The Agonist - European Union

Solar power from Saharan sun could provide Europe's electricity, says EU

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:17:11 -0700

Alok Jha | July 23

The Guardian -

A concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in Spain that uses panels to reflect light on to a central tower to produce electricity. Similar plants are proposed for north Africa. Photograph: AP

A tiny rectangle superimposed on the vast expanse of the Sahara captures the seductive appeal of the audacious plan to cut Europe's carbon emissions by harnessing the fierce power of the desert sun.

Dwarfed by any of the north African nations, it represents an area slightly smaller than Wales but scientists claimed yesterday it could one day generate enough solar energy to supply all of Europe with clean electricity.

Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European commission's Institute for Energy, said it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts to meet all of Europe's energy needs.

The scientists are calling for the creation of a series of huge solar farms - producing electricity either through photovoltaic cells, or by concentrating the sun's heat to boil water and drive turbines - as part of a plan to share Europe's renewable energy resources across the continent.

Sarkozy in Ireland to revive EU treaty

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:50:50 -0700

Dublin | July 22

Promising to listen rather than lecture, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France arrived here on Monday, seeking to revive a European Union reform treaty Ireland’s voters rejected last month.

The Lisbon Treaty, which aims to streamline European Union institutions, must be approved by all 27 nations in the bloc. Alone among the member states, Ireland put the matter to a referendum, as its Constitution required. But when 53 percent of voters rejected the measure on June 12, Ireland, a country of 4 million, derailed plans for a pact that would have covered almost 500 million people.

Poland threatens Sarkozy's scheme to rescue Lisbon treaty

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:02:32 -0700

Ian Traynor | Paris | July 2

The Guardian - · President refuses to ratify without Irish decision
· Reforms central to French EU presidency

President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday moved to head off a worsening crisis over the European Union's gridlocked reforms after Poland joined the Czech Republic in defying Franco-German pressure for a quick fix to the stalemate caused by Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon treaty.

Sarkozy launched his six-month presidency of the EU with a pledge to resolve the "institutional crisis" triggered by the Irish rebuff. He is to travel to Dublin and Prague to try to cajole the Irish into staging a second vote on the EU's stalled reform blueprint and to push for a speedier Czech approval of the plan, as well as intervening with President Lech Kaczynski of Poland, who yesterday announced he was suspending ratification of the treaty until Ireland decided what to do.

"For the time being the question of the treaty is pointless," Kaczynski told the Warsaw newspaper Dziennik in a surprise announcement timed to coincide with the first day of the Sarkozy EU presidency.

Warning as France takes EU helm

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:07:43 -0700

July 1

BBC - French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said "something isn't right" with the European Union, as France took over the rotating presidency of the bloc.

Speaking on national French TV, Mr Sarkozy warned that Europe's citizens were losing faith in the project.

France set out plans on immigration, the environment, agriculture and defence for its six months at the helm.

But correspondents say that grandiose agenda is in doubt because of Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon reform treaty.

Taking over the presidency from Slovenia, Mr Sarkozy said his priority would be to get all the other EU states to approve the treaty and then see what could be done.

France Adopts a Multilateral Defence Strategy

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:27:58 -0700

The 2008 White Paper sets the tone for the next decade of French defense policy. Although France's "loss of independence" is controversial, many welcome the progress towards synchronization of the French, European, and transatlantic security and defense strategies.

Latin America May Halt Trade Talks Over EU Immigration Rules

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:02:53 -0700

June 23

Deutche Welle - A new EU law that calls for the swift deportation of illegal immigrants has been loudly criticized by Latin America, which has threatened to halt trade talks as a result.

In an effort to have illegal immigrants treated equally across the bloc, the European Parliament has passed a controversial deportation law. Now, some Latin American countries, especially those with many immigrants in Europe, are protesting the measures. Millions of Latin Americans live in Europe, many from poor Andean countries and war-weary Colombia.

The EU Returns Directive regulates the deportation of illegal immigrants to their country of origin. Under the law, an illegal immigrant will have two options: either "return" home or face "removal." The directive also allows clandestine migrants to be detained for up to 18 months, and face a five-year travel ban after being deported.

