Politics and Press

The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities.

Germany

The Catastrophic Near Miss

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Italian prime Minister Romano Prodi called the compromise solution to the European Union’s attempt to settle its endless bureaucratic wrangling over national and European-wide powers a step backwards. Europe, he suggested, had fallen into a situation in which some countries put their own national interests first while others presented those of Europe, whatever that now may mean. There is no question about who he meant by the former. Poland had made its intentions to play the spoiler clear for the last couple of months, and Great Britain, with Tony Blair leading it for the last time, once again in the end played an anti-Europe card which left mainland Europe wondering if the island kingdom really ever considered itself part of Europe.

In the end all 27 countries signed onto a compromise (otherwise there would be no rules of order for the EU today) which many, like former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer, felt “hardly avoided a total catastrophe.” If there was anyone who came out of this event looking good, it was German Kanzlerin Angela Merkel, who piloted the leaking ship of state with more patience and expertise than most would have imagined not long ago, and managed to sail it into some kind of safe harbour for the time being. Unfortunately for the EU, her term of office as president of the EU runs out on July 1, and her successor will have to have the patience of Job and the wisdom of Solomon to get that ship back on a stable course.

The Last Polish Joke Show

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The European Union, currently celebrating its fiftieth birthday, is about to display its farcical administrative side, and simultaneously demonstrate its inability to function if faced with controversial decisions. There are now 27 members, ranging in size and power from France, Germany and the UK to Malta, Latvia and Cyprus, resulting in a linguistic chaos at its meetings in Brussels as the frantic search goes on to find a Finno-Maltese translator. This is farce, although, it’s an incredibly expensive and cumbersome production, but that is nothing compared to the fact that its constitution demands unanimity for anything to be agreed upon. Every country, no matter how small, has the right to veto.

Now, at this year’s EU summit meeting, it is about to face the music for this anachronistic rule that was passed when there was a small core group. All but one of the 27 nations is in total agreement that something must be done about the way that the number of votes has been assigned to each country. In Nice in 2000, after an all night session, bleary-eyed representatives passed a temporary measure on vote distribution that resulted in the still-prevailing situation in which the largest financial contributor to the EU. Germany, with a population of 85 million, received 29 voting representatives while Poland, the largest recipient of EU funds with a population of 38 million, received 27. Afterwards, the sleep-deprived voters could scarcely remember why they had ever reached such a strange result other than that it was the only way they could get unanimity.

Now the time has finally come to agree to a constitution that distributes the votes more reasonably, and even the UK and Malta agree that a referendum to that effect must be approved at the EU summit. But Poland doesn’t and the Polish Prime Minister, Lech Kaczynski, has ignored personally-delivered lectures by the prime ministers of France, Spain, the Czech Republic, and Germany in the last week and continues to say that he will not compromise but will veto. German analysts speculate this is because Poland does not want Germany to have the honour of solving the vote-distribution problem of the EU during its term as President. Instead Kaczynsky has proposed a reckoning by what he calls “rectangular roots” that has even mathematicians struggling for comprehension.

The Germans have lost their sense of humour on this latest example of odd behaviour by the reigning Polish government. The liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung finished its editorial on the topic as follows: “If Europe should really slide into the greatest crisis imaginable after the failure of its constitutional referendum, then the Germany may be accused of having underestimated the size of Polish ignorance of Europe for months on end. But Poland itself will bear responsibility on its own for everything else. It is going to have to pay a price for that.” This is not the way the German liberal press normally talks about Poland, and it does not bode well for future Polish-German relations.

