be mentioning is the UK's approach to the EU Budget. This gruesome negotiation comes round again in a couple of years' time.

One thing is obvious in all this jiggery-pokery.

Namely that if we make even these so-called cuts in UK government spending but make no comparable reductions in our contributions to the EU Budget, we are in proportional terms at least increasing our contributions to the EU Budget!

More EU = Less Westminster.

So a key test for our coalition government's resolve and credibility will be how it responds to the usual cry from Brussels that the only direction the EU Budget can go is upwards.

Make no mistake, there are many ways in which EU spending might be not merely curbed but actually reduced.

Commission offices inside and outside (and even the WCs) are awash with banners and posters exhorting their own officials to enjoy the EU's wisdom and programmes.

In following all this as best we can, it is important to keep an eye on the main ball.

Thus this seemingly defiant UK statement about the 2011 EU budget is largely irrelevant:

The chancellor made clear, however, that Britain would oppose a proposal from the European commission to increase the EU budget by 6% next year, a move that would mean a £600m increase in the size of Britain's gross contribution to the EU.

"We had a lively discussion on the proposal for the 2011 EU budget, for which the European commission has proposed a 6% increase, including a 4.5% increase in administration costs" said Osborne.

"I was not alone in saying that this is unacceptable. Many countries are accepting public spending restraints and administration cuts. I am glad that has been noted at this early stage."

He insisted he had not "banged the table" on the EU budget or anything else...

Umm ... why not?

Anyway, NB that the 2011 EU Budget total is an annual total within the overall 2007-2013 Financial Perspective whose size was agreed back in 2005. That money is already committed to the EU, and goes up and down as EU spending patterns unfold over the Framework period.

Thus the EU budget probably has to rise in 2011 as major structural support contracts for Poland's roads and so on start to get drawn down, es anticipated.

No. The big prize is what happens in the 2014-2020 Financial Perspective, and to the UK's rebate within that.

If the UK government refuses to hang in exceedingly tough on that one while 'cutting' services at home, using the UK veto as necessary to block a deal, it will have failed.

That said, keep an eye out for wily French stratagems. What if they offer to 'cut' the Budget and allow the UK to keep most of the Rebate, BUT insist on setting up some sort of EU-level income tax to fund it all..?

And NB too that if there is no agreement on a new EU Budget for the forthcoming Financial Perspective period, the old one is likely to roll over.

In effect the EU Budget can never be cut...

Will the EU exist in its current form in a million years' time? No!

In 100,000 years' time? No!

In 1000 years' time? No, but there may be traces of its current form.

In 100 years' time? Maybe, but much changed.

In a mere 10 years' time? Probably, but perhaps rather differently organised.

So if the EU as currently configured sooner or later is going to come to an end, the question arises: what factors might bring about its early departure?

The deep issue is Trust.

The whole point of the European Union is that the different member state governments, and rather more reluctantly their voters, proclaim undying trust in each other. This allows shared institutions to be set up and creates a framework within which 'integration' can proceed, overcoming all those centuries-old hatreds and rivalries which have led to calamitous wars.

It is now clear that Trust is once again declining.

Take this disturbing interview (in Polish) with Jan Krzysztof Bielecki. Bielecki was briefly Polish Prime Minister in the early years of the creation of a market economy after communism. He is now a top banker and thinker, one of the smartest people in Poland and an avid football fan.

This interview purports to turn upside-down Poland's dramatically successful open market policies pursued since 1990. Bielecki in particular argues that Poland should no longer welcome foreign capital in strategic privatisations and particularly in the banking sector. That openness to foreign money had been essential in the early transition period, when there was no Polish capital to speak of. But things are different now. 

Bielecki makes his concerns explicit. The fact that so much (some 70%) of Polish bank capital is in foreign hands leaves it open to those foreign interests to suck money out of those banks if they fall into difficulties, a policy said to be favoured by the EU. 

In other words, the sub-text (and not so sub-) is Poland's fear that the fruits of all those years of diligent saving and prudent investment following the end of communism could be snatched by (say) French or German banks to help them deal with the consequences of their own imprudence in (say) Greece and Spain.

Which, in turn, means that Poland - whose population is one of the most 'pro-Europe' in the EU - now has serious doubts about trusting its major partners to look at any interests wider than their own. As Bielecki is one of most influential leaders in Citizens Platform circles, this means that the two candidates in the coming Polish Presidential elections run-off will be toying with openly Poland First ideas.

You might say that Poland has had the benefit of foreign (European) investment when times were good, and so it is fair that Poland shoulder its share of the pain when times are not so good. And you might be right.

The question Bielecki implicitly poses goes unerringly to that central point: what is fair in such circumstances? Who decides where the cost of playing fast and loose with investment decisions should fall?

