The Euro Argument
Fidel Sendagorta
March 28, 2010
We are all in debt with Greece. Thanks to its unfortunate indebtedness, we finally have in Europe a fascinating and substantial debate on the euro and its sustainability. The exhausting and depressing experience of devoting our best energies for ten years to the cause of institutional reforms had left us a bitter aftertaste –and it was definitely not worth it. But now we can forget this bad experience and face a real challenge. The debate on the euro deals with one of the most visible and obvious aspects of the European integration in the daily lives of millions of citizens. And it is about one of the more risky aspects of integration: after all, there are not many current or past currencies not backed by a single State.
Suddenly, the experiment could not be irreversible, in spite of having finally learned to calculate in euros without the tiresome need to convert into old currencies. Some talk, with very bad manners, about showing Greece the door- and then others? Some more well mannered suggest allowing a country out of monetary union for some time, so it can return once it has placed its accounts in order, with the help of “de facto” devaluation. A more imaginative and malicious banker proposes to use the fiscal distinction North / South between stringent and relaxed European countries to be reflected in a division of the euro in two currencies: the “neuro” and the “sudo”(read “pseudo”) . A joke which has the merit of exposing a popular narrative of the dilemmas of the euro based on the timeless fable of the grasshopper and the ant.
Beyond the speculative exuberance of economists, political visions about the future viability of the euro could be classified into the following categories:
First, the apocalyptic puritans such as Krugman, who consider Europeans have to pay dearly now for the original sin of the arrogant over-ambition of the leaders who gave birth to the euro. (more…)
Part III: South of Ibar river
J. Ignacio Torreblanca
March 3, 2010
Today, Wednesday, we have a second chance to talk to the Serb minority in Kosovo and find out how they feel, what their views are, what sort of problems they face. Contrary to the area of North Mitrovica, where the Serbs are the majority and feel relatively safe because their territory is contiguous with Serbia proper, we are now talking with Serbs in Serbs enclaves surrounded by Albanian kosovars. These Serbs see things from the perspective of an isolated minority. They feel squeezed between Pristina and Belgrade, none of them, they feel, really cares about their practical needs.
First, we meet with Goran Avramovic, a Serb journalist running an independent radio for the Serbs in an enclave close to Pristina. He says life here is miserable for Serbs, most of them are just selling their places to Albanians and leaving to Serbia because they cannot make for a decent living. He himself has his family in Serbia, because having a small child down here, he says, is impossible: there is no way to live a normal life when even electricity is not taken for granted. He complains of Serbs having no future: he says Milosevic’s oppression has now been replaced by Pristina oppression. Very few people take their rights seriously: on paper, with the Athisaari plan, they are entitled to many things, but the reality is far away. A simple example: “if this is a multi-ethnic country”, he asks, “how is it that road signs are only in one language?” Asked about the European Union and the role that the European Union could have, he takes us by surprise very aggressively arguing that he does not believe in the EU. “How can we believe in the EU’s role in the region when they can’t even get to agree on whether to recognize Kosovo or not”, he says. He does not care about the European perspective: what he needs, he says, is European standards. The bitterness in his words is evident: he feels like a victim, a loser, and he has to live with a very uncomfortable reality which may well end up defeating him. (more…)
Part II: Crossing the Ibar River
J. Ignacio Torreblanca
March 2, 2010
Monday we drive to Mitrovica in order to have a first hand experience of how is it to live in a divided city. Our guide today, an Albanian, used to live in the North. She had to flee during the war and when the war was over and she returned, her house was occupied by Serbs. For ten years now, she has been unable to return to her flat, and the UN has been of little help. Serbs have concentrated north of the Ibar river and Albanians south of, with very few exceptions. People cross the bridge but the Serbian flag stands up at the other end, reminding people what they are doing. So-called (Serb) “bridge-watchers” closely follow all the traffic. Allegedly, Serbian secret police and security forces are very active in North Mitrovica.
North Mitrovica is the gate to the Serbian dominated part of Kosovo. Serbs living north of Mitrovica can afford the de facto partition: they can freely travel free to Serbia and go on with their normal lives without seeing an Albanian. But for people in Mitrovica, life is difficult: the only hospital is in the south, the university campus is spread across both sides, and sewage and electricity infrastructures cannot be separated. For them, status, i.e. recognition of independence is not a theoretical issue but rather a practical one. Serbs in this area who we have the opportunity to talk to complain of how Belgrade interferes in every decision, not matter how technical, in order to make sure that there is no practical cooperation. So even if the European Commission is offering them 6 million euro for repairing the sewage system, they are not allowed to engage in talks with the EU. (more…)
Part I: Beograd
J. Ignacio Torreblanca
March 2, 2010
This is the first post of a series I am going to be running for the few days on Serbia and Kosovo. I am here invited by the Kosovo and Serbia Open Society Foundations. With me, there are two members of the Spanish Parliament’s Commission for Foreign Affairs, a lawyer and former MP who is specialized in human rights and a journalist.
I had never been in Belgrade before, my experience in the Balkans being reduced to Albania and Macedonia. I was surprised by the beauty of the Danube, but shocked by the run down aspect of Belgrade, which in many senses still looks as a post war city. As I walk down the main pedestrian street to the Fortress, I look at young people and I wonder how much do they do or care about the past, the war, Kosovo and all this.
In the morning after our arrival to Belgrade we are briefed by Peter Sorensen, EU representative, and his assistant on the daily difficulties which the recognition issue bears for the two million of Albanians and Serbs living in Kosovo and how difficult regional cooperation is. (more…)
Obama the European
Jose M. de Areilza
March 1st, 2010
Many commentators are reading the wrong way Obama’s decision not to come to Europe for the EU-USA Summit, which has been postponed. He is accused of being insensitive with Europeans, of snubbing Spain, holder of the rotating EU presidency, or of lacking the sophistication of some of his predecessors, like Bill Clinton or Bush senior, who were true Europeanist. At the same time, these voices explain the shift in world power from the Atlantic to the Pacific and how Europe is shrinking in the new brave world of brave new China and the other emerging powers. And yet, I understand that Obama is doing us Europeans a big favor. He is a true believer in European integration, because he is forcing us to confront the hard realities of the XXIst century, where most challenges come from outside EU borders and the EU has to become a global actor if it wants to survive. Obama will be remembered –or not, it is up to us- as a founding father of European integration, second part!
Revoluciones sin colores
J. Ignacio Torreblanca
8 de febrero, 2010
Las llamadas revoluciones de colores (naranja en Ucrania, de las rosas en Georgia y de los tulipanes en Kirguizistán) abrieron la esperanza de una pronta democratización de la esfera pos-soviética. Pero en unos pocos años, las ilusiones parecen haberse desvanecido y la frustración extendido. Que en Ucrania, el presidente Víctor Yúshenko, que encabezó la revolución naranja, no haya pasado a la segunda vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales, y que el fraudulento candidato que aquella revolución depuso, Víctor Yanukóvich, surja como el ganador de los comicios -según los primeros sondeos- lo dice todo. Lamentablemente, el país parece haberse construido a pulso una penosa imagen de corrupción política, fragilidad institucional y polarización geográfica y étnica entre un este prorruso y un oeste proeuropeo (sin contar la falta de fiabilidad como país de tránsito para el gas de millones de europeos). (more…)