Horror Show on the Streets

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During the soccer world championships a year ago in Germany, there was general euphoria and pride among the Germans that the atmosphere had been so serene and that there was almost no sign of the hooliganism that has plagued – some would say ruined – the European national sport in the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. The German police made a great and ultimately successful effort to keep the usual British suspect-thugs from entering Germany or at least from getting into the stadiums. But there was one aspect of the law and order campaign that continues to be very disturbing – people of colour, and other obvious outsiders, whether athletes or fans, were advised not to stray far from secure areas in former East German cities like Leipzig, where the only only venue in the former DDR was located. The reason was clear for anyone used to life in West and East Germany – the Neo-Nazis had strongholds in parts of East Germany that were unimaginable in western cities like Munich, where one would be stunned to see Neo-Nazis, outfitted in their military paraphernalia, unless they were surrounded by Munich police who were keeping angry protesters away from them.
That this is not the case in eastern Germany was made grotesquely clear on the weekend in Halberstadt, a small city in Sachsen-Anhalt that is considered to be a centre of Neo-Nazi strength, 100 kilometers northwest of Leipzig. The state theatre there put on a performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Friday evening. At 3:00 on Saturday morning, 14 members of the ensemble, on their way home from the post-premiere party, were attacked on the main street of the city by a drunken horde of Neo-Nazis. Five musicians, actors and dancers were so badly beaten that, with broken bones and severe bruises, they ended up in the hospital. One actor, who was wearing a Mohawk hair cut because of his theatre role, had his nose broken. According to eyewitness accounts, police did eventually show up at the scene of the crime, but did little to stop it. Eventually one 22-year old with a record of violent assaults and wearing the traditional bomber jacket, was first arrested and then set free.
No motive could be found other than that the theatre group seemed to be having too good a time, and perhaps the mob didn’t like the Mohawk because they felt it mocked them. The scandal was large enough for the premier of Sachsen-Anhalt to join the chorus of critics of the police, and the suspect was arrested again on Sunday evening, admitted his part in the beatings, but wouldn’t identify any colleagues. As it turned out, in April a young lad wearing a bomber jacket had attacked a young girl sitting in a bus on her way home from a music lesson. Well he did not actually attack the girl, but rather her cello, which he proceeded to smash in a thousand pieces. Now that there are virtually no Jews left in this part of Germany, it seems that anybody considered different – Africans, Turks, gays, actors, artists, cellos – can be openly attacked and the police don’t seem to want to do much about it.

Attack on the Mackenzie Brothers

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An email from a Prague-based American journalist has raised several
issues regarding the Mackenzie Brothers comments in their blog posting, “The New Europe takes Shape”

That email is below – followed by the Mackenzie Brother’s response.

“Who the hell are the Mackenzie Brothers? Make sure someone buys them a spell checker for Christmas, and a German-English dictionary on their name day, would ya? I guess I can overlook the typos and
misspellings, but tell them that the German word “Tone” means “tone,”
not “notes,” which is “notizen.” What Dummkopfs. And when they write
this:

“Putin and Merkel speak German together and don’t need an interpreter.
In the past they have gotten along much better than any important
European leader…”

Which makes me wonder how much they’re following European politics.
For one thing, Merkel and Putin have never gotten along well at all.
And the second statement, that they got along more than any other
European leaders is really silly. I mean, Schroeder and Putin had to
break off their talks once every hour so they could go bang each
other. Schroeder and Chirac were nearly as close. And Blair got along
very, very well with Berlusconi; and, Silvio and Putin continue to be
incredibly close. All of those relationships are far, far closer than
the very cold connection that Merkel and Putin have.”

Returning from their annual pilgrimage to Munich’s Biergartens,
the Mackenzie Brothers respond:

“Fortunately the Mackenzies spent their youths in Bavarian lumber
camps, but, ok let’s see what the Cassell’s dictionary lists under Ton
(plural Töne, there is no German word Tone – or Dummkopfs). Ah, hah –
“Sound”, “note”, now there’s a surprise. However I’m glad your pal
points out that the correct back translation of “notes” would be
“Notizen (or rather notizen)”. This reminds me of the immortal Sarah
Bink’s translation of Heine’s Lorelei “und ruhig fliesst der Rhein” –
“and quietly flows the clean”. As for the second part, it would have
been more compelling if he had quoted the entire sentence, not just
the first half, which says something completely different from what he
seems to think it says. Is this the level of analysts working in the
Prague organization or doesn’t he know English or German?