Should that be done at the strategic level 'above' mere member states? Maybe.

But what if it looks as though in fact those decisions are being taken by a core of member states to defend their own national interests, in this case their rickety banks and/or their flawed political judgement in creating a flawed Eurozone? That they cannot be trusted to act only in the common interest - and to shoulder the costs of their own blunders?

In such 'unfair' circumstances the only way Poland and other member states can defend themselves (and their national wealth) is to start thinking about defining policy in more 'national' terms themselves.

And so the moral logic of the EU as founded on unfailing trust at the highest levels dissolves. As that goes, so too does the will to keep the institutional show on the road.

Which in turn forces to the fore the issue of 'first-mover advantage'. 

Yes, there is Solidarity in staying with the team and furiously paddling as a group to help get the canoe to safety. But if one country suspects (a) that the Eurozone is doomed and (b) that other Eurozone members think the same, does it not pay to jump off the sinking canoe well before it hits the waterfall?

The more so if (c) that country sees other canoe paddlers looking shiftily around as if preparing themselves to jump?

Here's one brilliant lurid scenario by James Bennett in which Germany Shrugs - and jumps:

Nicholas. This is Angela. I am very sorry to have to tell you this, under such circumstances. But you will understand why it must be like this. And I wanted to tell you first.

She relayed her news.

The aides could hear the scream of pure anger as Merkel held the phone away from her ear. The tirade continued for about half a minute. Then there was complete silence. She put the phone back to her ear.

My dear Nicholas, you can hardly complain. After all, you threatened me with the same thing back in May ... If any one suspects that another is about to leave, the only thing to do is leave first. When you threatened to leave, we realized that was the position in which we had been put. So we had to make our preparations.

Sarkozy spoke in a calm, level voice. But I was not serious. It was a bargaining position.

Perhaps. But the Prisoner’s Dilemma requires certainly, not probability.

All of which goes to explain why the Cameron government, far from being 'isolated' in Europe as assorted Guardianistas led by Denis MacShane wailed would happen, is being wooed vigorously by Germany and Paris alike.

Why?

Because they want - and need - British money to help them out of their deep holes.

Raiding Polish banks is just not enough.

Blogging will be light in the coming week (as it has been for the past couple of days) as I am travelling to Geneva/London/Warsaw and then after a weekend on to Brussels.

Today I returned from Strasbourg, the beautiful city which hosts the outlandishly glassy-eyed European Parliament and the rather more sensibly scaled Council of Europe.

The guide mentioned the Nazi destruction of a famous synagogue during WW2, but somehow missed this earlier horrible Strasbourg episode of European ethnic cleansing of all those pesky Jews.

Could nimble French banks be getting bailed out in effect at Germany's expense, by playing the way the French-led European Central Bank helps Greece?

That would be perfide indeed, and at a very high level of betrayal.

Surely not.

It had to happen sooner or later. Mark Steyn writes what may be his greatest column ever on (of course) the way Wealth has made us Stupid.

Of course the very idea of the greatest ever Steyn column needs some thought. The funniest? The most scathing? The most thought-provoking?

The one where Monica Lewinsky's dress is interviewed in 2018? Or this one from 2001 about the Eurozone which reads rather well:

There is no need for a single currency, and several compelling reasons why it's a crummy idea, not least the insufficient labour mobility in Europe and the way the budgetary limits will complicate the already looming crunch over demographically unsustainable social programmes. Set against those considerations, the case for the euro was laughable in its feebleness. You don't need to scrap a dozen currencies to eliminate "transaction costs". That's like curing a cold by amputating your nose...

Because Texans, Vermonters and Georgians all agree that they're Americans, they're happy to go their own way in matters of capital punishment, income tax, gay civil unions: that's a dynamic, creative federalism.

Because Greeks, Scots and Austrians still regard each other as foreign, a European identity has to be imposed from the top down, as if by harmonising tax codes and passport design you can harmonise a bunch of foreigners into one nationality, regulate a European consciousness into being: that's not federalism, but a fetid, stagnant over-centralisation.

Still, this latest effort is up there with the best. It looks at the central issue of our times - how wealth has made us more and more stupid:

In any advanced society, there will be a certain number of dysfunctional citizens either unable or unwilling to do what is necessary to support themselves and their dependents. What to do about such people? Ignore the problem? Attempt to fix it?

The former nags at the liberal guilt complex, while the latter is way too much like hard work: the modern progressive has no urge to emulate those Victorian social reformers who tramped the streets of English provincial cities looking for fallen women to rescue. All he wants to do is ensure that the fallen women don’t fall anywhere near him.

So the easiest “solution” to the problem is to throw public money at it. You know how it is when you’re at the mall and someone rattles a collection box under your nose and you’re not sure where it’s going but it’s probably for Darfur or Rwanda or Hoogivsastan. Whatever. You’re dropping a buck or two in the tin for the privilege of not having to think about it...