Rhetoric reached new heights on Saturday, June 21, when Ecuador's President Rafael Correa warned that trade talks between the EU and the Andean Community could be suspended if the 27 member bloc pushes ahead with the new law.

"What do we have to talk about with a union of countries that criminalizes immigrants?" Reuters news agency quoted him as telling a radio broadcast. "It will be very hard to talk business and ignore human rights."

Castro condemns EU's 'hypocrisy'

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:17:34 -0700

June 21

BBC - Former Cuban President Fidel Castro has lashed out at the EU's decision to lift sanctions against his country, calling it "an enormous hypocrisy".

He said the move was "disparaging" because it was conditioned on human rights progress in Cuba.

The ailing 81-year-old said the measure came just days after the EU passed a "brutal" law that could jail illegal immigrants up to 18 months.

The EU said its move was aimed at encouraging change in Cuba, following Fidel Castro's replacement by his brother Raul in February.

In an article published on Cuba's official website, Fidel Castro said he wanted "to put in writing my contempt for the enormous hypocrisy that surrounds the [EU] decision".

While saying that Cuba must improve its human rights record and free political prisoners, the EU mistreats illegal immigrants from Latin America by using the new law to jail and expel them, Mr Castro wrote.

EU Lisbon 'No': Ireland delivers stunning blow to Europe's leaders

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:34:34 -0700

Ian Traynor and Henry MacDonald | Dublin/Brussels | June 13

The Guardian - ...The referendum in Ireland was the sole popular vote in the EU on the grand plan to give Europe a sitting president and foreign minister, and reconfigure the way the EU is governed. The result left the project severely wounded, perhaps fatally. The Irish voted by a 7% margin, 53.6 to 46.4, against the treaty, which has already been ratified by 18 EU countries and is expected to be endorsed by the other eight.

...The treaty was backed by nine out of 10 MPs in the Irish Dáil and all the main political parties, except Sinn Féin, but the government of Brian Cowen, in office for only a few weeks, was felt to have run a complacent and lacklustre yes campaign. An odd and well-funded coalition of anti-European forces stole the headlines.

"You don't say yes to something you don't understand," said Hugo Brady, a analyst at the Centre for European Reform thinktank. The no vote was boosted by concerns over sovereignty, possible tax harmonisation, neutrality, and fears that the treaty could erode Ireland's abortion ban, all issues that analysts say are fatuous.

originally posted June 13

Update:June 20 - Czech threat looms for EU treaty

EU Defies US, Lifts Sanctions on Cuba

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:44:39 -0700

June 20

Deutsche Welle - The foreign ministers of the 27-nation EU bloc have agreed to scrap sanctions against Cuba. The Caribbean country's northern neighbor is bound to be angered by the move.

The move is expected to place Brussels and Washington on a collision course and drew criticism from Cuban dissidents.

The vote on Thursday, June 19, scrapped the sanctions that were imposed in 2003, suspended in 2005 and are largely symbolic. They include limits on high-level government visits and the role of EU diplomats in Cuba's cultural events and do not approach the hard line of the 46-year-old US sanctions, which include a trade and investment embargo.

Earlier Thursday, a US State Department spokesman said Washington opposed any moves to ease sanctions on Cuba, saying that reforms so far under new Cuban President Raul Castro are "some very minor, cosmetic changes" that have fallen well short of ending decades of repressive policies under his brother, Fidel Castro.

E.U. Passes Tough Migrant Measure

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:36:12 -0700

Caroline brothers | Strasbourg, France | June 19

NYT - European Union lawmakers voted Wednesday to allow undocumented migrants to be held in detention centers for up to 18 months and banned from European Union territory for five years.

Criticized by groups like Amnesty International as “severely flawed” and an erosion of human rights standards, the so-called return directive was passed in the European Parliament here by a 369-to-197 vote, with 106 legislators abstaining.

