Bargain of the week! Iranian oil|Page 13
NEWEUROPE
19thYear of Publication | Number 977| 11-17 March, 2012 | € 3.50
www.neurope.eu
IN THIS ISSUE
EU Policy
Barroso feels abandoned | Page 3Equality is for everyone, not just women at the top | Page 5Bitter-sweet EDPS receptionfor data protection reform | Page 6Roma intercultural dialogue– is talk cheap? | Page 14
EU-World
The Japanese Case | Page 8Dis-United States of America | Page 10Central Asia: enhanced socio-economicdevelopment vital for stability | Page 11Big sky, big questions | Page 14
Energy & Climate
Gazprom: Shtokman will reach finalinvestment decision on time | Page 12European regions and R20 committedto green growth | Page 13IEA urges Ukraine to moderniseits energy infrastructure | Page 13
Country news
Paris eager to boost co-operation with Jakarta | Page 18Air Malta chartered flightsto connect UK regions | Page 19 Trial of former IcelandicPM has begun | Page 25Minsk says it can do withoutnew IMF loan | Page 28
Editorial & Opinion
Should ACTA go Ad acta? | Page 3An immoral obsession withprivatising water | Page 5Cyprus: reunification, partitionor annexation? | Page 6Are recession and inflationreal threats to Eurozone? | Page 7
The positive conclusion of the Greek dealdoes not mean that the Eurozone has arrivedin a safe port. The European Central Bank predicted for this year a recession of 0.5%, oran anaemic growth of 0.3%, despite printingand releasing €1 trillion in favour of theEurozone's banks and governments.Along the same lines, Christine Lagarde,the General Director of IMF, said that withthe success of the Greek deal, Eurozone has just avoided a major crisis but “for the timebeing”. Both those dignitaries are in theheart of Eurozone's developments. That is why they are speaking about the not so dis-tant future. Markets, however, do not have sodeep horizons, and it must be rememberedthat those markets during the first quarter of 2009 had lent to Greece €50bn at interestrates close to what was then charged for theGerman borrowing. And this only a few months before Greece went to early elec-tions, in view of its sovereign debt problems.In any case, European and world stock mar-kets gained a lot of grounds on Wednesday 8March, predicting a positive conclusion of thePrivate Sector Involvement (PSI) exercise toalleviate the Greek sovereign debt. As itturned out, on the morning of Friday 9March, 85.8% of the country's creditors(banks and other financial institutions) agreedto exchange the Greek bonds they hold fornew ones of a nominal value of 33.5%, plus15% in cash (sweetener).So, what does this mean for Greece? Thecountry is only weeks ahead of a generalelection, being obliged at the same time toapply highly unpopular measures, containedin the Memorandum of Understanding itsigned with the troika of EU-ECB-IMF, inorder to get a €130 billion debt relieve. Partof it is this PSI exercise. Even if the proMemorandum political forces win this elec-tion, a lot of people predict that the Greek programme will again be derailed due tostrong internal social resistance and thecountry will be probably needing a thirdbailout package by the year 2014.
More than 85% of Greece's creditors agree to the 'haircut'
·Pages 4, 7, 24
Is the Eurozone now safe?
Milan’s persistent flavourPage 15
AUTO INDUSTRY
Audi AG's success can be found in itsmotto “Vorsprung durch Technik”.Member of the Board of Management for Technical Development Michael Dick describes the brand
·Page 7
WATER
As water is essential to life, it followsautomatically that access to clean watershould be regarded as a fundamentalhuman right
·Page 5
INTERVIEW
Victor Ponta, leader of the SocialDemocratic Party (PSD) in Romania,speaks to NE about some of the recentpolitical developments at home and inEurope
·Pages 8-9
Experts predict that Greece will need a third bailout.|
AFP PHOTO / LOUISA GOULIAMAKI
FASHION & STYLE
EU - KOREASPECIAL FOCUS
·Inside
ANALYSIS
Page 2 | New Europe
NEW EUROPE
11-17 March, 2012
NE
15 YEARS AGO
Kenya's President Odinga was suprised to be offered a starring role in DG Enlargement's latest video.|
AFPPHOTOGEORGESGOBET
TheShootingGallery
In the few years that followed the fall of the communist regimes all over central Europe and Russia, what followed was a complete chaos. The economies were in ruins and the state apparatus had collapsed. Social services couldn'tfunction due to a lack of finance. The working population that had spearheaded the opposition to the old regimes were in a dead-end. This was clearly the case of the famous Polish Gdansk Shipyards, where thousands of workershad created and manned 'Solidarnosk', the organisation that opened the first hole in the entire communist edifice of the Warsaw Pact. Only a few years after the fall of communism in Poland the government was obliged to shut downthe Gdansk Shipyard, laying off all its personnel due to the fact that there was nothing to be built in it.
