One would, apparently, think that the European Union is in dire straits, if one reads the July 12 issue of Time, or Newsweek of the same date, or The American Interest of July and August, although I have not read them myself. I am also told that eight eminent essayists, four American and four European, none of them Europhobic, believe that the decline of the European Union, in political and economic terms, is probably irreversible. I don't agree.
Europeans have struggled, ever since the storming of the Bastille, to bring social justice into their lives, and they are stiill trying. I know we all complain about how unequal our lives are, but, in Europe, we subordinate ourselves to a standard which requires that the needs of the unfortunate have a priority. That is not the case in America. President Obama, some would say, has squandered his ability for further change, by devoting too much of his resources to pass legislation which will provide some form of health insurance for every American, while vested interests fought, with hundreds of millions of dollars, to defeat his proposed legislation, just as they did with his plans to restrain Wall Street. These vested interests were shared by many successful Americans who are distressed at the erosion of their privileges, and the increases in their taxes.
It is suggested that Europeans do not even believe in the model that they are trying to build, and I can understand why outsiders should say what they do. Who can forget the recent demonstrations about the new unfair financial burdens, and the threats to withhold labour. Where are they now? The Spanish premier has converted to the need for sackclth and ashes, and Greece is, I understand, buckling down to the financial concessions which we must all make. These are not the actions of people who have lost their way. We may have wandered, but we are coming back to what has been our purpose as Europeans for many years; a process which is particularly difficult for us, because we all started from different levels of wealth and maturity, of language and tradition, of antagonisms which have spanned the centuries.
Some say we should be more, because we have given so much in the past, but we were never expected to give it as a continental force. People have to be patient with us, but, if I am right, then I think Europe's capacity to demonstrate to the rest of the world how people can learn to live with each other's idiosyncracies and weaknesses, will make it all worthwhile.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Our little blue flowers
Maura and I like to walk down Station Road, to the traffic circle, take a left and walk along Strand Road to Portmarnock Village.
Before you reach the traffic circle, but after you have passed the last of the apartment blocks, there is a rough area beside the sidewalk, comprising part hedge, part weeds, and thick overgrown grass, but there is something else. In the Spring there is a little blue flower, composed of four petals forming a cup, at the end of a long stem; quite content to enjoy the sunshine and the nutrients it requires, but making no demands on its neighbours, nor on passers by. Maura and I pick a few, and bring them home to decorate our table, where they enchant us with their beauty and simplicity. There are others, like the small yellow flowers which line the pathway down to the beach.
Sometimes I think of the flowers uniquely, and then, at other times, I think of them as part of Nature, and of the way in which they play their part unobtrusively, in harmony with the oceans, the mountains..........
Before you reach the traffic circle, but after you have passed the last of the apartment blocks, there is a rough area beside the sidewalk, comprising part hedge, part weeds, and thick overgrown grass, but there is something else. In the Spring there is a little blue flower, composed of four petals forming a cup, at the end of a long stem; quite content to enjoy the sunshine and the nutrients it requires, but making no demands on its neighbours, nor on passers by. Maura and I pick a few, and bring them home to decorate our table, where they enchant us with their beauty and simplicity. There are others, like the small yellow flowers which line the pathway down to the beach.
Sometimes I think of the flowers uniquely, and then, at other times, I think of them as part of Nature, and of the way in which they play their part unobtrusively, in harmony with the oceans, the mountains..........
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Ethnic cleansing
On the eleventh of July, 1995, the Bosnian, and Moslem, town of Srebrenica, fell to the Serbian forces of general Mladic, although it had been taken under its protection by the United Nations. During the next few days eight thousand Moslem men and boys were murdered. This is ethnic cleansing at its most evil. Don't bother killing the women and girls, they will dry up and die in their turn, without men to help them procreate their kind.
The members of the European Union, and others, have kept after the Serbian authorities to surrender general Mladic, who lives within its control, to the Court of International Justice in the Hague, but they have not as yet complied.
The European Union is at present conducting negotiations with the Serbian Government, providing for it to enter the Union. I believe that if the European Union admits Serbia without general Mladic being brought to justice, then its integrity will be fatally compromised.
There is another situation, which also has racial and religious aspects: the application of the Republic of Turkey. There is substantial opposition to its entry, at least partly because of its Moslem religion, and customs, including the way women dress. Europe is not a club, it is an entity, which has accepted all manner of outsiders, many uninvited, and has thrived subsequently, for whatever reason. I do not believe Europe will fulfill its potential, nor will any other major nation, which insists on depriving some of its subjects of their rights because of their religion, the way they dress, their customs, or the colour of their skin.