In any case this blog of the Mackenzies has also drawn some sparkling
criticism, like the following;

Yes Mackenzies, only in France is there a monastery for water skiing
and a monastery for virtue. But don’t worry, it’s not just France.
The whole world’s gone to hell since the Dodgers left Brooklyn.

Preacher Roe

Such commentary does keep us on our toes and my brother Doug promises
to make a last minute spell check before pushing that old submit
button.”

The New Europe Takes Shape

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The photo chosen to dominate the first page of the weekend edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung speaks volumes. Beneath a blazing headline – “Scharfe Töne zwischen Merkel und Putin (Sharp notes between Merkel and Putin)” – is a satisfied-looking couple. They are about the same height, the woman appears friendly and relatively self-assured, but she looks rather frumpy and certainly does not exude power. The man next to her, however, does. He is dressed in a perfect suit, his legs spread apart in the pose of a colossus, his eyes hidden by mysterious sunglasses, and behind him, in what the Süddeutsche calls “a beloved backdrop”, the Volga River flows down to the sea. We are in Samara, until 1942 the centre of German-Russia where the Volga Germans had their own republic in the Soviet Union. The Russians, represented by Wladimir Putin, are meeting with the European Union and his partner is German Kanzlerin Angela Merkel.
Putin and Merkel speak German together and don’t need an interpreter. In the past they have gotten along much better than any important European leader other than Tony Blair has been able to get along with George Bush. But the constellation of the new Europe, with Russia taking on an increadingly central and potentially threatening role as keeper of the natural resources that Europe so desperately needs, is no longer as comfortable as it was when Putin came to power seven years ago. The alpha male of Europe, with its black-belt leader, has concluded that it has reached the point in its return to economic stability where it can display its teeth and claws for the perusal of its much smaller European neighbours. So far it has been the smallest of them – Georgia, Latvia and especially Estonia – which have gotten the clearest signals that the wolf has left its lair, but Germany, the only other European power that could seriously imagine itself in the alpha male role, learned its lesson sixty years ago and is unlikely to put a male with sunglasses back in power. Tony Blair’s farcical attempt to fill the position by acting as Bush’s lackey in Iraq – Germany. France and Canada said no thanks – only confirmed the world view that the illusion of former power cripples the UK in all its foreign endeavours. The next in line, Nicolas Sarkozy, upon becoming French President said he was going to meditate in a monestary for a few days. He was then caught by the press vacationing on a yacht belonging to a millionaire friend near Malta, as the French suburbs once again erupted in violent protest Cynics are waiting with baited breath for the results of his first meeting with Putin, which will occur in June in Baltic Germany at the annual meeting of the eight leading industrial powers. No one is betting that the French will impress Russia with their latest entry into the Judo ring, where Putin holds that black belt.