Beyond the beleaguered
Nicolas Sarkozy is, to use conventional wisdom, belea-guered. That phrase, as media-watchers are no doubtaware, is the usual shorthand for any world leader whomay be under domestic or international pressure, and whose waning popularity is such that he or she risksdomestic annihilation at the polls or severe credibility losson the international stage. Recent examples include USPresident Barak Obama, and, for wildly different reasons,George Papandreou. When the Irish economy collapsedin late 2010, and Brian Cowen was seemingly pre-des-tined to see his Fianna Fáil-led coalition government alsogo the same way, it was habitual for the then-Taoiseach(prime minister) to be described this way. In much thesame way, the demise of Sarkozy is similarly predicted.He has even threatened to withdraw from politics shouldthe upcoming presidential election not go his way, re-affirming the old adage that all political careers end infailure.Sarkozy, like the German Chancellor Anglea Merkel, hasboth pinned their political futures on the continued suc-cess of, to use another neologism, the European Project.Depending on one’s prejudice’s this is either testament tothe generous well of the European spirit or unbridled folly;either way, both leaders have committed themselves tosomething, supporters of European progression contend, isbigger than the narrow confines of domestic arguments.Right now, Merkel is, unlike her French counterpart, doing well in the polls, although that might all change ahead of next year’s elections, and she has offered to help campaignfor Sarkozy; it might not be such a bad offer, he apparent-ly needs all the help he can get.But Srakozy is not the only one under pressure. The would-be nominee of the far right, Marine Le Pen, iscomplaining that she is having great difficulty getting onthe ballot; she needs 500 signatures from citizens to qual-ify as a candidate. Her supporters are claiming that, whileher issues are considered to be at the forefront of the elec-torate, potential voters fear being stigmatised as support-ers of her policies, and are claiming something akin tointimidation.Speaking to the BBC, Jean-Marc de Lacoste, who headsthe National Front (FN), which is behind Le Pen, has saidthat previously potential supporters were put-off by graffi-ti campaigns and other property damage. It is a shamelessattempt to gear-up support for her candidacy. But morethan that, it is a disgraceful attempt to play the victim. The values of the FN are counter to those of what mod-ern-day Europe should stand for. One my take exceptionto Nicolas Sarkozy or to his main rival, Francois Hollandefrom the Socialist Party, but they fight on a political level;however parties like the FN may like to deny it, they donot represent democratic values, or fight for the rights of the little person swamped by big business and big politics;they seek to gain through exploiting fear and fermentingprejudice.At a time when populist parties, including the NationalFront in the UK, and the Austrian Freedom Party, areseeking to gain funding from the EU as part of a pan-European alliance, the rise of the far right should not bedismissed. But the lack of support in France is not due tothe far right being denied access to democratic structures,as they like to proclaim. Sometimes, political parties, whorely on the support of the people, are beleaguered for agenuine reason. It seems that some of them haven’t workedthat out yet.
EDITOR
Cillian Donnellycdonnelly@neurope.eu
SENIOR EDITORIAL TEAM
Kostis Geropoulos (Energy & Russian Affairs)kgeropoulos@neurope.eu Andy Carling (EU Affairs)acarling@neurope.euJames Drew (On Line) jdrew@neurope.euIvan Delibasic (EU Affairs)idelibasic@neurope.eu Ariti Alamanou (Legal Affairs)aalamanou@neurope.euStratis Camatsos (EU Affairs)scamatsos@neurope.euLouise Kissa (Fashion)lkissa@neurope.eu Alexandra Coronakis (Columnist)acoronaki@neurope.eu
DIRECTOR
Alexandros Koronakisakoronakis@neurope.eu
MARKETING & ADVERTISING
Panos Katsampanispkatsampanis@neurope.eu
EXECUTIVE LAYOUT PRODUCER
Suman Haquesuman@neurope.eu
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ANALYSIS
New Europe |Page 3
NEW EUROPE
11-17 March, 2012
The minutes of the Commis-sioners meeting of 22 February show a European Commissionthat is convinced they were rightabout ACTA, confused by how people failed to believe them, be- wildered by social media and be-trayed by the copyright lobby. The discussion on the contro- versial trade deal began withPresident Barroso, “commentingon the intensity and scale of thepublic debate and the organisedcampaign against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement(ACTA).” The minutes continue, statingthat Barroso “felt in additionthat the discussion should alsolook at the lessons to be learnedfrom this experience and how the Commission could best an-ticipate and deal with such situ-ations in the future.”Barroso said, “the Commissionhad provided the necessary tech-nical assistance and informationthroughout the negotiations andthe conclusion of ACTA – thusensuring that the process wascompletely transparent – it now found itself the focus of criticismfor every possible negative aspectof the agreement.”Not only