The members of the European Union, and others, have kept after the Serbian authorities to surrender general Mladic, who lives within its control, to the Court of International Justice in the Hague, but they have not as yet complied.
The European Union is at present conducting negotiations with the Serbian Government, providing for it to enter the Union. I believe that if the European Union admits Serbia without general Mladic being brought to justice, then its integrity will be fatally compromised.
There is another situation, which also has racial and religious aspects: the application of the Republic of Turkey. There is substantial opposition to its entry, at least partly because of its Moslem religion, and customs, including the way women dress. Europe is not a club, it is an entity, which has accepted all manner of outsiders, many uninvited, and has thrived subsequently, for whatever reason. I do not believe Europe will fulfill its potential, nor will any other major nation, which insists on depriving some of its subjects of their rights because of their religion, the way they dress, their customs, or the colour of their skin.
Different Economic Attitudes
President Obama is trying to get America to accept additional spending to encourage an insipid economic upturn, while the Congress, and the Senate in particular,is more inetrested in minimising what they see as alarming, and unnecessary, national deficits. The worry is that there will be a re-run of 1937, when budget tightening extended the depresion until the war brought an explosion of economic activity. In Europe, the consensus is clearly with those who favour fiscal conservatism. Who is right? Who, in his right mind, would want to be responsible for deciding which route to take?
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Lunch in Dublin
Maura drove out to Meath on Thursday to meet friends and have lunch at the Ashbourne House, so I decided I would go into Dublin, take care of some printing, and have lunch.
We still go in for lunch regularly, but while we used drive in, and park close to where we ate, we take the train now. Dublin traffic has become like any other major city, while it was quite manageable when we returned from the States. The bar at the back of the Westbury Hotel was a favourite, as was the bar on the Kildare Street side of the Shelbourne, the one with all the political cartoons. The Westbury fell out of favour, not when they moved away from the old bar, but when the staff were replaced by up-market types who favoured continental accents. Maura suggested I consider eating there, but I found that the most recent incarnation had been replaced, by one which emphasised stainless steel and glass, and which held no attraction for me. I decided I would try the Shelbourne.
Some aspects of the Shelbourne, such as the very welcoming lounge, have not changed, since I interviewed there fifty years ago for a job with Carroll's, the tobacco company, although in most respects it has put on all the trappings of an up-market hotel. The bar we liked has gone, and the dining-room, where I remember having the nicest commercial breakfast I ever enjoyed. The bar and the dining-romm have become one large bar/dining-room, partly furnished with tables and otherwise with little marble-islands with high stools. I chose to sit on one of the stools, close to the large window of the old dining-romm, looking out on the side-walk, the entrance, and across the road to Stephens Green.
Stephens Green is one of the nicest centre-city squares I can remember seeing in a major city. It has an intimacy, which always gives me the feeling that I am one of these people, who are bustling all around me; and when I go into the park, I invariably have the impression that everyone is happy, or at least that they have pushed their cares aside temporarily. As I sat there, I studied the people passing, or coming and going from the hotel, and I felt good.
The Shelbourne, in many ways, is not really different from the Westbury, sharing some of its upmarket characteristics, but the service is discrete, caring, but with a certain reserve, which I like. I suppose that, for me at least, the Shelbourne will always be a special place.
We still go in for lunch regularly, but while we used drive in, and park close to where we ate, we take the train now. Dublin traffic has become like any other major city, while it was quite manageable when we returned from the States. The bar at the back of the Westbury Hotel was a favourite, as was the bar on the Kildare Street side of the Shelbourne, the one with all the political cartoons. The Westbury fell out of favour, not when they moved away from the old bar, but when the staff were replaced by up-market types who favoured continental accents. Maura suggested I consider eating there, but I found that the most recent incarnation had been replaced, by one which emphasised stainless steel and glass, and which held no attraction for me. I decided I would try the Shelbourne.
Some aspects of the Shelbourne, such as the very welcoming lounge, have not changed, since I interviewed there fifty years ago for a job with Carroll's, the tobacco company, although in most respects it has put on all the trappings of an up-market hotel. The bar we liked has gone, and the dining-room, where I remember having the nicest commercial breakfast I ever enjoyed. The bar and the dining-romm have become one large bar/dining-room, partly furnished with tables and otherwise with little marble-islands with high stools. I chose to sit on one of the stools, close to the large window of the old dining-romm, looking out on the side-walk, the entrance, and across the road to Stephens Green.
