EU - what's next?

Some of the books consulted in the writing of this essay:

Aesthetic Politics: Political Philosophy beyond Fact and Value by F.R. Ankersmit (Stanford, 1997)

Political Representation by F.R. Ankersmit (Stanford, 2002)

The Rise of the Dutch New Right: An Intellectual History of the Rightward Shift in Dutch Politics by Merijn Oudenampsen (Routledge, 2020)

The Passage to Europe: How a Continent Became a Union by Luuk van Middelaar (Yale, 2013)

Politicide: De moord op de politiek in de Franse filosofie by Luuk van Middelaar (Historische Uitgeverij, 2011)

Alarums and Excursions: Improvising Politics on the European Stage by Luuk van Middelaar (Agenda, 2019)

After the Storm: How to Save Democracy in Europe edited by Luuk van Middelaar and Philippe Van Parijs (Lannoo, 2015)

Considérations politiques sur les coups d’état by Gabriel Naudé (Gallimard, 2004)

Batailles libertines: La Vie et l’oeuvre de Gabriel Naudé by Anna Lisa Schino (Champion, 2020)

Metternich: Strategist and Visionary by Wolfram Siemann (Harvard, 2019)

Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance by Ian Buruma (Atlantic, 2007)

The Origins and Principles of the American Revolution Compared with the Origin and Principles of the French Revolution by Friedrich Gentz, translated by John Quincy Adams (Liberty Fund, 2010)

On the State of Europe before and after the French Revolution by Friedrich Gentz (Forgotten Books, 2018)

Fragments upon the Balance of Power in Europe by Friedrich Gentz (Andesite, 2017)

Friedrich Gentz 1764-1832: Penseur post-Lumières et acteur du nouvel ordre européen by Raphaël Cahen (Walter de Gruyter, 2017)

Secretary of Europe: The Life of Friedrich Gentz, Enemy of Napoleon by Golo Mann (Yale, 1946)

That said, the primacy of principle accorded to politics by van Middelaar is in itself an incontestable merit of his book. What becomes of politics in his hands is another matter, for a second striking feature of The Passage to Europe is the absence, not just of any substantive economic history, but of virtually any sense of the actual political landscape of Europe. A veil of abstraction falls over partisan identities and conflicts. To all intents and purposes, political parties join economic statistics in the oubliette of his retrospect. In three hundred pages, a single brief paragraph adverts to Christian and Social Democrats getting together at the beginnings of the story, before swiftly segueing to the more congenial topic of Charlemagne. The only time an election warrants mention is when de Gaulle is frustrated of a first-round victory by French farmers in 1965, preventing him from going too far in hostility to Brussels, though even then the identity of the party which forced him to a second round remains an anonym. If despite the book’s profession of its primacy, it is void of politics in its most commonly used sense, one of the reasons is certainly that at Euro level ‘parties’ are wraiths without substance: labels for legislators conglomerated out of disparate national outlooks and conditions, with no reality outside the chamber in which they sit, where a kind of permanent grand coalition – in effect, an institutional cartel – effaces even the formal distinctions between them, a residuum of pariahs aside.

What, Ankersmit asked, is the appropriate definition of representation? Is it a resemblance to what is represented, or a substitute for it? Rousseau mistakenly believed it was the first; Burke showed it was the second. In politics as in painting, representation is not a biometric likeness of what is represented, but an act of a basically aesthetic nature: the creation of something new, which was never imagined or existed before. It was an effect of style, beyond fact or value.

istovremeno, razotkrivena je ispraznost retorike suvereniteta iz Varšave i Budimpešte. Sada je jasno, te vlade interesuje samo održavanje na vlasti.

Erős Pista wrote:Ovaj covek je 1/1 placenik. Evropski Vladimir Vuletic.

https://pescanik.net/kompromis-sa-populistima/

Merkel pushes EU-China investment deal over the finish line despite criticism

Leaders from Brussels and Beijing are scheduled to endorse investment agreement in videoconference on Wednesday.
BY HANS VON DER BURCHARD
December 29, 2020 11:40 pm

For critics, it's a rushed deal that's too soft on labor rights. For Angela Merkel, it's a strategic win and icing on the cake of Germany's Council of the EU presidency.

EU diplomats and officials say the German chancellor played a crucial role in finalizing the long-delayed EU-China investment agreement, which has taken more than seven years of negotiations. Those talks are set to be wrapped up Wednesday in a high-level videoconference between Brussels, Berlin and Beijing, just before Germany hands over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU to Portugal at the end of the week.

