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Source: BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7830498.stm
The Czech EU presidency has apologised for an art installation it commissioned that lampoons national stereotypes.
- The Netherlands is shown as a series of minarets submerged by a flood – a possible reference to the nation’s simmering religious tensions.
Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra apologised directly to Bulgaria, which has formally complained over its depiction as a toilet in the art work.
He said the image, at the European Council building in Brussels, would be removed if Sofia insisted.
David Cerny, the Czech artist behind the work, admits misleading officials over his intentions with the project.
He said he had “wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself”.
The Czech Republic thought it had commissioned work from 27 European artists for the Entropa display, which was installed at the weekend to mark the start of its six-month presidency.
But it turned out the work – an eight-tonne mosaic resembling a snap-out plastic modelling kit – was entirely completed by Mr Cerny and two associates.
‘No censorship’
At the official unveiling of Entropa on Thursday, the artwork “came to life”, emitting noises and flashing lights, to general applause – a sound not often heard in the EU Council building in Brussels, says the BBC’s Oana Lungescu in Brussels.
Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra apologised to anyone who was offended by the work.
“I apologise to Bulgaria and its government if it feels offended, and I think we are certainly ready to engage in a dialogue,” he said, quoted by the AFP news agency.
- “If you stand by your request to remove it,” he told a Bulgarian diplomat at the ceremony, “of course we will certainly do that”.
Sofia summoned the Czech ambassador on Wednesday to complain.
“If you stand by your request to remove it,” he told a Bulgarian diplomat at the ceremony, “of course we will certainly do that”.
But he said the rest of the installation would stay. “We wanted to prove that 20 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, there is no censorship,” said the former Czech dissident.
But he refused to share the platform with the artist, who insisted his piece was in the European tradition of satire, like Monty Python and France’s Les Guignols. He also denied that the Lego entry for Denmark was a representation of one of the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that appeared in 2005.
As well as portraying Bulgaria as a toilet, Entropa depicts Romania as a Dracula theme-park and France as a country on strike.
The Netherlands is shown as a series of minarets submerged by a flood – a possible reference to the nation’s simmering religious tensions.
The Czech EU presidency has apologised for an art installation it commissioned that lampoons national stereotypes.
Germany is shown as a network of motorways vaguely resembling a swastika, while the UK – criticised by some for being one of the EU’s most Eurosceptic members – is absent from Europe altogether.
2020 can be seen as a milestone in the history of environmental protection
By: Daniel Nagel
On the 17th the European Parliament packed its personal Christmas present for the environment: the European climate change package.
Thus, the European Union sealed the first cross-border action plan which not only contains detailed and extensive but also realizable measures. In particular, the aim to curb the emission of greenhouse gas by 20% until 2020 can be seen as a milestone in the history of environmental protection.
Nevertheless, this present faced a lot of criticism during its drafting process.
On the one hand, it has been argued that a reference to the year 2005 could be seen as unfair due to various reasons: If 2005 was fixed as the level of reference, Member States which had already reduced their emissions would be put at a disadvantage as their national level of reference was lower in comparison to others; in contrast, Member States that had continually increased their emissions until 2005 would dispose of a slight advantage due to the fact that a reduction of 20% was easier to realize. Finally, Member States which have tried to put the ideas of the Kyoto Protocol into practice would not be rewarded for their efforts.
On the other hand, it has been alleged that even the realization of the proposed measures of the climate change package would be far too weak to really combat the impact of the climate change.
However, these critical voices have to learn otherwise now. First of all, the final draft of the European climate change package explicitly provides for the striking of an equal balance between the Member States of the European Union (cf. the so-called “effort-sharing” decision). In addition, the draft refers to both the Kyoto Protocol and the year 1990 which in turn renders any fears in respect to a rigid reference to 2005 unfounded. Furthermore, individual goals are set for each Member State, taking the current gross domestic product into account. Thus, a balance can be reached on the basis of objective factors. Moreover, it has been planned from the very beginning to make use of credits from projects in third countries. Thereby, it is possible to reward existing efforts by offsetting emissions. In addition, it has to be noted that the European climate action plan not only presents a new development but also the first binding joint effort to protect the environment. Therefore, the adopted package represents much more than just vague ideals. Finally, the climate change package cannot be seen as a solely selective approach as it not only comprises a vast variety of different measures but also contains a clause that provides for the conclusion of an international agreement.
Hence, even though the climate change package might still be seen as solely a first step to combat climate change, it nevertheless has the capacity to turn into the most important step on the journey to an effective international environmental protection.
