Marko Bucik

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!”

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.