The video call with Merkel, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled for 1 p.m. Brussels time Wednesday, the EU confirmed late Tuesday.

The leaders plan to give political endorsement to the deal, which would then still have to be legally revised, translated into different languages, and be officially approved by EU governments and the European Parliament as well as potentially national parliaments — a process that would take until early 2022 at least.

The European Commission said the agreement was a success story because it not only increases market access for European investors in China and tackles forced technology transfer, non-transparent subsidies and state-owned enterprises, but also commits China to “make continued and sustained efforts” to ratify international conventions on banning forced labor.

However, some EU countries like Belgium and the Netherlands have raised concerns about the EU's ability to address human rights issues under the agreement. Others like Poland are questioning why the EU is rushing ahead to seal the deal with China without waiting for the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, whose transition team has already voiced concerns about the deal.

Strong criticism is also coming from the European Parliament. "The Commission has folded on the issue of workers' rights," said Green MEP Reinhard Bütikofer, the chair of Parliament's delegation for relations with China. Bütikofer said that simple commitments on abandoning forced labor were not enough: "It is ridiculous to try selling that as a success."

The German lawmaker also criticized the deal as "a solo-run as we know it from the Donald Trump administration," and said: "Explain why three weeks ago the EU — which likes to call itself the flag bearer of multilateralism — said it wants to coordinate with the Biden administration vis-à-vis China, and now it tries to push through this deal just before Biden is inaugurated as president."

Theresa Fallon, director for the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies, also lambasted the planned investment agreement. "The main deliverable from Beijing's point of view was to drive a wedge in transatlantic relations, and Brussels appears to have complied," she said.

EU officials are rejecting criticism of rushing ahead with a deal without consulting the U.S., stressing that Washington secured its own trade and investment deal under President Trump and the EU is simply trying to get similar market-access conditions, which would allow Brussels and Washington to coordinate their China policies from a similar starting point.

One Commission official recalled that Brussels and Beijing committed in April 2019 at the highest political level to finalize the investment deal by the end of this year, and that both sides were sticking to their own target by now finalizing the negotiations, after having repeatedly failed to make substantial progress in the talks during previous years — "to the chagrin of some of those who are now criticizing this deal," as the official put it.

Yet there's also hardly any doubt in Brussels that the planned end-of-year conclusion of the deal — at an unusual moment for such high-profile agreements, between Christmas and New Year's — has Merkel's handwriting all over it.

The investment agreement is part of a strategic outreach to China that Merkel made a cornerstone of Germany's six-month Council presidency. "I believe that it is right and important to strive for good strategic relations with China," Merkel said on September 14, the day on which she had originally planned a giant EU-China summit in Leipzig, which had to be canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic and was replaced by a videoconference with China's Xi instead.

Level playing field

For European businesses, particularly German carmakers and manufacturers, the agreement is of high importance as it would allow them to increase investments in the lucrative and steadily growing Chinese market without facing protectionist restrictions such as forced joint ventures, where local companies hold the majority of stakes and can access trade secrets.

"We must not have illusions at this point; instead, we must measure things against the realities," Merkel said in September. "Today, China is a clear competitor in many high technologies. So, of course, market access and the characteristics under which our trade takes place must be on an equal footing. A level playing field, as they say, must prevail."

Besides the strong steering from Berlin, which was reinforced in Brussels by German EU Ambassador Michael Clauss — who, by no coincidence, is the former German ambassador to Beijing — Merkel could also count on the “German engine" in the European Commission, as one EU diplomat put it: He named Björn Seibert, the head of cabinet of the Commission president; Sabine Weyand, the director general for trade; as well as Michael Hager, the chief of cabinet for Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, as part of that "engine."

Crucially, Merkel seems to have secured the backing of France for the accord. An official close to French Trade Minister Franck Riester, who just last week voiced criticism of the deal related to human rights, said on Tuesday that "things are moving in the right direction." One EU official said that Merkel had reached an understanding with French President Emmanuel Macron under which she would get to conclude the deal under the German presidency, while the ratification and signing of the deal would be finalized under the French Council presidency in the first half of 2022.

Until then, it will be crucial to address concerns over China's human rights record, particularly when it comes to forced labor among the Uighur Muslim minority. Beijing has faced further international criticism after a Chinese court on Monday sentenced citizen journalist Zhang Zhan to four years in prison for her reporting on the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan. 

