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SATURDAY-SUNDAY, JANUARY 5-6, 2013 THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES GLOBAL.NYTIMES.COM

E.U. likely Fiscal deal

to go harder revives fears
on Google that U.S. is
over search losing clout
PARIS WASHINGTON

U.S. focus is consumers, Heavy debts could trim

but Europe will put more ambitions overseas,
weight on competition security experts argue
BY DAVID JOLLY BY DAVID E. SANGER

By some accounts, the United States let Two years ago, the departing chairman
Google off the hook by finding that the of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm.
technology giant had not abused its dom- Mike Mullen, declared that ‘‘the most
inance in the Internet search market. significant threat to our national securi-
Few expect the European antitrust ty is our debt.’’ After a decade in which
watchdog to be as lenient. the United States had chased Al Qaeda
The Federal Trade Commission ruled and invaded Iraq, Admiral Mullen was
N E W S A N A LY S I S N E W S A N A LY S I S

Thursday that Google had not broken an- saying, in essence, that the country’s
titrust laws, after a 19-month inquiry into biggest enemy was itself.
how it operates its search engine. But the Now that Congress and President
European Commission, which is pursu- Barack Obama have slipped past the
ing assertions that the company rigs re- latest budget deadline with a bill that
sults to favor its own businesses, oper- does little to address the country’s long-
ates according to a different standard. term debt issues — and by some mea-
The agreement with the American au- sures might worsen them — the worries
thorities, analysts and competition law- of the national security establishment
yers say, is unlikely to alter the de- have been renewed. Most pointedly,
mands of European regulators, led by military and diplomatic experts wonder
the E.U. competition commissioner, Joa- whether the United States is at risk of
quín Almunia. MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS squandering its global influence.
‘‘We have taken note of the F.T.C. de- Show of Palestinian unity Hundreds of thousands of Fatah followers marched in Gaza on Friday after Hamas Islamists allowed the mass rally in territory they govern. ‘‘There’s a sense that we’ve been play-
cision, but we don’t see that it has any Fatah’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority’s president, predicted the end of a five-year split between the two big factions PAGE 4 ing roulette with our position, and this
direct implications for our investiga- deal does nothing to stop that,’’ Richard
tion, for our discussions with Google, N. Haass, the president of the Council on
which are ongoing,’’ said Michael Jen- Foreign Relations, said in an interview.

In Germany,
Greek poet’s dark vision
nings, a spokesman for the European His coming book, ‘‘Foreign Policy Be-
Commission in Brussels. gins at Home,’’ is part of a wave of recent
Faced with nearly $4 billion in possible literature arguing that the United

a new era
penalties and restrictions on its busi- States’ reduced global ambitions are
ness in Europe, Google in July submit- linked to its status as a debtor nation.
ted proposals to remedy the concerns of Vali R. Nasr, who will soon publish

