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Greek negotiating tactics are vacillating between “playing chicken” and bad faith

June 15, 2015

Another negotiating session ended in failure yesterday – after just 45 minutes. The Greek delegation were the visitors in Brussels. In any negotiation, the home side always has the “time” advantage in that that they can go as slow as they like. To neutralise this home advantage, a visiting side in a negotiation always needs to show more patience and always give the impression that they can sit there for ever. For a negotiating session to end in just 45 minutes would need the “visiting” delegation to actually walk away. And if the Greeks did walk away then it would seem that they are either playing a dangerous game of chicken or else that they are negotiating in “bad faith” with no intention of reaching a settlement. If the latter then they are just waiting for an opportune time – for domestic consumption – to bring this to an end and initiate a Grexit. If the former then they are waiting for a Grexit to appear inevitable such that they get some “final” concessions.

My own view is that any settlement now with Greece will only be a temporary fix – and the sins of past Greek profligacy will not have been fundamentally atoned for. The pension system that the Greeks awarded themselves are unsustainable even with the cuts implemented so far. A Greece forced to continue within the Eurozone will remain under debt pressure for a decade. Tourism will be constrained. No Icelandic type of recovery would be possible. Far better to bite the bullet now, allow a Grexit and begin to limit and later shrink the Eurozone. Both Greece and the Eurozone will eventually benefit.

Bloomberg:

Greece enters what could be a defining week after last-ditch negotiations between representatives of the Greek government and its creditors collapsed on Sunday.

The euro dropped as the European Commission said the talks in Brussels had broken up after just 45 minutes with the divide between what creditors asked of Greece and what its government was prepared to do unbridged. The focus now shifts to a June 18 meeting in Luxembourg of euro-area finance ministers, known collectively as the Eurogroup, that may become a make-or-break session deciding Greece’s ability to avert default and its continued membership in the 19-nation euro area. …..

……. “The shadow of a Greek exit from the euro zone is becoming increasingly perceptible,” German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel wrote in an op-ed to be published in Bild on Monday. “Greece’s game theorists are gambling the future of their country. And Europe’s too.”

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The Russian blacklist of 89 nonentities was a “gesture of trust”

May 31, 2015

The Russian “blacklist” of 89 inconsequential EU politicians and bureaucrats banned from entry (a German list from the Finnish site YLE) is here.

Russian blacklist of EU politicians

Most of those on the list have been quite noisy in their condemnation of Russia over Ukraine – but interestingly most are also ineffective nonentities. It has, for example Nick Clegg, Swedish MEP Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, former Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg and the EU’s former enlargement chief Stefan Fule on the list. Many are already past it. They could all cease their work tomorrow and not many in Europe or in Russia would even notice. All fairly inconsequential people and not even of very high profile.

So why would the Russians bother to ban such a group of unimportant nonentities?

They say it was as “a gesture of trust” that the list was not published openly and only provided through diplomatic channels. Considering that no-one of any significance is on the list it could even be taken as a “gesture of goodwill”! I suspect it was just part of the diplomatic “game”.

Nothing more than tit-for tat – a game of idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Russian Tass reports

Moscow confirms it has sent to the European Union’s countries a list of persons who were denied entry to Russia but says it would prefer to refrain from comments on personalities, a high-ranking official at the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday. …. Russia recommended long ago that envoys of those countries which imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation should apply to Russian consular offices before their trips for specifying whether they are barred from entering the country, he said.

“However, our partners preferred not to do so and asked to notify them through diplomatic channels,” he said. “In line with this, the above-mentioned lists were sent to them.”

“[The lists] were handed to our European partners as a gesture of trust and their publication may weigh on the conscience of corresponding sides,” he said. “Just one thing remains unclear: did our European co-workers want these lists to minimise inconveniences for potential ‘denied persons’ or to stage another political show?” he said.

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Tit for tat: EU politicians among 89 banned by Russia

May 29, 2015

Russia has made and already implemented a list of 89 EU citizens to be banned from entering Russia. From the information appearing today it would seem that there are many politicians on this “blacklist”.