By MEP Dr. Richard Corbett. Richard Corbett is a Labour MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber
Most people are able to acknowledge the root cause of the financial crisis – the abject failure of financial markets to self-regulate and an overly laissez-faire regulatory régime. Although a handful of market fundamentalists are still clinging to their belief that the financial markets will be able to sort themselves out, and that the solution is to cut regulation, the reality is that this spectacular market failure has left governments with little choice but to bail out banks, lest the entire financial system collapses – a scenario that, in Yorkshire alone, would instantly put thousands out of work.
But as governments step in, they must take care to coordinate, instead of creating a situation of each country rushing to regulate its own patch without taking into consideration the knock-on effects of unilateral action on other countries. Indeed, we have seen over the last few weeks how uncoordinated action by national authorities can cause as many problems as it solves. Ireland’s unilateral announcement, though seemingly welcome at the time, that it would guarantee all deposits at its six banks led to large commercial deposits being switched from unguaranteed banks in other countries.
Countries must also recognise that a “let’s go it alone” attitude doesn’t make sense for the businesses who will be expected to help re-launch economic growth. In Europe, which has an increasingly integrated financial market, there is a risk that new rafts of separate and diverging national regulations lead to fragmentation of this market, with duplication and extra bureaucracy adding to costs and instability. This would aggravate the current chaos, threaten jobs and trigger rivalries, with governments forced to out-bid each other in order to stem financial flows caused simply by different national approaches, but with the result that the countries whose financial institutions have had their fingers most badly burnt by toxic sub-prime debt will simply not be able to compete.. Co-ordination is desperately needed, rather than “beggar thy neighbour” politics.
We should start by revisiting existing common European rules. For example, earlier this month the European Parliament and EU Finance Ministers debated the proposed “Solvency II” directive, which would toughen up our common market rules on the risk and capital management systems of insurance companies and reduce the risk of insurance company failure. It has been widely welcomed by industry. When finalised, hopefully within the coming months, Solvency II should stand as a model to follow.
The crisis has also demonstrated the value of the single currency to those in the eurozone. Imagine that, instead of the euro, we still had the peseta, the lira, the Irish punt, French francs, etc. It is highly likely that they would have responded differently on exchange markets, and some might have been subject to speculative attack.
Currency market turmoil would have added to the instability, aggravating the crisis. Instead, the bulk of Europe’s common market was able to rely on a stable and strong currency to help weather the storm, with the Financial Times’s former bureau chief Stewart Fleming arguing that “the eurozone is (once again) coping with the turbulence far better that would have been the case if the nation states of the eurozone had still been clinging to their national currencies”.
Meanwhile, Will Hutton has gone further, arguing that joining the euro is the only way Britain can secure the future of its banks and economy. The decision as to when or whether Britain should join the single currency is, of course, highly charged both politically and economically and should not be rushed. But we should not ignore that the pound, with its floating exchange rate, is highly vulnerable to being squeezed between the twin currency giants of the euro and the dollar.
The financial meltdown of the sub-prime crisis is terrifying but, at the same time, an opportunity for us to re-draw the economic rules of the game. Our financial institutions sector must be based on rules which are firmer, fairer and clearer, and, given the level of integration of our financial markets and economic interdependence, it makes sense to do much of this at European level in order to protect each nation from unfair competition. In contrast, it is clear that attempting to deliver a purely national solution is a nonsense - both intellectually and economically.
With more and more media now in the hands of oligarchs and politicians, journalism is becoming increasingly unable to play its role as a watchdog
Published: EuroActive [edited]
Media in both Eastern and Western Europe are starting to lose their credibility, warned journalists and academics at a conference in Sofia last week (5-6 December).
The conference, organised by the Bulgarian edition of Le Monde Diplomatique and dedicated to the development of media in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, gathered journalists well-known in the region alongside prominent media representatives from France and Belgium.
Although the main issue addressed by the conference was the state of Eastern European media, many speakers lamented that falling journalism standards were an unfortunate reality in Western countries too. “Tell me how your press is doing, and I will tell you how your democracy is doing,” declared French journalist Christian Casteran, who from 2003-2005 was chief editor of Regard, a French-language magazine based in Bucharest.
Power and the watchdog
Like almost every other speaker, Casteran underlined the role of the media in keeping political power in check. With more and more media now in the hands of oligarchs and politicians, journalism is becoming increasingly unable to play its role as a watchdog, Casteran warned. Consequently, “communication journalism” is taking over in Romania just as in Western Europe and the US, he said. Readers and viewers are increasingly seen as consumers rather than citizens or formers of public opinion, Casteran observed.