Stephens Green is one of the nicest centre-city squares I can remember seeing in a major city. It has an intimacy, which always gives me the feeling that I am one of these people, who are bustling all around me; and when I go into the park, I invariably have the impression that everyone is happy, or at least that they have pushed their cares aside temporarily. As I sat there, I studied the people passing, or coming and going from the hotel, and I felt good.
The Shelbourne, in many ways, is not really different from the Westbury, sharing some of its upmarket characteristics, but the service is discrete, caring, but with a certain reserve, which I like. I suppose that, for me at least, the Shelbourne will always be a special place.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
George Soros and the European Union
Mr. Soros has recently denounced the European Union commitment to budgetary restraint as the wrong policy for the present stage of the recovery of the world financial system: he suggests the need is not restraint, but the provision of incentives to stimulate spending, as a prerequisite to growth in employment, and the avoidance of financial stagnation similar to what Japan experienced throughout the 1990's.
The vision of Konrad Adenauer, Maurice Schumann, Jean Monnet, and others, planted the seed which germinated, and grew, over the last half-century into the European Union we know. The wealthy nations shared with those who were poor, and countries, such as Ireland, blossomed as I never expected would happen in my lifetime.
The founders passed on, as did every other adult who shivered every time they thought of the horrors they had lived through between 1939 and 1945. They were replaced, first by those who appreciated the change from the slim finances of their childhood, and then by those who knew little of real deprivation. Throughout the Union working people expected more, but either did not comprehend that genuine reward comes only though effort, or were misled, or chose to ignore the facts. State pensions at 65, 60, or 55; bonuses of as much as two months' entitlement at Christmas, depending on which country you were lucky enough to inhabit; and so much else by way of state 'benefits', while advances in medecine made the lifespan greater, and the financial burden on the young heavier and heavier.
The European Constitution requires that each member-state should live within annual budgets providing for expenditure deficits of less than 3% of income, but there was insufficient support to enforce the rules. The result was that some members have brought the Union to the verge of collapse, unless the rich members are prepared to guarantee the steps required to prevent their bankruptcy.
Experience teaches that it is best to have people change their ways when they are suffering from how they previously led their lives. The medecine has to be administered while the patients are still suffering. If the result is ten years of financial drift, then that is the price which must be paid.
The European Union is the only chance we have of achieving a United Europe, and what an accomplishment that would be, if Germany can lead us to it, in partnership with France. Britain has never really thought of itself as European: Europe was the 'Continent', and the diffident steps it took in the 1990's to move closer, by enlisting in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, were, at least partially. torpedoed by finacial speculators, including Mr. Soros, who made a fortune out of the devaluation of the British pound sterling.
The vision of Konrad Adenauer, Maurice Schumann, Jean Monnet, and others, planted the seed which germinated, and grew, over the last half-century into the European Union we know. The wealthy nations shared with those who were poor, and countries, such as Ireland, blossomed as I never expected would happen in my lifetime.
The founders passed on, as did every other adult who shivered every time they thought of the horrors they had lived through between 1939 and 1945. They were replaced, first by those who appreciated the change from the slim finances of their childhood, and then by those who knew little of real deprivation. Throughout the Union working people expected more, but either did not comprehend that genuine reward comes only though effort, or were misled, or chose to ignore the facts. State pensions at 65, 60, or 55; bonuses of as much as two months' entitlement at Christmas, depending on which country you were lucky enough to inhabit; and so much else by way of state 'benefits', while advances in medecine made the lifespan greater, and the financial burden on the young heavier and heavier.
The European Constitution requires that each member-state should live within annual budgets providing for expenditure deficits of less than 3% of income, but there was insufficient support to enforce the rules. The result was that some members have brought the Union to the verge of collapse, unless the rich members are prepared to guarantee the steps required to prevent their bankruptcy.
Experience teaches that it is best to have people change their ways when they are suffering from how they previously led their lives. The medecine has to be administered while the patients are still suffering. If the result is ten years of financial drift, then that is the price which must be paid.
The European Union is the only chance we have of achieving a United Europe, and what an accomplishment that would be, if Germany can lead us to it, in partnership with France. Britain has never really thought of itself as European: Europe was the 'Continent', and the diffident steps it took in the 1990's to move closer, by enlisting in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, were, at least partially. torpedoed by finacial speculators, including Mr. Soros, who made a fortune out of the devaluation of the British pound sterling.
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