Tag: featured

Brexit Deal II fate in hands of Westminster

EU, Europe, Politics

While British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission president Jean–Claude Juncker consider the agreed Brexit deal “fair” outcome. There is no need to extend the Brexit deadline EU top executive added.

‘We have a deal so why should we have a prolongation?” Juncker raised a rhetoric question. However the biggest challenge is ahead in Westminster, where the the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland declared its opposition to the reached Article 50 Agreement.

Prime Minister Johnson called Members of the Parliament to “come together” and “get this excellent deal over the line”.

Now is the moment for us to get Brexit done and then together work on building our future partnership, which I think can be incredibly positive both for the UK and for the EU” he underlined.

In spite of the enthusiasm of the EU leadership about the new deal, the experts consider the chances it is endorsed by Westminster on Saturday are slim because of opposition of Labor and DUP parties, who consider the deal to be even worse than Prime Minister May previous Agreement.

Jutta URPILAINEN: EU future Santa-Claus?

EU, Europe, Politics

Undoubtedly Jutta URPILAINEN is exceptionally kind, generous and honest, and above it all sensitive to other people’s grievances. Mother of two adopted Colombian children, she is certainly an exceptional human-being. However are they the qualities to carry on the job of the EU Commissioner on International Partnerships? (Previously International Cooperation and Development led by Croatian Neven Mimica #DEVCO).

During the October 1 hearing with Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), Urpilainen has successfully avoided all the burning problems of Africa – the major recipient of the EU development funds: CORRUPTION, TERRORISM, ETHNIC CONFLICTS, CHINA EXPANSION, DEMOGRAPHIC EXPLOSION, – none of them were addressed. Even Ebola!

The entire debate she stayed in shallow waters of wooden language of the EU politically correct: important ‘‘improvement”, “empowerment”, “transparency”, “equality”, “listen to people”, and the other “meaningful” cliches, favored by the EU Mandarines, dramatically lacking vision and imagination.

From time to time she was making a nod to MEPs, flattering them with reminding of her “unelected” status vis-à-vis their elected superiority. However these calculated maneuvers could not take away an impression of a dramatic lack of knowledge of the development portfolio.

At most ambivalent impression made Urpilainen  “asymmetric” answers to MEPs questions, clearly prepared in advance, and used without adaptation.

Finally, she promised to “learn”,  “listen”, and to “improve“, however the question remains if the EU needs an “apprentice-Commissioner”?

CONCLUSION: One can’t become pilot over night taking off plane w/ 300 passengers over Atlantic, but one can become aid Commissioner with  €20 000 a  month salary without a clue of international politics. What a soap!

October 1, European Parliament, Brussels Jutta URPILAINEN for International Partnerships Commissioner.

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Brexit paradoxes continue

EU, Politics

Anna van Densky OPINION Next week the European Parliament starts the series of hearings to endorse the team of Ursula von der Leyen Commissioners-designate. In one of paradoxes of protracted Brexit the British Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will participate and vote for the candidates, influencing the EU politics in spite of the fact that they did not propose a Commissioner themselves for apparent reasons.

Roughly 10% of votes, 73 UK departing MEPs will influence decisions shaping future composition of the top executives of the Commission – the guardian of EU Treaties, and the initiator of new laws.

However it is not the end of the road. In case there will be one more extension of Brexit beyond October 31, British government has to appoint a Commissioner to Brussels. Will Lord Hill come back? (Joke). Will Sir Julian King stay? If ‘yes’, it will be to the greatest joy of the Remainers,  assessing his marriage to the top EU civil servant Dane Lotte Knudsen (Germany, EEAS) as an ultimate sign of this loyalty to Brussels. Conflict of interests? One can hardly blame it to any UK national amid total confusion the protracted Brexit is causing. (Continuation follows),

Dutch Fauna party leads largest Europarl Intergroup

Blog, Europe, Politics

In the framework of the September Strasbourg Plenary the Animal welfare Intergroup of the European Parliament has elected Anja Hazecamp, Dutch MEP as president of the biggest cross party congregation.

Anja Hazekamp (51) is a prominent Dutch politician, a member of the Party for Animals (PvdD), and a member of the group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left (@GUENGL).

The PvdD is the first political party across the  world to gain parliamentary seats, including three seats for Senate, with an agenda focused primarily on animal rights, and animal welfare. At her election Hazekamp said she expects from Ursula von der Leyen ‘real change” in animal welfare issues.