Information ‘turning into noise’
Corina Vassilopoulou of the Greek Sunday paper Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia revealed that circulation of the daily printed press in Greece had fallen from 1.1 million copies in 1989 to 276,770 at present. Greece had thus become the European country with the smallest percentage of newspaper readers, she explained. Greeks also watch TV the longest: an average of 4.5 hours per day.
Analysing TV programmes, she said even top-notch commentary shows were increasingly inviting guests merely so they would argue with one another, reducing information to mere “noise”.
A ‘dumbing-down machine’
According to Judit Morva, a Hungarian professor, press freedom in Hungary has unleashed a “dumbing-down machine” (she used the French term ‘machine abêtissante’), which reflects upon as much as it influences political life in the country. The most characteristic feature of Hungarian society today is the mass depoliticisation of the majority of the population, she argued. Morva also said that as in European countries, advertising benefits tended to motivate editorial choices. Since 1990, the popular press has been gaining in popularity while information and analysis has become less popular, Morva noted.
‘Journalists under threat’
Bulgarian speakers drew attention to violent methods used to silence or discourage journalists who persist in exposing high-level corruption against the advice of their media bosses. Velislava Dareva, a prominent Bulgarian journalist who has suffered repeated physical attacks herself, stated that during the transition years, no less than 70 Bulgarian journalists have been victims of such violence.
“I know what it is like to come back from the dead bathing in my own blood,” Dareva said, expressing her deep pessimism as to journalists’ capacity to confront the impunity of the mafia-oligarchic system behind these attacks. “We lack solidarity. There are a good number of journalistic organisations in Bulgaria that are doing nothing,” she deplored.
‘Too little assistance’
Enes Musabic, a journalist from BHT 1 television in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), said that 13 years after the armed conflict, it was unfortunately not yet possible to speak about a real transition in his country’s media. The main reason for this, as Musabic saw it, was the constant hold of political power over the media. Secondly, ethnic barriers are still there and media are separated along Bosnian, Serb and Croat lines, he explained, adding that thirdly, international support is too weak.
“A number of media analysts consider that the international community has stopped way too early its assistance to media in BiH, and did not finish the work it had started,” said the Sarajevo-based journalist.
‘Lynching atmosphere’
Marina Rakic, a Serbian journalist from the BETA agency, painted a grim picture of the transition of the Serbian press to tabloid form since 2000, a tendency which according to numerous analysts and journalists contributed to creating the atmosphere in which prime minister Zoran Dzindzic was assassinated in March 2003.
“Indeed, the criminal gangs created, via the media, the lynching atmosphere at the time of his assassination,” Rakic stated.
“Very often, it is not clear who the owners of the tabloids are. Often, tabloids are set up only on the occasion of election campaigns and are closed afterwards, as was the case during the 2007-2008 campaign. This confirms the unofficial view that their only existential reason is the elections and the support they give to a certain political line,” the Serbian journalist explained.
‘No rules’
Pavllo Cicko of Fan S. Noli university pointed to the fact that in his country, Albania, “none of the existing newspapers are financially sustainable and all their accounting is fake”. Media owners accept these losses, he said, because they are compensated by other profitable businesses. Newspapers are sold below the cost of production, and as they are subsidised, they cannot be independent, he explained. Because they are forced to serve the interests of politics, media owners expect economic rewards. As he saw it, the main problems faced by the Albanian press is non-observance (or non-existence) of rules and a shortage of good professionals.
International reporting ’sacrificed’
Serge Halimi, chief editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, presented the Bulgarian translation of his book The new watchdogs (Les nouveaux chiens de garde), which was recently re-edited after becoming a bestseller despite lack of publicity in mainstream media and TV. Halimi strongly criticised the media landscape in France and the relationship of French President Nicolas Sarkozy with media tycoons. He also lambasted the tendency of French media to transform politicians into soap opera actors by focusing on their past, their lifestyles and private lives rather than their projects and programmes.
Halimi slammed the growing neglect of international information by French media, claiming that international events are increasingly presented on the basis of emotions rather than knowledge or analysis. He also stated that the number of French correspondents in foreign countries is constantly declining. “We saw the consequences of this attitude during the Kosovo war, we saw it in Iraq, we will see it tomorrow elsewhere,” Halimi warned.
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