Manfred Weber, the German center-right legislator from Bavaria who shepherded the measure through Parliament, said that it provided minimum common standards for the treatment of migrants throughout the European Union while still showing citizens it was tough on illegality.

As for the migrants, he said: “The member states must decide whether they need them; if so, then please legalize them. If you don’t need them for your labor markets, then send them home.”

Eastern German Economy Catching Up

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:34:06 -0700

June 17

dpa - According to the head of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), the economy of former East Germany will grow faster than in the west in 2008 -- meaning the formerly communist east is catching up.DIHK chief Martin Wansleben said that the manufacturing sector was responsible for eastern Germany's positive performance.

The turnabout comes after years of stagnation and migration of young workers to the western part of the country. Now, according to Wansleben, eastern German industry plans to hire more workers than their western counterparts in 2008.

Partly as a result of the eastern German improvements, the EU thinks that the German economy could become the "locomotive of Europe" once again.

But the future, may not be so rosy. Exports have long been the main engine of the German economy, and with the euro consistently high against the dollar, Wansleben anticipates that exports will begin falling in coming months. "In 2009," he writes in a report presented on Monday, "there will likely be just a one before the decimal point."

EU says no agreement on new Iran sanctions

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:22:51 -0700

Luxembourg | June 16

Reuters - The European Union said on Monday it had [not agreed to] new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, apparently contradicting British statements announcing new measures on its financial and energy sectors.

Speaking after talks with President George W. Bush in London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier announced EU moves to freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran and to launch action against Iran's oil and gas industries.

A British diplomat said the measures had been agreed by EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday and would be implemented within days, but an EU spokeswoman said ministers had not even discussed sanctions.

"There was no discussion of sanctions today. I know nothing about that," said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana who this weekend presented Iran with an updated offer of incentives by major world powers to halt enrichment.

The day after the Irish "No"

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:49:36 -0700

By Hannes Artens

In Europe, the saying goes, the day after the election is like the day before the election (in a system with coalition governments and endless political haggling and trading too often nothing changes, no matter who won at the polls). This saw more often than not applies to public referendums, too. But certainly not to the Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon that drowned all hopes for a constitution for Europe in murky, gone stale Irish Guinness on Thursday. Even four days after the resounding Irish "No", we're as stumped as on day one. Its future as uncertain as America's presence in Iraq, the EU is at a complete loss how to deal and respond to the heap of ruins its ambitions and aspirations turned into.

The most counterproductive and most ludicrous suggestion in this regard came from the former Danish foreign minister, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, who argues that the Irish voted themselves out of the EU and should do the other 26 member the favor to leave. While five seconds of Irish-bashing may be permissible (after all, Ireland, thirty years ago as poor as Sicily, is the very country of the EU-15 - the ones before the great enlargement round of 2004 - that benefited most from EU membership; since 1973 it got almost more subsidies from Brussels than Eastern from Western Germany since reunification), his flawed argument completely misses the main point. If there had been public referendums on the Treaty of Lisbon in the other 26 countries, it would not have passed in a single one. That's the core of the matter.

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Irish minister says EU vote lost

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 05:40:12 -0700

Jonny Dymond | Dublin | June 13

BBC - Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern says substantial vote tallies across the country show the European Union Lisbon reform treaty has been rejected.

Tallies are not official, but Mr Ahern says it is clear the No vote is ahead in a vast majority of constituencies.

New poll on Irish EU referendum puts 'yes' camp ahead -- just

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:56:21 -0700

Dublin | June 8

AFP - Ireland is poised to vote narrowly in favour of a key European Union reform treaty in a referendum next week, according to the final opinion poll in the campaign being released Sunday. The Sunday Business Post newspaper/Red C survey gave those backing the Lisbon Treaty a three-point lead on 42 percent, compared to 39 percent for the "no" side.

The knife-edge finding, which suggests rising support for opponents, illustrates the struggle still facing Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen as he bids to secure a "yes" vote in Thursday's referendum, watched closely by fellow EU leaders.

The Lisbon Treaty aims to streamline decision-making in the EU following recent expansion and would create a full-time EU president and foreign policy chief.