Hazekamp was elected unanimously as the only candidate put forward by the MEPs. The former president of the group Sirpa Petikainen has been elected as an Honorary president.

The Intergroup is providing a forum for debate, and initiating actions for animal welfare-related issues in the European Parliament.  An entire spectrum of activities as issuing  reports, resolutions or amendments, formally asking parliamentary questions and sending letters to authorities, organising public awareness events, – all of them resulted in graduate improvements in the animal welfare situation in the EU.

 Next meeting of the Intergroup will take place in Strasbourg during October Plenary to discuss problems of exotic pet trade in the EU (Thursday 24 October, 10:00 – 11:00).

Memorial to Strasbourg Grand Synagogue

Blog, Europe, Uncategorized

Modern IT technologies will help to give a second life to a destroyed by Nazi Grand Synagogue, this time in a form of a bronze monument, established at the original place at Quai Kléber. The Jewish community, IT scientists, historians, and lovers of history have  collected a significant amount of information, allowing to restore the exact model of the demolished building.

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IT reconstruction model of Grand Synagogue Quai Kléber
On 18th of September, during the European Parliament Plenary week the Jewish Consistory of Bas-Rhin invited to the Synagogue of Peace  Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and Strasbourg politicians to celebrate in a cultural event the upcoming Rosh Hashana (New Year) festivities. The excursion in the building of New Synagogue preceded the assembly.

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Rabbin Mendel Samama (right) and Thierry Roos of Consistoire israélite du Bas-Rhin (left)
The collection of the artefacts and historic objects exposed as precious pieces of mosaic restore the picture of the spiritual past of the  Jewish Community in Alsace  – one of the most ancient in Europe, traced to the Middle Ages.

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Grand Synagogue de la Paix historic objects collection on display

After the World War II  the Jews who survived the Holocaust, reformed the Jewish community of Strasbourg, meeting in the Holiday Palace until 1948, because the Grand Synagogue, situated at Place Klèber was destroyed.

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Rosh Hashana sound of Shoffar Image: courtesy of Levi Matusof (pictured).

Following the talks with the city of Strasbourg in 1948, the Jewish community agreed to exchange the grounds of the old Synagogue against the site of Contades area, where the new monumental building was erected, by the  architect Claude Meyer-Lévy. The synagogue, called “Peace” replicating its location Rue de la Paix,, and was inaugurated in March 1958.

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The new synagogue also includes the Judaica radio headquarters, a youth center, and the headquarters of several movements, in addition to the four oratories.

G7: Tusk waywardness in Juncker absence

Blog, EU, Europe, International, Politics, Uncategorized

Anna van Densky OPINION The clumsy attempts of the president of the European Council Donald Tusk to influence the decision of British Prime minister Boris Johnson determined to depart from the EU on time with or without agreement, dabbing him “Mr.No-Deal”, look like an agony of the bloc, paying high price for its rusty mechanics unable to adapt to changing context. Teasing has never been an effective method in international politics.

G7 Summit in Biarritz (France) opens an opportunity to built bridges, however the representative of the EU prefers to burn them with provocative information war style public pressure, attempting to challenge Boris Johnson, instead of engaging in dialog with him. War of words with the UK is not what the European citizens wish, concerned by economic consequences of ‘no-deal’.

While American President Trump is actively using G7 platform for rapprochement with the UK, promising mutually beneficial trade deal, the EU has no other message, that insisting of the document that is already ‘dead’. The useless promotion of the Withdrawal Agreement (WA), which was the EU miscarriage, is aggravated by the contrasting surrealist proposal of Tusk to invite heavily indebted and plagued by ongoing armed conflict Ukraine to G7 ranks. While the oldest European democracy, and second net contributor to the EU purse is abandoning the EU, Tusk has nothing better to offer instead than to promote rapprochement with Ukraine one of 10 most corrupt nations in the world.

Just a week ago President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker was hospitalized saving the EU from one more embarrassment, caused by his physical condition. However in comparison with Tusk intellectual inability, and primitive ways of conducting international politics, varying from schoolboy teasing, to lobbying of Polish regional interests promoting Ukraine in a blunt gesture of tribalism, – all of those, evoke nostaliga for Juncker‘s clarity of thinking. Cogito, ergo sum!