for the army

the European Commission, which ATHENS dramatic, but her words are always arist,’’ appeared from Yale University ‘‘The Dispensable Nation,’’ argues that
covered four areas. In its deal with the chosen carefully. Her poetry — spare, Press, translated by Cecile Margellos the debt, among other economic trou-
F.T.C., Google made concessions in two profound, unsentimental, effortlessly and Rika Lesser, bringing her work into bles, has allowed Mr. Obama and other
of those areas but was not required to do Kiki Dimoula has transforming the quotidian into the English for the first time in nearly two Democrats to justify a retreat from glob-
so in the rest.
A Google spokesman, Al Verney, de-
BERLIN a big following for her metaphysical, drawing on the powerful
themes of time, fate and destiny yet mak-
decades.
Ms. Dimoula does not speak English.
al engagement. ‘‘It’s made it far easier
to say, ‘We can’t do more,’’’ said Mr.
clined to comment on the content of the unsentimental writing ing them entirely her own — has earned ‘‘I was lazy,’’ she said apologetically, Nasr, the dean of the School of Advanced
company's proposals to Mr. Almunia but As E.U. partners battle her a near-cult following in Greece. and is concerned that her Greek verbal International Studies at Johns Hopkins
said it would ‘‘continue to work cooperat-
ively with the European Commission.’’
economic crisis, Berlin BY RACHEL DONADIO One of her Greek writer contemporar-
ies, Nikos Dimou, has called Ms.
acrobatics do not translate well. In the
introduction to the new collection, she
University. ‘‘And without addressing
the debt issues, it will be easier to make
The Google case underscores a basic quietly asserts power Kiki Dimoula, Greece’s feisty 81-year- Dimoula ‘‘the best Greek woman poet writes that she worries ‘‘whether the that argument for years to come.’’
difference between the European and old national poet, was holding court on a since Sappho,’’ and she is the first living bridge from one language to another is A departing senior diplomat at the
U.S. approaches to monopoly power. BY NICHOLAS KULISH recent afternoon, musing about her female poet ever to be included in the sound enough.’’ State Department who requested an-
American antitrust regulators tend to work and the fate of her country. Asked prestigious French publisher Galli- The bridge, as it happens, is plenty onymity, ruminating on the outcome of
focus on whether a company’s domi- When Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted to describe the mood in Greece today, mard’s poetry series. But she has rarely strong. As is the writer. the confrontation over the fiscal crisis,
nance is harmful to consumers; the a recent reception for military families, she did not mince words. ‘‘Darkness and been translated into English. ‘‘My homeland is my language,’’ Ms. said that the failure to attack the long-
European system seeks to maintain she greeted parents, wives and children chaos,’’ she said, drawing on a cigarette. This past autumn, a new collection of Dimoula said. She was seated on a dark term debt issues would become another
competitors in the market. Mr. Almunia whose loved ones were spending their Ms. Dimoula may have a flair for the her selected poems, ‘‘The Brazen Plagi- POET, PAGE 3 reason ‘‘to turn our backs on the Middle
has vowed to restore competition to the holidays in Afghanistan, Lebanon, East and trim our sails on the new focus
Internet search business in Europe. Kosovo and off the Horn of Africa. Ger- on Asia.’’
‘‘History shows that competition law man deployments overseas, Ms. Merkel That is the theme that the Chinese —
is applied to monopoly power more said, ‘‘will soon encompass the entire who have an interest in portraying the
stringently in the E.U. than in the U.S.,’’ globe.’’ United States as a declining power un-
said Jacques Lafitte, head of the compe- On that same wintry afternoon, mem- able to manage its economy — are
tition practice at Avisa Partners, a con- bers of Parliament debated whether to already promoting. ‘‘The politicians
sultancy in Brussels, who brought one add to the nearly 6,000 German soldiers have chosen to kick the can down the
of the original complaints against currently serving abroad by sending up road,’’ the state-run news agency Xin-
Google. ‘‘Whether the E.U. is right or to 400 troops to Turkey, where they hua said in a commentary Wednesday.
not is a different question.’’ would operate two Patriot missile bat- ‘‘The can will never disappear,’’ it
Mr. Lafitte has some expertise in the teries to help protect their NATO ally continued, warning that the United
matter. He is the former head of corpo- from a potential escalation of the civil States was falling ‘‘into an abyss you
rate affairs at Microsoft Europe and war across the border in Syria. can never come out of.’’
watched as that company did battle ‘‘For decades, we Germans have ben- Most evidence suggests that the
with regulators over its dominant com- efited from the fact that our partners country’s debt is not an immediate
puter operating system. Microsoft won gave us the feeling of reliable security,’’ crisis. The deficit is expected to shrink
a lenient settlement with the U.S. Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière somewhat in coming years, and even
Justice Department in October 2001, he said during the debate last month. after Standard & Poor’s stripped the
noted, only to be slapped with nearly ‘‘Now, we are in a position, and have the United States of its AAA bond rating,
¤1.6 billion, or $2.1 billion, in E.U. fines duty even, to make our impact felt.’’ foreigners have remained willing to
and penalties from 2004 to 2008. Only a handful of shivering protesters lend the country money at very low in-
Google learned from Microsoft’s mis- passed out fliers in front of the Branden- terest rates. That is a sign of confidence
takes, engaging in discussions with both burg Gate opposing the deployment. in the U.S. economy and a recognition
the U.S. and European authorities to The vote easily passed in the Bundestag, that Europe and Asia have problems of
reach a deal rather than fighting a des- the lower house, two days later. their own.
perate legal action. That approach ap- It was not that long ago that every But the aging of the population and the
GOOGLE, PAGE 10 German military action brought with it growth of health costs will most likely
mass demonstrations, public hand- cause the deficit to grow rapidly in com-
GOOGLE VERDICT: NOT EVIL BUT AGGRESSIVE wringing and probing questions about ing decades, meaning that the most diffi-
Will U.S. trade officials’ decision prove the country’s militarist past. But the cult choices about taxes and spending
to be good for consumers? James B. shadow of history continues to recede ANGELOS TZORTZINIS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES are still ahead. Absent decisions on those
Stewart asks. PAGE 10 GERMANY, PAGE 3 Kiki Dimoula, 81, is the first living female poet to be included in the poetry series of the prestigious French publisher Gallimard. U.S., PAGE 5

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