Ukraine 1 Russia 0

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In Canada the only sport that counts is hockey, in the USA it is (increasingly) American football, but in Europe it is beyond a doubt, the other kind of football, actually played with the feet, which Americans call soccer. It is also the only sport taken seriously almost everywhere, although baseball has real strength in Latin America and Japan, and basketball has taken on an increasingly international flair. But there is no doubt that the major international soccer tournaments, along with the Olympics, are the most widely followed sports event, and that world and European soccer championships have an impassioned audience with real political clout in both the positive and negative sense. Thus the awarding of venues for the Olympics, the world soccer championships and the European soccer championships, all of which take place every fourth year, is a major economic, political and prestige event. Some of the decisions of late have been surprising and controversial. Beijing and Vancouver were awarded the next 2 Olympic venues after lengthy and expensive presentations. For China next summer’s Olympics are an event of the utmost political importance and a chance to display its economic, industrial and athletic power to the world. Last summer’s world soccer championship in Germany had the kind of success that China is hoping for. South Africa is the host of the next one, and billions of fans are hoping that the most prospering country in Africa will be able to provide the infrastructure and the splendidly serene month-long atmosphere that characterized the tournament in Germany.
The European soccer championships have traditionally been held in the large European soccer powerhouse countries, that were already equipped with more than adequate venues – Italy, Spain, Germany, the UK. On occasion, smaller soccer countries – the Netherlands and Belgium, for instance – would jointly sponsor the tournament. Since Italy, the reigning world champion, had applied to host the next available games, it was assumed that they were a shoo-in. But it didn’t happen that way. Heavily tarnished by proof of corruption, fixing and hooligan violence in the Italian league, the world champion was rejected by the venue panel, and suddenly a most unlikely joint partnership was named – Poland and Ukraine. The former is in the EU, a member of NATO, a neighbour of Germany, and a functioning, if somewhat erratic, democracy. The latter is not wanted in the EU, nor in NATO, shares a relatively short border with Poland and a very large one with Russia, and its attempts at democracy make operetta plots seem realistic. Its greatest fear is that the eastward expansion of the EU will draw down a new kind of iron curtain at the Ukrainian border and its dependance on its immense eastern neighbour will become overwhelming.
Now it seems that Ukraine had first approached Russia with the idea of a joint hosting proposal and this was summarily, and somehat arrogantly rejected by Moscow, who pointed out that they could do this on their own. Since Ukraine has a better soccer team than Russia in any case, it seems only appropriate that they have won this one in the backrooms of soccer power. Instead of staging an event that would inevitably have suggested to Europe that Russia and Ukraine are natural allies, Russian arrogance has given Ukraine the chance to convince Europe that its natural place in the world is west of the EU curtain, in the same general area, as its co-host, Slavic Poland. The announcement led to a universal cheer in Ukraine, welding together, for the only time in memory, the bitter enemies of eastern and western Ukraine. It also seems very likely that the games themselves will lead to a sense of unityin Ukraine that has been dramatically missing since 1990. An own-goal by Russia may save the day.

Germany and Poland 18 years later

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Germany beat Poland in the final of the world championship in handball in Köln on the weekend. Through a sport played almost exclusively in Europe, the unexpected teams in the final (France, Spain and Croatia were favoured, Denmark won the bronze medal) offered an opportunity to take a look at relations between the historically uneasy neighbours 18 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. for many, the sight was not very satisfying and there was a nervous feeling that the ongoing animosity between the rich German Wessis and the poor Slavic Ossis was indicative of the general difficulty the EU is having in giving the impression of a united entity.
Bundespräsident Köhler and Polish President Lech Kaczynski sat next to each other, even exchanged national shawls, but the photos show two uneasy, even unhappyfaces, and the Polish president was given an unfriendly welcome by the mainly German fans. This could be interpreted as just part of the increasingly unpleasant sporting scene in Europe, but it goes deeper than that. The Poles seem incapable of fogetting what happened 60 years ago; the Germans seem incapable of understanding why the Poles let their contemporary politics with regard to Germany revolve so steadily around that memory. Certainly there are leading figures on both sides who would like nothing better than to get these two large nations to work together and form transnational centres along their boundaries, as has happened in Malmö/Copenhagen. But there is little sign of this, and the bickering and irritations dominate a relationship that seemed very promising not so long ago.

German Realpolitik Redux

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An earlier posting to this blog reviewed the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German-Lebanese who was kidnapped by CIA agents and spirited off to Syria for five month interrogation at the end of which the CIA had learned that he had been a salesman in Bavaria – whoops. Munich prosecutors then indicted the CIA operatives and Munich’s liberal paper the Sueddeutsche Zeitung commented, “The great ally is not allowed to simply send its thugs out into Europe’s streets.”