  1. YahooNews (AFP): Moscow has issued a blacklist of European Union politicians barred from Russia in response to EU sanctions over Crimea and Ukraine, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday. “Russia yesterday handed over a list of people to diverse EU embassies who may not enter Russia any longer,” Rutte said at a weekly press conference, adding that two Dutch MPs and a Dutch MEP were on the list. The list contains 89 names, according to a letter from Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders tweeted by Belgian MEP Mark Demesmaeker. The letter, which was confirmed as authentic by the foreign ministry to AFP, said that Moscow had asked for the list not to be made public. Guy Verhofstadt, head of the Liberal group in the European Parliament and a former Belgian PM, is also on the list, his spokesman Jeroen Reijnen told AFP.
  2. Swedish Radio: Russia has banned 80-90 EU citizens including 8 Swedish citizens. The Foreign Ministry has asked the Russian Embassy for an explanation but has not revealed any names.
  3. DutchNews: Three Dutch MPs banned from entering Russia: foreign ministry (update) — According to broadcaster Nos, two members of the lower house of parliament and one MEP have been stopped from entering the country. Former PVV parliamentarian Louis Bontes said in Friday’s AD he is one of those affected. Bontes, who described the list as ‘bizarre’, recently called Russian president Vladimir Putin a ‘KGB crook’. The other two are Labour MP Michiel Servaes and Hans van Baalen, who represents the VVD in Europe. Servaes said he has no idea why he has been included and described the list as ‘absurd’, the Post Online reported.
  4. Newsweek: Since the start of the Ukraine crisis several European politicians have been refused entry into Russia, under unclear circumstances sparking rumours of a secret blacklist of European politicians. German MP Karl-Georg Wellmann was stopped at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport yesterday and was told he was banned from entering Russia until 2019. In September German Greens politician Rebecca Harms was denied entry to Russia in similar circumstances and both have said they believe they are on a secret Kremlin blacklist of politicians who backed sanctions on Moscow.

Somehow the banning of Russians from Europe and now the reciprocal banning of Europeans from Russia does not arouse – in me – any great indignation or heat. It almost seems like the orchestrated moves of some diplomatic chess game. Europe started with an Elephant-in-a-china-shop Opening Gambit and Russia has responded with the Dutch Defense.

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Norway forcibly “kidnaps” half of all Roma children

May 18, 2015

There is something very peculiar going on in the State of Norway and it is the Child Welfare Agency which is arousing great suspicion. It may just be cultural ignorance or it may be a deep-seated racism or – and this is much more worrying – it may be a social experiment which has some political backing.

Norway has a very dark history in the treatment of its Roma population. Forced sterilisations of Roma women were taking place as late as 1977. Norway denied reentry to many of its Roma citizens if they left the country during WW2. Inevitably those denied reentry ended up in Nazi concentration camps. Many died. The Norwegian State’s Child Welfare Agency has a reputation for cultural ignorance and racism in their very frequent “kidnapping” or “confiscation” of children of parents they don’t understand. Now, it seems they are being accused by the European Commission of forcibly taking half of all Roma children in Norway away from their parents.

UPDATE! The report is available here.

“Serious concerns have been raised by civil society representatives about extremely frequent placements of Roma children in child welfare services, including foster care. It is estimated that over 60 Roma children are in foster care currently and that a further 60 children may be vulnerable to such interventions in the future; this represents about half of the total number of (non-immigrant) Roma children in Norway”.

Swedish Radio:

Around 120 Roma children in Norway have either been forcibly placed in foster care or are at risk of it, which is equivalent to half of those who are counted as Norwegian Roma children, according to the  Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe in a report to be published later today.

They Council of Europe gives no details on how it has arrived at this previously unknown total. However the report says that Norwegian NGOs are very concerned that the so-called Barnevernet is forcing taking so many Roma children away from their parents.

Most of the children end up in foster families and some in institutions. According to the Council of Europe sources many Roma women in Norway avoid giving birth to their children at hospitals for fear that the authorities will take away their newborn babies.

The Norwegian government said in a response to the Council of Europe that the country does not register people based on ethnicity and that the government therefore can not comment on this new information that such a large proportion of Roma children are being forcibly taken away.

The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, is said to be seriously concerned about the situation of the Roma in Norway. He claims that there has been an increase in violent and discriminatory statements in Norway against Roma. The Commissioner also points to the lack of education for Roma children. In 2012 data from Oslo shows that just over half of the city’s Roma children of school age were registered in a school class.

This is not the first time that Norway’s child services have been the subject of very disturbing reports. The Nordic Page reports:

The recent conflict over the Norwegian authorities putting two children of an Indian couple in foster care gets resolved with political intervention. But there are still questions that will not go away about the Norwegian Child Welfare Agency (Barnevernet).

One of the best illustrating examples of this problem is the latest barnevern crisis between India and Norway. Two kids of the NRI couple were taken under protective care last May by Barnevernet, which claimed emotional disconnect with the parents, and placed them in foster parental care as per the local Norwegian court’s directive. The family had accused the Norwegian authorities with cultural misunderstandings and prejudice as they were taken for being fed by hand and sleeping in the same bed as their parents in addition to insufficient toys to play in the house. After Indian Foreign Ministry intervened the investigation, the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre helped children to be handed to children’s uncles.