The modern welfare state operates on the same principle: since the Second World War, the hard-working middle classes have transferred historically unprecedented amounts of money to the unproductive sector in order not to have to think about it. But so what? We were rich enough that we could afford to be stupid.

That works for a while. In the economic expansion of the late 20th century, citizens of Western democracies paid more in taxes but lived better than their parents and grandparents. They weren’t exactly rich, but they got richer.

They also got more stupid. When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the modern British welfare state in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want.” Sir William and his colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic succeeded beyond their wildest dreams: to be “poor” in the 21st-century West is not to be hungry and emaciated but to be obese, with your kids suffering from childhood diabetes.

... In one-sixth of British households, not a single family member works. They are not so much without employment as without need of it. At a certain level, your hard-working bourgeois understands that the bulk of his contribution to the treasury is entirely wasted.

It’s one of the basic rules of life: if you reward bad behaviour, you get more of it. But, in good and good-ish times, who cares?

Western Europe is in the unhappy position of a group of sullen teenagers who have wrecked the place after a massive drunken vainglorious binge.

They know that they have to spend a lot of the immediate future clearing up the mess, when they could have been off doing something interesting had they not been just so ... so stupid.

And as they listlessly wander through the wreckage nursing a splitting headache trying to summon the energy to start to tidy up, they look around to find someone to blame. Anyone but themselves.

And, to make things worse, there's no-one there.

Other than up the road where some tough-looking Asian businessmen are wondering about buying the trashed property, and putting its silly occupants on starvation rations for a few centuries - to teach them a lesson in self-discipline.

Which country is in the deeper trouble?

This article raises a question.

If part of what makes the world go round is a subtle, intangible but real thing called 'confidence', is it a good idea to undermine it by looking at the hard facts?

David Cameron ready to veto treaty to shore up euro

So says the Indy headline this evening.

Hmm.

What does the article say?

Mrs Merkel has suggested that all European countries need to be willing to surrender more sovereignty to give the EU powers to prevent another Greek-style eurozone crisis.

But, on the second leg of his first foreign trip as Premier, Mr Cameron was quick to pour cold water on the idea.

"There is no question of agreeing to a treaty that transfers power from Westminster to Brussels. That is set out 100% clearly in the coalition agreement," Mr Cameron said.

"Britain obviously is not in the euro and Britain is not going to be in the euro, and so Britain would not be agreeing to any agreement or treaty that drew us further into supporting the euro area."

The Prime Minister went on: "It goes without saying that any treaty, even one that just applied to the euro area, needs unanimous agreement of all 27 EU states including the UK, which of course has a veto.

"I think these are very important points to understand."

Some wriggle-room here.

The Prime Minister did not (on the face of it) rule out accepting a treaty to prop up the Euro which did not transfer more power from Westminster to Brussels, or otherwise 'draw in' the UK to further support for the Euro area.

(A quite separate question, of course, is whether the new UK government would formally block a new treaty, or put any such new EU treaty to a referendum and let the public trash it.)

So if a group of EU countries wanted such a new EU treaty which explicitly involved them and them alone footing the bill and responsibility, the UK might go along with it? This would be enhanced cooperation on steroids.

The Times report spots this nuance, but maybe misses one in what Angela Merkel said. Can you spot it?

His remarks left open the possibility that the 16 eurozone countries could introduce greater control from Brussels that applied just to them.

Mrs Merkel suggested that she had not given up on her desire to re-open the Lisbon treaty but played down its significance today. “There are certain ideas that Germany has tabled where treaty change plays a role. But this is the beginning. It is very early days as yet,” she said.

She added: “I have made it clear that we need to stabilise the euro but at a later stage we will be able to say what we can do and how should we do it.

“And then we will see what the majority will want and the interests of the eurozone.”

There, in the last sentence.

She hints at the idea that what happens next depends on what the 'majority' want - does she plan to get round any UK veto by contemplating radical changes rammed through by Qualified Majority Voting under existing arrangements, if necessary in defiance of UK wishes?

In short, some deftly done public UK/German skirmishing over central questions.

Can the Eurozone and the European Union survive in its current form? 

If not, what mechanism will be used to change things in favour of something very different?

Will the Germans and other integrators vote to opt out of the current set-up? Or will they try to manoeuvre the UK into forlorn opposition on issues of strategic substance which ultimately forces us to opt out?

In other words - who will be blamed for collapsing the status quo?

This morning I staggered home at 0200 hours after a horrid journey back from The Hague, where I had been busy training sassy Dutch officials on the dark arts of Writing with Impact.

Thanks to the UNITE union's antics, my BA flight was cancelled so I had to switch to easyJet.