that, Barroso hadnoted “the deafening silencefrom other interested parties –industry and creative artists ingeneral – who would benefitfrom ACTA ”although “somegroups and organisations weretoday completely absent fromthe public debate on an interna-tional agreement which wasbroadly to their advantage, whenthey had been able in the past totake part in campaigns to defendtheir interests vis-à-vis the Com-mission.” Trade Commissioner DeGucht blamed social media, not-ing “opposition had increased inthe run-up to January’s planned vote in the US Congress on twolegislative initiatives – the StopOnline Piracy Act (SOPA) andthe Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) – aimed at increas-ing the protection of intellectualproperty rights on the Internet;in the end the vote had not beenheld, following a hostile cam-paign by social networks and theloss of White House support.”De Gucht continued by re-marking, “the intense mediacampaign which was unleashedin Europe, instigated largely by the social networks, had since leda number of Union Heads of State or Government to decideto delay signature or ratificationof the agreement by their na-tional parliaments. He addedthat the campaign had also had aconsiderable influence on Mem-bers of the European Parliamentand, following recent contacts with various political groups, henow felt it would be difficult tomuster a majority in favour of ACTA within the EP.”Commissioner Reding “alsoquestioned the silence of thoseconcerned by the protection of intellectual property rights,” andnoted, “that lessons needed to belearned in terms of politicalcommunication.”Commissioner Barnier alsohad a point to make, “that thekey role of social networks inpublic debate in Europe forcedthe Commission to think care-fully about adapting some of itsmeans of communication andthat Members should discuss thematter as soon possible.”
ACTA
Barroso feels abandoned
‘Deafening silence’ from the film and music industry
By Andy Carling
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement,also known as ACTA, cannot seem to es-cape controversially. In recent weeks it hadsparked mass demonstrations all over EUcapitals. Creative banners and pictures of protestors in anti-ACTA masks became acommon sight in the TV and news cover-age, and daily emails from European citi-zens concerning ACTA feed daily into ourParliamentary email box. While ACTA is making waves all over Eu-rope, in Poland these waves are outermost. The size of anti-ACTA protestorsmarching the streets of Wroclaw, Warsaw and Lublin resemble, in size, the demon-strations of early 1980's which led to thecollapse of Communism.Polish citizens and internet users areangry at the government, not only for plac-ing ACTA on EU's agenda in the final daysof the Polish EU Presidency, but also forsigning the Treaty without prior notifica-tion of intent, or public consultations on thematter. In Poland, like in most other 21 EUmembers who signed the agreement, thepublic was not properly informed and didnot give its consent to ACTA. The only political institution whereACTA is debated in a transparent manner isthe European Parliament. After the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty the Parlia-ment became co-legislator on matters of In-ternational Trade, thus Parliaments'approval must be granted for enforcingACTA on the EU level.At the end of February ACTA was dis-cussed in several Parliamentarian Commit-tees: International Trade, Petitions and Re-search and Industry. On Thursday, 1 March,a special workshop was organized in the Par-liament, bringing together CommissionerKarl de Gucht, EU officials, academia ex-perts, representatives of civil society and pri- vate corporations. The main point discussedin that hearing was the potential impact of ACTA on secondary European legislationand legal interpretation by national govern-ments. Another controversial issue that wasraised was the general need of ACTA on thebackground of existing legislation on IPR. The legal implications of ACTA are de-batable by the different parties, thus sendingACTA to the European Court of Justice, asit was already done by the European Com-mission, seems to be an inevitable optionfor the European Parliament.Being a member of the Parliament'sLegal Affairs Committee working on copy-rights and patents I am of course supportingprotection of intellectual rights. Yet, pro-tecting commercial rights must not comeagainst basic civil liberties, but balance thetwo. ACTA demonstrates what happens when this balance is violated and leadersshould learn to avoid repeating the samemistakes especially in cases of future legis-lation on collective rights management andother provisions of IPR.Only an open debate, consultations andtransparency will strike the right chord forEU citizens, creators and users, for futureagreements. This ACTA should go ad acta.Lidia Geringer de OedenbergMember of the European Parliament
The 'Acta Privata' of the trial of German composer Robert Schumann. He and his wife forced the father's accept-ance to the marriage in front of court. |
EPA/JANWOITAS
By Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg
TRADE
Should ACTA go Ad acta?
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