But the stories of Russian children being forcibly taken by the Norwegian Child Welfare Agency are even more disturbing. There is a hint of some of the children being “trafficked” to paedophiles posing as foster parents and being abused.

Russian media have recently run a series of issues about how more and more Russian women living in Norway are deprived of their children. Especially two cases on Russian media were strong enough to mobilize the protestors. One of these news stories featured a Russian citizen, who lives in Norway, whose name is Maya Kasayeva. Her shocking statements took many newspapers’ front pages: “During the court hearings, the judge told me: ‘We give you residence permit, and you give us your son.’ I refused, and then the repressions started.”

Irina Bergseth Frolova, a Russian woman living in Norway, had found out that her ex-husband, a Norwegian citizen, as well as his friends and relatives, had been raping their four-year-old son. The reports also remind another foster father who was previously been found guilty for child pornography and child sexual abuse in Stavanger.

In fact, the practices of Barnevern do not only worry Russians and Indians. There is a deep rooted skepticism among local groups towards an increased use of home based measures. A report prepared by Gruppen til Familiens Selvstendige Rett (GFSR), Redd Våre Barn (RVB) and BarnasRett concludes that current practices in the Norwegian Child Protection system are not compatible with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Kidnapping children is often driven by a very lucrative adoption industry. And a small but significant part of the adoption industry is to satisfy the desires of paedophiles. But 50% of all Roma children being forcibly taken away suggests some political motive. It is not plausible – as the Norwegian government claims – that these numbers come as a surprise. It could well be that Norway is trying out a new policy to integrate Roma children — by taking them away from their Roma parents and brainwashing them to be something else.

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EU judges don’t have the discernment necessary to tell Sky from Skype

May 6, 2015

Any 5-year old today can tell you what Skype is. In a country where Sky operates the child will also tell you the channel number on cable.

But EU judges – by their own admission –  have not the discernment necessary to be able to tell the difference.  They seem terribly confused  but they try to blame the confusion on the “general public”. But I am afraid I find them (the EU judges) either blatantly partisan or unashamedly unintelligent.

BBC: Video chat software Skype’s name is so similar to the broadcaster Sky’s that the public is likely to be confused between the two, an EU court has ruled.

The judgement prevents Microsoft from registering a trademark for Skype’s name and bubble-design logo. The US company intends to appeal against the decision.

Judges at the General Court of the European Union said: “Conceptually, the figurative element conveys no concept, except perhaps that of a cloud.”

“[That] would further increase the likelihood of the element ‘Sky’ being recognised within the word element ‘Skype’, for clouds are to be found ‘in the sky’ and thus may readily be associated with the word ‘sky’.”

I don’t think that EU judges really lack the intelligence to tell the difference. But they do bend to what is considered to be politically correct in a bigoted EU world. And in that world, EU judges do not easily rule against an EU corporation if pitted against a US (or any non-European) corporation.

After all Skype is now owned by a US corporation

Skype was later acquired by Microsoft in May 2011 for $8.5 billion. Microsoft’s Skype division headquarters are in Luxembourg, but most of the development team and 44% of the overall employees of the division are still situated in Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia.

But Sky is European and the EU judges know what is politically correct.

Sky plc is a British-based pan-European satellite broadcasting, on-demand Internet streaming media, broadband and telephone services company headquartered in London, with operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany,Austria and Italy. Sky is Europe’s biggest and leading media company and the largest pay-TV broadcaster in Europe, with over 20 million subscribers.

I am afraid that for the EU General Court and its judges, whatever is “politically correct” comes first and any pretense to fairness or being equitable comes a distant second.

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EU throws money at unnecessary, “ghost” airports

December 14, 2014

No EU country refuses funds for infrastructure, no matter how useless or unnecessary that particular project is. After all it is wonderful for domestic consumption and for creating some jobs during the construction of the project. The contractors are usually quite happy as well. Infrastructure projects in Europe – in my experience – generally have about a 10% net profit margin for the contractors. Consultants involved in such projects usually make some 30%+ as profit margins. Consultants help in making the forecasts to attract the funds and are usually involved in some part of implementing the project as well.

Of course, local politicians champion specific projects and specific consultants and local contractors. They help in getting the appropriate EU bureaucrats and those in their own countries to select the projects and the contractors. And so what if the merits of the project are a little exaggerated. So when I see a story like this one, I am not too greatly surprised.

It seems that the EU has spent some €2 billion on airports in member states. A third of this money has gone just to Poland. Projects are selected based on forecasts of future usage (made by consultants and local politicians and bureaucrats) and these rosy forecasts are nearly always grossly exaggerated.