Needless to say, the rubbish easyJet flight was well late with no serious attempts made to inform passengers in the sprawling Amsterdam airport what was happening, or offer people space on other uneasyJet flights back to Gatwick.

That UN Resolution needs updating.

Thus I missed my coach to Oxford and so had to plod into London by Gatwick unExpress which was late, being diverted because a tree had fallen on the line.

Then a miserable ride on the Tube to Paddington with washed out late-night Londoners. Then a long wait to get the 0020 train to Didcot, then a forlorn drive home.

Uuurgh.

Which goes some way to explain why in clearing dozens of rubbish Spam comments from this site in my exhaustion I inadvertently have approved some of them.

MBT shoes do not even look nice.

Sorry.

John Redwood MP puts it tersely:

Its first task, as stern budget superviser urging member states to rein in deficits, should be to make dramatic reductions in the EU budget. From each member states point of view the money spent on EU matters and projects is of more marginal importance than say the money spent on domestic education and health care.

The EU should take the lead to in cutting spending to relieve the budgetary pressures. Spending cuts should start abroad. The EU’s sensible requirement for controlled budget deficits should make them lead by example.

Its second task should be to draw up a big Repeal Directive, removing from the law codes many of those fiddling and costly interventions in business life which have led to the export of so many jobs from the EU to less regulated places like China and India...

Indeed.

As I keep intoning, the only heavy leverage the UK has in EU processes is money - our money.

So the forthcoming EU Budget round is going to be existentially important for both the UK and the EU.

Will the UK government have the steely resolve needed to press for massive cuts in the EU Budget (and to some extent EU functions)? Or not?

It will be impossible to persuade hard-pressed UK voters aghast at cuts in public spending here that it makes sense to pour taxpayers' money into un-cut EU spending.

This could be a fine area for an iron London/Berlin alliance. Germans are dismayed at the turn of events in the Eurozone, and should be open to British ideas for Discipline.

Meanwhile others are insisting that as the Eurozone enters swampy ground, the only policy is to tie even more tightly together not only Eurozone members but all EU members. If one sinks, all sink:

If a country joins the euro area, it shares a common destiny with the other members. There is a need for a quantum leap in the governance of the euro area.

It is hard to see all this going far without changes to EU treaties, and all the new political drama (including in the UK) which that will bring.

John Mauldin's latest newsletter (free, but you need to sign up for them - well worth it) has doubts:

Europe is run by Keynesians (as is the US). They see everything as a liquidity problem. And sometimes it is.

But the PIIGS have a debt problem. And you don't cure a debt problem with more debt unless you have a clear path to grow your way out of the debt. But as I have demonstrated, there is no clear path to growth with the current policies. They will produce deflationary recessions, lower government tax receipts from reduced GDP, and higher unemployment...

This is just the beginning of their woes. They have a long way to go and a short time to get there. Can it be done? Yes, of course.

But it is going to require a great deal of change. I hope they pull it off, I really do. I have been to most of Europe and love every bit I have seen. The world is better off with a united Europe.

That being said, I have my doubts that the European Union in its current form will exist in 5-7 years. I hope I am wrong...

I tend to think that he's correct - that the EU as currently configured can not survive much longer. If only because the measures needed to make the Eurozone work will compel new levels of 'integration' for all EU members which will go well beyond what some countries can accept.

Things are already coming to a head, via Qualified Majority Voting.

Under EU rules decisions in many policy areas and binding on all can be taken by votes of EU member governments. Hitherto voting has not been a decisive factor, since EU member governments mull things over, look at the weight of likely opposition to see if any combination might have a blocking minority, and cut deals.

So there is voting but it in effect usually defines a different way to reach a consensus.

What we can expect soon are proposals put forward for voting which are said to be essential for Eurozone members as such, but may well have negative outcomes for non-Eurozone members. The Eurozone members may then start to push through those votes in the face of outright opposition from many of the others - but especially the UK.

If that starts to happen systematically, the implicit deal based primarily upon a sense of consensus will have been changed irrevocably in favour of majority-led power-plays. The legitimacy of that sort of decision-making and its outcomes will fall to be challenged very hard.

So there has to be a good chance that the result is the emergence of some sort of formalised new arrangements, maybe two or more smaller European unions.

In one group, those countries which are ready to stop being countries and form a new bloc phenomenon, with one currency and the inflexible fiscal, popular voting and other mechanisms needed to make that happen.

And in another, countries which are satisfied with looser and more flexible cooperative arrangements.

Anything really wrong with that, as long as the two groups live nicely together and don't fight?

Not really. But the transaction costs and associated convulsions will be considerable. Which group Germany would now join?

Maybe those convulsions, huge as they must be, are preferable to standing in a swamp watching the slime-level inexorably head north above our knees, no-one able to move because we are all tied together?