Alojz Peterle (better known as Lojze), former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Slovenia, nowadays a prominent EPP Member of the European Parliament, recently announced his standing at the coming Presidential elections. He immediately got the support of his own party – NSi, but failed to get the support of any other major party on the centre-right in Slovenia.
Why am I writing about this? Continue reading “Peterle: in search of support”
It has been a while since I haven’t posted anything about Slovenia. I’ve spent there quite some time though recently. And found the political climate more and more confusing. On two fronts: the Liberal Democrats (LDS) are slowly disappearing as a credible party, while the Social Democrats (SD) (they actually changed the corporate image in the meantime) gain ground while basically standing still.
Let’s deal with the second one for a moment. 4 big shots from the LDS’ parliamentary group have left the party and joined the SD in the parliament. The names will be known for some of you perhaps, one of them being a former Prime Minister. Darja Lavtižar Bebler, Milan M. Cvikl, Anton Rop (former PM) and Marko Pavliha thus swithced not only parties but also parlimentary groups, bringing the total number of the SD parliamentarians to 14, which places it now second only to the groupd of governing Slovenian Democrats (SDS). The party has also shown some serious growth in % of public support recently. Continue reading “Liberals becoming Social Democrats – as if it would matter”
Maurice Faure, the last living signatory of the Treaty of Rome: “The way negotiations were led at the time could serve as an example to relaunch the European project. This is what I call the spirit of Val Duchesse [the name of the Belgian chateau where the negotiations took place]…If every government named a single representative, and if this person were only to negotiate with two or three collaborators, I am convinced that in just a few months, they would reach constructive compromises…â€? Continue reading “Single representatives…”
Good, the informal Summit, called also “celebrationâ€? of the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Rome Treaties is over. The lights are off, everyone left Berlin and heads back to national capitals. We have the final result in 23 languages, signed supposedly by 3 people alone: German Chancellor Angela Merkel that currently holds the EU Presidency, President of the European Commission Mr Barroso and my strong “favouriteâ€? of this post Hans-Gert Poettering. I’m still in Berlin and have a bit of time on my hands to reflect on it… Continue reading “Berlin Declaration – what is in and who signs what?”
OK, the Berlin Declaration leaked out when Merkel sent it to national capitals last night. Some words about how nice is to be together, about how seriously we will fight terrorism and cooperate. It’s at least short;)
For now in German:
Europa war über Jahrhunderte eine Idee, eine Hoffnung auf Frieden und Verständigung. Diese Hoffnung hat sich erfüllt. Die europäische Einigung hat uns Frieden und Wohlstand ermöglicht. Sie hat Gemeinsamkeit gestiftet und Gegensätze überwunden. Jedes Mitglied hat geholfen, Europa zu einigen und Demokratie und Rechtsstaatlichkeit zu stärken. Der Freiheitsliebe der Menschen in Mittel- und Osteuropa verdanken wir, dass heute Europas unnatürliche Teilung endgültig überwunden ist. Wir haben mit der europäischen Einigung unsere Lehren aus blutigen Auseinandersetzungen und leidvoller Geschichte gezogen. Wir leben heute miteinander, wie es nie zuvor möglich war. Continue reading “Berlin Declaration – leaked, first in German”
I just got stuck in the Brussels aiport, something I admit hasn’t happened as often as it could have. The Virgin Express airline is about to merge with SN Brussels this weekend and probably they do not mind to let their last passengers wait a while longer…So a modest delay of 3 hours gave me plenty of time to catch up with some emails resting in my Inbox and with a deserved blog. Continue reading “Flying to Berlin to celebrate the EU – what to be excited about?”
Med krajšim sprehodom na Å kabrijel (blizu Nove Gorice) mi ja padla v oči malomarnost organizatorjev nekakšnega pohoda, ki se je odvil pred kratkim. Lepo, da Zavarovalnica Triglav podpira športne dogodke, še lepše bi bilo, če bi kot pogoj zahtevali tudi odstranitev plastičnih reklamnih trakov, takoj po končanem dogodku.
Pri meni so vsekakor dobili minus točke, čeprav mogoče nič krivi in nevedni.
Only recently has the European Commission released the list of special advisors to the Commissioners. There are few elements of conflicts of interests, well articulated by Corporate Europe Observatory (with an ironic aronym CEO), but even more impressive is the list of the advisors on the pay slip of Mr Frattini – one of the Vice-Presidents of the Commission, in charge of Justice, Freedom and Security. Thinking probably that he has to formulate Italian policies not European ones, he hired 11 Italian advisors. 11 out of 11 on the list…
Besides that, one of them is, according to Financial Times, charged with fraud in Italy (You might just shrug and say: many Italians are). Continue reading “Frattini – proud to be Italian”
Another campaign for 1 million signatures has just been launched by the federalists: www.europeanreferendum.eu. Both JEF (Young European Federalists) and UEF (Union of European Federalists) agreed on a campaign aimed to gather public support for the idea of a pan-European referendum on the European Constitution.
I’m not a great fun of referendums in general, but it’s true that on this one there are not many ways out. It’s the rule of politics: once you set the ball rolling is difficult to stop it. And since we have had 4 referendums on the Constitution in the previous round of ratifications (oh, let’s face it it’s over…), we should expect more in any next that appears on the agenda. So, we have to grasp with it. Continue reading “A campaign for a pan-European referendum on the Constitution – how sexy does that sound?”
As some of you might have noticed, I have been active for long years in a youth NGO called the Young European Federalists, better known as JEF by its acronym. Now, generally we would call ourselves a bunch of EU-geeks who try to discuss the European Constitution and European federalism in a friendly way, but seldomly make it to avoid the usual political debates that you read in the reports of the European Summits. Everything apart, this is a great organisation, where anyone with an interest in EU politics and Europe will find a good place.
This intro serves to present an action that JEF is launching this weekend – Youth takes action: Europe´s statues will go as quiet as democracy inside of Belarus. JEF activists all around Europe have stood against the last dictatorship in Europe already last year in an impressive collection of actions. This year the actions will go even further, to even more places. For a simple reason: Europe and the EU simply cannot stand blind to what is happening in Belarus and political pressure has to be put on Lukashenka’s regime to democratise. And as much as we federalists care about democracy in the EU, we also care about democracy beyond. Continue reading “Blogging for Belarus democracy – actions start on Monday, 19th March!”