One EU official said that the time still remaining to ratify the deal by 2022 or later could be used to exert pressure on China to fulfill its commitment to implementing international conventions against forced labor — something that the European Parliament will certainly push for.

"We will scrutinize this agreement very thoroughly," said Kathleen Van Brempt, the trade coordinator of the Socialist & Democrats group. "Market access, stricter rules on subsidies and state-owned enterprises as well as addressing forced technology transfers are important, but so are human rights and labor rights.

"The agreement should be a meaningful step towards improving labor conditions, particularly with regards to the Uighurs. It goes without saying that before ratification, a unilateral ban on the import of products from forced labor and child labor should be proposed," Van Brempt added.

Daï Djakman Faré wrote:

Erős Pista wrote:Ovaj covek je 1/1 placenik. Evropski Vladimir Vuletic.

https://pescanik.net/kompromis-sa-populistima/

izliv bugarasi topika na mejnstrim burundjansku analizu. nacisto nas je lisio mogucnosti da pripisemo bugarima good faith acts.

te julija kristeva je prevarant i agent, evo sad krastev epp placenik. ne mozemo da mislimo o bugarima drugacije osim instrumentalno, kao o tupim eksponentima tudjih interesa. mislio sam da ce burundi biti iznad toga !

Nemački državni sekretar za Evropu Mihael Rot „razočaran“ je što nije bilo napretka u integraciji država Zapadnog Balkana tokom predsedavanja Nemačke Evropskom unijom u poslednjih šest meseci. „Hitno nam trebaju pozitivni signali za Zapadni Balkan. Na kocki je ništa manje od naše verodostojnosti“, rekao je Rot izveštaču lista Handelsblat u Briselu.

Rot se nada da će tokom portugalskog predsedavanja doći do napretka. „Moramo to da poguramo. Jer mir, regionalno pomirenje i demokratija na Zapadnom Balkanu jesu od centralnog strateškog značaja za celu Evropu, posebno za neposredno susedstvo.“

Handelsblat piše da je Nemačka na ovom polju doživela „težak udarac“ tokom predsedavanja EU. „Nakon što je Bugarska najpre iz unutrašnjih razloga blokirala početak pristupnih pregovora sa susednom Severnom Makedonijom, naposletku su Češka i Slovačka blokirale jedan važan tekst o naprecima planiranog proširenja EU u jugoistočnoj Evropi.“

Vakuum bi mogli da popune drugi

Diseldorfski list dodaje da se sile poput Rusije, Kine i Turske interesuju za region. „U Briselu i Berlinu postoji bojazan da bi politički i ekonomski interesi sila izvan EU mogli još da uspore ionako dug put do više vladavine prava, demokratije i prekogranične saradnje“, piše Handelsblat.

„Ako EU ostavi vakuum na Zapadnom Balkanu, onda će druge sile, koje ne dele demokratske vrednosti EU, iz geostrateških razloga uleteti u taj vakuum“, rekao je o tome Mihael Rot, inače političar Socijaldemokrata.

„Pucamo sebi u koleno“, dodao je Rot. On smatra da se oklevanje EU tumači kao slabost u svetu u kojem autoritarnost dobija na snazi, a demokratija dolazi pod sve veći pritisak.

„Nevidljiva“ pomoć

Nemački političar povezuje pitanja vladavine prava i borbe protiv korupcije sa odseljavanjem iz balkanskih zemalja. „Mlađe generacije glasaju tako što odlaze iz zemlje. Napuštaju domovine jer ne vide perspektivu. To je tragedija za balkanske zemlje“, rekao je Rot.

On podseća da je EU pomogla Srbiji i susednim zemljama sa 3,3 milijarde evra u borbi protiv pandemije, da se planira paket investicija od devet milijardi evra, te da će EU pokazati solidarnost i kada su u pitanju vakcine. Pa ipak, dodao je Rot, EU mora više da uradi kako bi ta podrška bila primećena.

„EU mora više da bude prisutna u emotivnom poimanju ljudi. Ne zato da bismo sebe tapšali po ramenima. Naposletku, radi se o proboju Evrope u sistemskoj konkurenciji sa autoritarnim silama koje će se inače usidriti usred Evrope“, dodao je Mihael Rot.

buffalo bill wrote:More seriously, to je scenario po kome je ovaj prostor poprište borbe a ne objekat integracija; nešto što se pipka dugim štapom na kome piše "spoljna i bezbednosna politika" a ne "pravna država i strukturni fondovi".