MSC XLVI: Surprise – More of the Same
Hopeful signs? Well, no: More of the same!
With German media still breathlessly speculating what the ’surpise’ appearance by Iranian FM Mottakki at the Munich Security Conference would mean for the ongoing nuclear stalemate, reactions from participants on the ground in Munich yesterday have been less than enthusiastic, if not outright disappoined and even hostile.
German FM Westerwelle, in his keynote address on Saturday morning, was blunt in his skepticism towards Iranian ‘overtures’ on the nuclear issue. He demanded clear, specific and binding assurances towards the IAEA instead of what he described as ‘more of the same’ in terms of some vage phrases from the Iranian regime. Even Russian FM Lawrov suggested Russian disappointment with Mottakki’s remarks at a late-night session hours earlier local time.
Later that afternoon, U.S. Senator Lieberman – regular attendee of that conference – went much further and implied that the ‘military option’ was not just laying somewhere in the background of the diplomatic table, but very much front and center. No surprise, then, that Deputy Israeli FM Ayalon concurred.
The conference winds down this morning local time with panels on NATO strategy and the situation in Afghanistan.
www.securityconference.de
MSC XLVI: China Speaks
“A Changing China in a Changing World”:
You’ll find the text of Chinese FM Jeichi Yang’s Opening Speech at the annual Munich Security Conference, which is taking place this weekend, here:
http://www.securityconference.de/Jiechi-Yang.445.0.html?&L=0
MSC XLVI
It’s that first weekend in February, again, when the transatlantic foreign and security ‘establishment’ meets at the Munich Security Conference. The conference has been expanding its thematical scope and geographical range over the last couple of years. Just two hours ago, for example, the Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi gave the first keynote address, a polite but nevertheless vigorous defense of his country’s political and economic system. His message in a nutshell: Respect what we’ve achieved so far – and don’t meddle in our internal affairs!
Late breaking: Iranian Foreign Minister Manutschehr Mottakki is expected tonight for a discussion with Sweden’s FM Carl Bildt. Guess what they’ll be talking about…?
You can follow the conference here:
www.securityconference.de
From A to F
From A = 1 = excellent to F = 5 = Failed and even some ‘incompletes’: That’s the range of grades the “Black-Yellow” coalition, as it has been dubbed by the German MSM, is getting as it’s passed Day 101 in office.
To be sure: The smaller coalition partner, Foreign Minister Westerwelle’s FDP party, is suffering from an unhealthy dose of absurdly high expectations they themselves raised during last summer’s federal election campaign. Some additional early missteps by leading FDP figures, coupled with inexperience after 11 years being out of power nationally, just adds to a growing sense of disenchantment among voters. At least that’s what current polls seem to be suggesting.
The German MSM – left-of-center if not squarely on the political left – quite happily helps fostering that sense of unease with the party of Mr Westerwelle.
Next test: May 9, when the most populous German state – North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) – holds elections for its legislature. Right now, state polling indicates a possible loss for the sitting CDU-FDP government led by State Premier Juergen Ruettgers. Polling, polling! But it’s still four months to go.
The Week in Preview: 100 Days of Merkel II
Watch out for the (largely deeply skeptical with regard to both performance and results) reviews in the German media next week: On Friday, February 5, Chancellor Merkel’s second cabinet, formed by her own Christian-Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister Christian-Social Union (CSU) and the Free Democrats (FDP) led by Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor Guido Westerwelle will mark its 100th day in office.
And quite a 100 days these were:
On Day 28, her new Defense Minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, went before parliament and announced his dismissal of the German Bundeswehr chief of staff, General Wolfgang Schneiderhahn, and the State Secretay in the Defense Ministry, Peter Wichert, over their role in allegedly withholding key information surrounding the deadly Kundus attack by German forces in northern Afghanistan in early September of 2009.
On Day 29, her first cabinet member, Franz-Josef Jung, resigned as Labor Minister over his role in making allegedly misleading statements on that attack while he was still serving as Defense Minister. Prompting a change in cabinet posts, that same day 31-year-old upstart Hessen MP Kristina Koehler assumed the Ministry of Family, Seniors, Women and Youth and will soon marry Ole Schroeder, Junior Minister in the Department of the Interior.
On Day 48, a parliamentary investigation into the Kundus attack began, with opposition parties and left-of-center media outlets now sharpening their attacks on zu Guttenberg and his statements about an official NATO report in early November as well as his dismissal of top-brass Schneiderhahn and Wichert.