Libyan war crimes and punishment

Africa, Blog, Conflict

Anna van Densky OPINION Curiously the European diplomacy started to talk about “war crimes” in Libya in the context of the protracted for a decade conflict ravaging after the West destruction of led by Colonel Gaddafi Libyan state. (Image above: Tuareg, Fezzan)

The failed ‘regime change’ opened a decade of chaos, and fragmentation, resulting in losses of among the civilian population along with the military. However the EU diplomats are not willing to remember who caused the current dramatic situation, neither they are prepared to demand the investigation of the assassination of Mouammar Gaddafi, whose lynching ended the period of the peaceful development of Libya.

Gaddafi killing

“The death of Mouammar Gaddafi, on October 20 in Syrtie, is one of the questions, which should be clarified. There are serious suspicions that it factually was the war crime“, said Luis Moreno-Campo, the General prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (The Hague) on December 16, a month after NATO manhunt, ending in Gaddafi death. Today, almost a decade later, Gaddafi lynching remains unpunished, the 150 tons of Libyan gold vanished and the Libyan state, bombed by NATO air forces, is still in ruins, ravaged by competing militias. The Murzuq air strike is no exception.

The air strike has been reported to be an action upon requests of local people of Murzuq, suffering from Chadian gangs:

“The Libyan armed forces’ aviation, under the aegis of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, responded promptly to requests for help from the Murzuq community in southern Libya. The village, on the southern outskirts of the capital in Fezzan, had been overtaken by a group of Chadian rebels who killed at least 20 people on Sunday morning. Residents spoke of members belonging to the Chadian opposition and Tebu, defined as “mercenaries in the pay of the Government of National Agreement“, based in Tripoli. The aviation has achieved a high precision raid that has dismantled the group and its means”, an Italian journalist Vanessa Tomassini reported from Libya.

Degraded to conflict and poverty by NATO bombs, the richest state of Maghreb  now faces the EU tutorials on human rights. The EU threatens with the lawsuits: the acts of “selective justice” vis-à-vis Libyans, while the names of the mega villains, who committed crimes resulting in Libyan tragedy, has been never mentioned.

If the EU top diplomat Mogherini stated on behalf of the EU on 2 August, those “committing war crimes and those breaching International Humanitarian Law must be brought to justice and held to account”, the investigation into Gaddafi assassination should be the first. Naturally the international community should protect the International Criminal Court, threatened by the US top officials:

Crimea Scythian gold collection stuck in Amsterdam

Blog, Europe, International

Anna van Densky  The ambivalent situation around the collection of Scythian gold exhibited in Amsterdam occurred after the Crimean referendum (March 16, 2014), leading to the unification with the Russian Federation, assessed by the EU as “annexation“. Both museums of the Republic of Crimea and Ukrainian state claimed their rights for the treasures of art. In response the Amsterdam Museum have  frozen the transfer of property until the dispute is settled on a legal basis or until the parties reach a peace agreement.

Crimean museums insist that they had received most artifacts from the disputed Scythian gold collection before Ukraine declared independence, Director of the Central Museum of Tavrida Andrei Malgin, said to TASS Russian news Agency.  According to international rules, Dutch museum, where the collection was exposed, should return them to the parties that provided the treasures for an exhibition, he added.

“Our main argument is that these items were excavated in Crimea and were kept in Crimean museums, so Crimea has stronger ownership rights. We insist that this is part of the Crimean people’s cultural heritage. Crimean museums have owned a large number of the items since the Soviet era or even since pre-Revolution times (1917),” Malgin underlined.

Crimean museums have documents proving that they owned these treasures long before Ukraine became independent, he explained.

Malgin reminded that that a whole exhibited collection of various items from different museums had been sent to the Netherlands to be displayed in an art event. At the time of the exhibition, the items formally belonged to Ukraine’s Museum Collections on display in Crimean museums. Even after world wars, many treasures returned to the museums from which they had been pillaged, Malgin reminded  .

The Amsterdam Court of Appeal postponed a verdict in the Scythian gold case, requesting the parties to provide further information, particularly on the ownership rights. According to the judges, the parties have been given two months to provide the requested information. “A final judgment may be expected in six to nine months’ time,” the Court pointed out. Until then, the Scythian gold collection will be kept at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam.

The Republic of Crimea historians, and art historians have certain fears the decision of the Court will be entirely politicized is spite of their rights to keep heritage in the Republic of Crimea, where it belongs.