Reuters: EU funds help Poland build ‘ghost’ airports

The European Union has given Poland more than 100 million euros ($125 million) to build at least three “ghost” airports in places where there are not enough passengers to keep them in business.

The result is gleaming new airport terminals which, even at the peak of the holiday season, echo to the sound of empty concourses and spend millions trying to attract airlines.

Poland is not the only country in Europe to have built airports that struggle to attract flights. Around 80 airports in Europe attract fewer than 1 million passengers a year, and about three-quarters of those are in the red, according to industry body Airports Council International. Some cost much more to build than the Polish projects. One airport in eastern Spain, open for three years, has so far received not a single flight. 

Poland received 615.7 million euros in EU support for airports between 2007 and 2013, according to figures supplied to Reuters by the European Commission. That was almost twice as much as the next biggest recipient, Spain, and more than a third of all member states’ money for airports. The government declined to provide all the information on which it based its decisions to invest in the airports, but Reuters has reviewed data on three sites where traffic fell dramatically short of forecasts. …….. 

…… Between 2007 and 2013, the European Union promised funding to help build and upgrade 12 Polish airports. Some of the projections underlying the plans were highly ambitious.

The government declined to detail its predictions for passenger numbers. But figures for three of the airports – Lodz, Rzeszow and Lublin – are contained in letters on a related topic sent by the European Commission to the Polish foreign minister. The letters show Polish authorities projected combined passenger numbers for the airports to be more than 3 million passengers a year. In 2013, the actual number was just over 1.1 million.

Together, the investments in the three airports totaled about 245 million euros. Around 105 million of that came from the European Union. The rest came from central government in Warsaw, local governments and the airports themselves.

About Lodz, Reuters reports

The airport commissioned a feasibility study from advisory firm Ernst & Young (EY), published in November, 2009. EY predicted a minimum of 1.042 million passengers in 2013 for Lodz. That was less than the government forecast but many more than the 353,633 who actually passed through the airport last year. EY declined to comment.

Low cost airlines also get much benefit from the money spent on promoting the airports.

The state also has indirect methods of helping the airports, in particular by giving money to the airlines – mainly low-cost carriers like Ryanair.

“In practice, these payments serve as an incentive for airlines,” CEE Bankwatch Network, the non-governmental watchdog, said in its report.

Lodz and Rzeszow airports did not respond to questions about how much they pay airlines. A spokesman for Lublin airport said only that it was successfully boosting communications to help the local economy.

But public records for Podkarpackie, the mountainous, forested region where Rzeszow airport sits, show that between 2011 and 2014 its government paid 5.7 million euros to Ryanair in exchange for advertisements promoting the region, which appeared on Ryanair’s web site and in its in-flight magazines. Podkarpackie spent another 3 million euros to advertise with Polish carrier Eurolot over a three-year period. ……. 

In all, 70 percent of the region’s 2013 promotional budget went to airlines that fly into Rzeszow airport. These payments are problematic, say several people involved in Polish aviation, because the airports are at the mercy of the airlines. With so many airports to choose from, airlines can easily shift routes.

A woman walks in front of the check-in area at the airport in Lodz October 10, 2014. REUTERS-Kacper Pempel

The busy check-in area at Lodz airport on 10th October 2014 CREDIT: REUTERS/KACPER PEMPEL

Interestingly another report today is about one of the CIA’s rendition airports which is to get an expensive make-over

EU funds help Poland re-fit CIA rendition hub

Poland’s next big European-funded airport project is at Szymany, a remote airfield which the CIA used just over a decade ago to transport al Qaeda suspects to a secret interrogation center it ran in Poland. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was probably among detainees who landed at the airfield en route to the CIA facility, code named “Quartz,” in a nearby forest, according to a Council of Europe report.

…… Now, a 48.6 million euro ($60 million) project is underway to create an international airport on the site of the airfield. Just over half the cost will come from the EU. The airport’s operator, Warmia i Mazury Sp., says it expects 80,000 passengers in 2016, the first full year of operation, and about 250,000 passengers a year by 2035.  ……..     “That part of Poland needs an airport, but not there,” said Jacek Krawczyk, a former chairman of Polish airline LOT who has a senior role at the European Economic and Social Committee, which advises the European Commission. “It’s a complete mistake.”

When EU funds are at stake common sense tends to leave the scene.

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Juncker’s Christmas present for Europe: used goods in an imaginary wrapping

November 27, 2014

Jean-Claude Juncker announced – with great fanfare – a Christmas present for Europe yesterday. It was a €315 billion investment plan which would generate 1.3 million new jobs.  Sleight of hand is what he is good at as he has proved during his time as Prime Minister of Luxembourg. Do one thing and call it something else. Provide and attract users for clever schemes for tax evasion but call it tax avoidance.