Our friends the MacKenzie brothers commented that the German Foreign Minister was unlikely to press the issue with his American counterpart since realpolitik bothers the Germans – a view which seemed right to this writer.

In today’s Washington Post, Craig Whitlock provides a different slant that indicates that realpolitik might just be alive and well in certain circles within Germany. It turns out that German intelligence agents were directly involved in the rendition of another German citizen, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who had been involved in the Hamburg cell that planned the 9/11 attack. He is being held in Syria and the German role has created a political, if not moral, dilemma for a country that publicly tends to resist realpolitik while privately behaving like one of the boys.

Bush and the Germans; Rendition and Iraq

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The German judiciary is looking to indict several CIA operatives for their kidnapping of a German-Lebanese citizen suspected of terrorist activities. He was sent to a prison in Afghanistan where he was questioned and – according to him tortured – for five months before being told that “whoops – we got the wrong guy” and sent home.

There are some interesting insights into the CIA program and the run-up to the Iraq invasion in an interview of the former chief of the CIA’s Europe Division (Tyler Drumheller) on the website of the German news weekly, Der Spiegel. Drumheller is the author of On the Brink, a memoir of his time in the CIA. A few quotes from the interview are below. The full interview can be read here.

Drumheller: It was Vice President Dick Cheney who talked about the “dark side” we have to turn on. When he spoke those words, he was articulating a policy that amounted to “go out and get them.” His remarks were evidence of the underlying approach of the administration, which was basically to turn the military and the agency loose and let them pay for the consequences of any unfortunate — or illegal — occurrences.

Drumheller: …I once had to brief Condoleezza Rice on a rendition operation, and her chief concern was not whether it was the right thing to do, but what the president would think about it. …

SPIEGEL: One of the crucial bits of information the Bush administration used to justify the invasion was the supposed existence of mobile biological weapons laboratories. …

Drumheller: … Curveball was an Iraqi who claimed to be an engineer working on the biological weapons program. … Curveball was a sort of clever fellow who carried on about his story and kept everybody pretty well convinced for a long time. … The administration wanted to make the case for war with Iraq. They needed a tangible thing, they needed the German stuff. They couldn’t go to war based just on the fact that they wanted to change the Middle East. They needed to have something threatening to which they were reacting.

SPIEGEL: …it turned out to be the centerpiece in Powell’s presentation — and nobody had told him about the doubts.

Drumheller: I turned on the TV in my office, and there it was. So the first thing I thought, having worked in the government all my life, was that we probably gave Powell the wrong speech.


Russia, Germany, energy

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If you live east of Estonia, Poland, Rumania and Bulgaria, a new kind of iron curtain went up on your borders on January 1, 2007. Bulgaria and Rumania joined the European Union, despite many doubts in western Europe about the real state of their economies and of their willingness to fight corruption. Suddenly citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were the frontuer states on the wrong side of the borderless united Europe. There are many questions about just how united this Europe is, but one thing is sure. If you have a passport from the new states carved out of the Soviet Union (with the exception of the three small Baltic states), you have been excluded from the promised land, and will face daunting bureaucratic hurdles to even enter it temporarily.
But there is something that comes out of Russia, passes through Belarus or Ukraine, and becomes essential when it reaches the European Union – natural gas delivered from Russian wells through Russian-controlled pipelines . It may have seemed easy to naively dismiss Russia as a chaotic paper dragon not so long ago, albeit with nuclear weapons, but Europe is busy learning that it better think twice before putting that in the context of the energy that keeps houses warm in the winter. Last year, Germany was like Siberia for months, and this year Russia has reminded everyone that it controls the switches that determine the price the customer has to pay to keep cozy. Both Belarus and Ukraine thought they had privileged discount positions because of the Slavic brotherhood, but this year they have both learned what the price is for the special deal. And Germany and its smaller neighbours wonder when it might be their turn to discover just what it means to be competely dependant on Russian pricing, good will, and reliability.