The Scythian gold is a collection of  more than two thousand artifacts with an insurance estimated value of about $2 million, which were included into the exhibition “Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea”, held from February to August 2014 at the Allard Pearson Museum Amsterdam.

Next year Crimea commemorates hundred years of  “Russian State” on its territory, the stronghold  of the monarchists,  losing the Civil war to Bolsheviks, after the collapse of the Russian Empire. Tragically the White Army soldiers in Crimea were tricked by the promises of amnesty if they surrendered, the estimated number of following Red Terror executions vary  from 50,000 to 120,000 people.

А total of 145,693 White guards and civilians were saved in evacuation by sea (pictured below) by the end of 1920, however they did not take with them any artifacts from museums and palaces of Crimea, departing with a hope to return.

Крым эвакуация

Boris Johnson as EU antidote

Blog, EU, Europe

Anna van Densky OPINION Newly elected by the Conservatives Prime minister Boris Johnson throws a glove in the face of “the doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters“, vowing to lead the country to the decisive Brexit on October 31. However, for fair play, he should have thanked them for their huge contribution in his swift ascendance to power, because they have created the situation of a protracted political crisis blocking the way to the implementation of the decision of the referendum.

Even more so Boris Johnson had to thank the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who dabbed Theresa May requests  as “nebulous“. Many thanks to the European Council for the rejection of re-editing the Withdrawal Agreement, and personally to Michel Barnier, who stood like a rock defending the each letter of the text. All of them were indispensable for Theresa May downfall.  From now onward the “moderate”, “orderly” Brexit scenario is off the shelf.

The EU has the entire record of the successfully corrected “errors” like reshaping the European Constitution into the Lisbon Treaty, and subsequent imposition of the second referendum on the Republic of Ireland, generously offering an opportunity to the citizens to chose the “right side of history“. However in this particular Brexit case the application of pressure caused the results opposite to expected: Boris Johnson came as Brussels antidote, promising to his compatriots to resolve the problem with slicing the Gordian knot. Who can do it better than a professional in Classics? 🙂

Alexander The Great

 

Ursula von der Leyen -Spitzenkandidate proxy

Blog, EU, Politics

Anna van Densky OPINION Nine votes narrow victory of Ursula von der Leyen (60) reveals the fragility of the EU institutions, plagued by political fragmentation, and rise of Euroscepticism, the latter not without reason. The democratic deficit is becoming obvious, especially in crucial moments of appointing the EU top jobs candidates. The obscure procedure of election of the European Commission president, who is de facto ‘Prime Minister of Europe‘, does not inspire confidence neither of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), no of their electorate. The former Europarl speaker compared it to the election of the Pope: the cardinals plotting behind closed doors, while congregation is awaiting for white smoke from the chimney.

After Manfred Weber (47) Spitzenkandidate (leading candidate) from the European People’s Party was rejected by East European member-states, the candidacy of von der Leyen emerged in contingency plan during crisis Summit of the EU leaders. Hardly known outside Germany, overnight she became the most powerful EU executive, the guardian of the EU Treaties, and the monopolist of the legislative initiative.

Among 733 votes cast (one void) 383 members voted in favor, 327 against, and 22 abstained, – with the slim majority of nine votes, von der Leyen became a sensation: first European Commission female president (born in Brussels, in family of a European Commission civil servant).

In spite an attractiveness of the perspective to appoint a woman, confirming European alignment with the gender equality principles,  the entire election process was on the brink, attacked by many MEPs for its Machiavellian engineering far from public eyes. It is obvious that the next time it might not pass, throwing the EU institutions in a protracted crisis.

Even von der Leyen –  the “jackpot winner”– considered necessary ‘to respond to  the need for transparent  Spitzenkandidaten (leading candidate) system to be strengthened and the transnational lists to be reconsidered in future European elections.

With 383 votes in favour, the European Parliament elected Ursula von der Leyen President of the next European Commission in a secret paper ballot. Officially, she will enter office on 1 November 2019 for a five-year term.

Parliament currently comprises 747 MEPs as per the official notifications received by member state authorities, so the threshold needed to be elected was 374 votes, i.e. more than 50% of its component members. President Sassoli formally announced the requisite number before the results were revealed in plenary. The vote was held by secret paper ballot.

Vote ink finger