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Priprava davčnega obračuna me je pripeljala na spletne strai AJPESa in do neštetih obrazcev, ki so jih pridni uradniki pripravili za podjetja, samostojne podjetnike etc. Sicer brez pripomb, zelo koristno, priročno in dobro izdelano…samo nekaj me je zmotilo: vse aplikacije za pripravo poročil so pripravljene za uporabnike microsoftovih oken in excela. Utemeljitev :

“Ugotovitve kažejo, da večina uporabnikov uporablja Windows operacijski sistem in Excel preglednice, medtem ko je uporabnikov drugih programskih produktov (Star Office, Open Office …) zelo malo. Neracionalno bi bilo za Continue reading “AJPES neprijazen odprti kodi”

I found this interesting article on the BBC news website today, that writes about Andre Garrec, who heads the community of Noron-la-Poterie in northern France. Mr Garrec is willing to auction his support for one of the presidential candidates that have to collect 500 endorsements from elected officials in order to stand. The strange French law aside, I find this a bit repulsive…

Even if the money, as Mr Garrec says, would go to his community (of 300 people), this would make his vote simply a market item. You pay more and you get his support. His endorsement would thus not be a show of trust in the candidate, but simply a bought ticket to run for the elections. I wonder what his voters might think.
According to the same article he went on saying this practice is not illegal. Sure, but it for sure is immoral.

Little wonders of European election systems.

Here comes a post with s slight delay. It has (almost) no relation to politics, but describes my drive from Brussels to Å empeter pri Gorici, my little hometown in Slovenia. So, for those that dislike driving and descriptive comments: skip this post. Continue reading “1272 km, 6 countries, 13 hours”

There has been already a lot written about Prodi’s government collapse and ressurection elsewhere. One thing that hasn’t let me get over it easily was the fact that I found the peace mission in Afghanistan and the extension of the Vicenza US military base reasons enough for the government to sink…Perhaps Vicenza:)

After talking to a friend (thanks Andrea) and a bit of research, I found an article published by the Center for Security Studies at the ETH Zurich: “Vatican, not Afghanistan, sunk Prodi”. If it perhaps smells a bit of conspiracy theory, it still provides a very credible and verifiable background to what really happened. The same-sex marriages have really been THE debate in Italy for the recent months (see here an article from Corriere della Sera).
Enjoy the reading.

A meeting that has been largely ignored by the media took place last Saturday and Sunday in Oslo. 49 countries met to discuss the use of cluster bombs and 46 of them signed up to a committment to work towards an international ban on their use.

Poland, Japan and Romania voted against. Russia, China and the US were not there.

See a good summary here and the website of the event here.

With a name borrowed from the Spanish Constitutional campaign “Referendum Plus” run by the Youth Council there, Andrew Duff launches today his “Constitution Plus” – how to and what to renegotiate (about the European Constitution). I will paste here the synopsis of what this super-productive British Liberal Member of the European Parliament will present in full today (28th) in Brussels.

The general point he makes is:

“he proposes to ring-fence Parts I and II of the 2004 treaty from being opened up”

So, keeping parts I and II intact. This is a big chunk already for many of the governments – institutional changes (which are indeed good) and the Charter of Fundamental Rights would thus be best left untouched according to Mr Duff.

He then suggests:

“small number of highly significant improvements” to Parts III and IV”

It is true that the Convention was basically left with no time to properly work on the Part III (the policies part) during its proceedings. The policies have been thus basically copy-pasted from previous Treaties and amended only slightly, linking them also to new institutional changes in the Part I and II. Continue reading “Andrew Duff’s Constitution Plus”

I still wonder how Myra found me, but I got the chance to contribute to an elaboration of a questionnaire on the work of Eurobloggers (BTW, I found that this word has not yet been explained in Wikipedia). This has been prepared by the Department of Social Psychology at the University of Hamburg and explores the question “what drives people to participate in blogs on Europe and European politics“.

You’re kindly invited to fill the questionnaire here.

I was doing some research of the portfolios of the Portuguese government and found out something they can really not be proud about. Yes, it’s gender balance. The current Socialist government is composed of 15 men and 2 women. And guess the portfolios the two female Ministers handle…Easy one: education and culture. Not that I question their knowledge on those two, but for sure Portugal has capable and – in this case – Socialist women that could run other areas as well…

See the glamurous composition here.

There is something in this world that I have yet to understand about Belgium and makes this place difficult to grasp for regular visitors or expats.

There is the famous garbage collection in Brussels, where you basically buy special bags (and pay tax with them), separate garbage and then throw everything on the street the night designated for the area you live in. So you can be throwing it out on Monday evening, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, depending on the commune where you live.

I haven’t met anyone in Belgium that wouldn’t have a story to tell about Belgacom, the notorious telecom provider. Knowing their number by heart is the best guarantee for a permanent internet connection and fair billing. They have improved recently I heard…probably because there is more choice and their number of customers decreasing…

And then there is the registration procedure with the commune, the procedure to get a bank account, the housing mania, the…and my favourite: “priorité à droite“. There was a fabulous entry in the Economist newsletter, which inspired me to write about it: Continue reading ““priorité à droite” & Belgian peculiarities”

Without going too much in detail over the current Constitutional debate (you can jump to Jon’s comment about Onesta’s proposal), I would just like to share with you some brilliant thoughts of the French Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Alain Lamassoure (thanks for the paper Peter) on the matter.

At a recent seminar organised by the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies (iss-eu) in Paris, Mr Lamassoure’s intervention is summarized as following (sorry for the long quote):

Alain Lamassoure (MEP) felt that the CT could not be rescued and strongly argued for launching a new process to produce a new Treaty. This process could only succeed on two conditions. First, failure had to be ruled out from the start. That implied that Member States agreed to exclude referenda. The probability of a negative vote in at least one country across the EU remained very high, but the EU could not afford another such blow. That also meant that the new text could not be called a Constitution. Second, one should not jeopardise the delicate balance achieved in the CT or the deal would unravel. In producing the new text one needed to use the scissors, not the pen. Only those provisions that were truly innovative, form a legal standpoint, should be preserved. It was also necessary to proceed quickly: the longer the waiting time, the older the compromise would become, and the stronger the requirement for setting up a new Convention and starting all over again. Following the ongoing bilateral ‘confessionals’, the German Presidency should be in the position to launch a new IGC at the European Council in June, with a limited mandate to save the innovations of the CT without reopening the Pandora’s box on sensitive questions. The new Treaty could be drafted and signed under the Portuguese Presidency, and ratified by national parliaments in the following 18 months, before the European elections of June 2009.

Continue reading “What future then for the Constitution, Mr Lamassoure?”