On Day 52, the Bundesrat, upper house of parliament, approved a number of tax cuts and increases in family and child subsidies, over strenous objections by several state governments including some from her own party, not to mention scathing criticism by both opposition parties and a majority of commentators
On Day 82, her Finance Minister and fixture of German politics since the mid-1980s, Wolfgang Schaeuble, introduced the 2010 budget to the Bundestag, having to deal with the largest annual budget deficit (almost €100 billion) in German post-war history. His not so veiled ‘promise’: There are some difficult budgetary decision to come in the next couple of years, given the new balanced budget requirement inserted into the German constitution just two years ago.
So look out for the next 100 days!
Happy New Year…almost….
As is custom at this time of year -
and we’re almost there -
Happy New Year! (almost)
Lisbon Day
What began with the solem ‘Declaration of Laeken’, issued by EU heads of state and government at their December 2001 European Council;
was followed by the Constitutional Convention of EU and national parliamentarians in 2002 and 2003;
was finalized in the ‘Treaty on a Constitution for Europe”, signed by EU leaders in October 2004;
was rejected during its ratification process first by the French and then the Dutch in late May 2005;
was subsequently suspended at the June 2005 European Council to be followed by a ‘reflective phase’;
was jumpstarted again with the Berlin Declaration on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome in March 2007,
was carefully compromised in dramatic late-night negotiations at the June 2007 European Council, when the Kaczynski brothers had their moment of fame on the European stage;
was finalized and signed in Lisbon in December 2007;
was rejected again by the Irish people in a June 2008 referendum;
was adjusted and compromised and put together like Humpy Dumpty hadn’t even dreamt of;
was approved by the German Constitutional Court in a landmark decision on June 30, 2009;
was approved by the Irish a second referendum on October 2, 2009;
was formally and finally ratified by the Czech Republic in November 2009 -
Is from this day on the Law of the EU: The Treaty of Lisbon becomes law as of today, December 1, 2009.
Van Rompuy and Ashton: WHO?
So here they are: Herman van Rompuy and Baroness Catherine Ashton. The Belgian Prime Minister has been selected by EU heads of state and government, by unanimous consent, to serve as the new president of the European Council of those same heads of state and government for a two and a half year term. The British Labour politician and current EU trade commissioner has been chosen as EU’s new High Representative on Foreign Affairs.
WHO? – Already, many TV pundits and commentators are wondering: WHO?
To begin with, it’s actually no surprise that those two ‘no names’ of global affairs ended up getting these two new jobs installed by the Lisbon Treaty. They perfectly reflect the fundamental nature of the EU’s ‘double identity’, being a hybrid of 27 sovereign states coming together and forming a new, transnational entity in-between the well-known categories of international relations and international law.
Van Rompuy, as a Belgian ‘federal’ politican from a country whose ‘national identity’ between ever-quarreling factions of French and Flemish speakers may only rest with its Royal family, epitomizes that double identity. His first press conference showed his fluency in French, Dutch (Flemish), and of course English, restating general (and obvious) principles of intra-EU cooperation.
British PM Gordon Brown may congratulate himself as well – he didn’t succeed in pushing trough Tony Blair as council president (an unlikely idea from start), but can tout his fellow Labour colleague Baroness Ashton in the newly revamped and more powerful office of EU Foreign Chief.
And Angela Merkel? What’s in her in all of this, so to speak? – My guess: She is doing just fine with this outcome. After all, she remains one of the major power brokers among the EU 27, no matter who serves in what EU position. Keeping the EU on track after the long and exhausting ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty, now tackling the real issues – the continuing fallout from the global financial crisis, climate change, energy, trade and development -, has been and will continue to be at the heart of her European approach, with herself in the driver’s seat, to be sure. All roger with Angie.
“We’re flooding now!”
November 9, 1989, around 10pm CET: After that famous mumbling by East German Politbureau member Guenther Schabowski concerning the new travel law at a press conference in East Berlin at 7pm, dozens of people are allowed to cross into West Berlin. Still, Eastern border guards still regard them as having ‘illegally’ left the GDR, thus unable to return without a special permit.
10:40 pm: ARD TV (Channel 1) anchor Hann-Joachim Friedrichs declares on the late night news: “The gate is open!” Well, it isn’t, but now, thousands and thousands of East Berliners are streaming towards those (not yet open) gates.
11pm: Faced with swelling crowds of people demanding to cross into West Berlin, Eastern border guards are frantically trying to get instructions from their superiors. In vain. Nobody seems to know what the new travel law as reported in the media and announced hours earlier by Comrade Schabowski really means.
11:3opm, Bornholmer Strasse crossing: “We’re flooding now!” The gates are opened. The wall’s no more.
Just another Day
/ Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast. /
What else to say, or to quote? On a day like this?
Lest we forget – not “just” November 9, 1989,
but also November 9, 1938,
and November 9, 1918.