Yesterday’s announcements don’t surprise. They don’t provide any credit for Juncker, the European Commission or the European Parliament. They do confirm for me that the “old” dream of a new European hegemony – mainly shared by French and German and some Italian politicians – is crippling the EU.  Trying to recreate the past with another Holy Roman Empire or a Fourth Reich will only lead to a spurt for separatism and further internal conflicts.

Right now European companies are awash with money which is not being invested. It is not being invested because the political environment does not provide any confidence that a return can be earned. Angela Merkel is seen as being forced to accept wasteful spending because of her grand coalition with the socialists. German energy policy is in a shambles and Germans pay the highest electricity prices in Europe. Even reductions in oil price don’t get passed on to the consumer because the Energiewende has locked the country into an era of high prices to support the unsupportable shift to renewables. The German economy has been stagnating since the coalition assumed office. Francois Hollande is desperately trying to spend more money that France does not have. Northern Italy is being held down by spending in southern parts. In Sweden a new Red/Green minority coalition depends upon support from the far left (a euphemism for old communists) and is busy stopping infrastructure development projects to keep the Greens happy and planning a splurge of public spending to keep the far left happy.

And then comes Juncker with his claim that Europe would have an early Christmas. The European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) is the brainchild of the EU Commissioners and will keep them happy and the bureaucracy growing in a time of “austerity”. And the idiot EU parliament approved it.

Juncker's EFSI

Juncker’s EFSI

The fund is supposed to stimulate infrastructure projects (road, rail, energy, IT, …) but it needs new legislation in each country and will cause a competition between the countries to get their share of the new EU pig-trough. But his €315 billion turns out not to be €315 billion. It is just €21 billion. Oh, and by the way, even this is not real. It is not any new money but just an arithmetic subterfuge. It is just reallocated from other  areas of the EU budget. And if the massive leveraging to get private investment to produce the rest of the €294 billion does not materialise – as it won’t – then the European taxpayer has to pick up the tab. Those few investors who come in will be protected – by taxpayers money – and will lead to further exploitation of EU money by the few. As wih most such grand EU spending schemes new scams will be developed. A few developers and the EU bureaucrats will enrich themselves. And the EU taxpayers will pay – and continue to pay.

Juncker sees himself as Santa Claus. But as Pope Francis said a couple of days ago, Europe is becoming “haggard”. Not that the Roman Catholic Church has much to crow about but with Juncker at the helm it could become an expensive Christmas for Europe. He faces a no-confidence motion today but I don’t hold out any great hopes that he will be rejected by a compliant and self-serving European Parliament.

The EU has become just another cult.

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Juncker’s Luxembourg marketed tax avoidance

November 6, 2014

Maybe it’s just my jaundiced vision, but I don’t see the European Commission as being any repository for ethics or good behaviour.

Of course Luxembourg’s economy is dominated by its banking sector. In global competition it depends on its banks and financial institutions having a competitive advantage over other countries. And it now becomes clear that the country’s government did as much as they could to ensure that the country’s laws allowed these institutions to market and exercise this advantage.

Jean-Claude Juncker

Jean-Claude Juncker

It has now been revealed that Luxembourg, its government, its bureaucrats and its institutions have actively marketed their “tax avoidance” services to at least 340 major companies. Much of this was during the time that Jean-Claude Juncker was Prime Minister of Luxembourg between 1995 and 2013. This is the same high-living Juncker who is the new President of the European Commission and declared 3 months ago that he would “try to put some morality, some ethics, into the European tax landscape.”  Juncker lives up to my low expectations of EU mandarins.

Of course tax avoidance is legal and not tax evasion. I have little sympathy for politicians who blame corporations for taking advantage of the rules they themselves make to minimise their tax payments. Any corporation would be failing in its fiduciary duties if it did not legally try to minimise its tax burden. For that matter any individual who for want of being familiar with the rules, payed more tax than he had to – even if it was for philanthropic reasons – would be just a fool.

(This has nothing to do with my view that taxes based on wealth generation are fundamentally counter-productive and should instead be based on wealth consumption or destruction).

The Guardian:

A cache of almost 28,000 pages of leaked tax agreements, returns and other sensitive papers relating to over 1,000 businesses paints a damning picture of an EU state which is quietly rubber-stamping tax avoidance on an industrial scale.

The documents show that major companies — including drugs group Shire, City trading firm Icap and vacuum cleaner firm Dyson, who are headquartered in the UK or Ireland — have used complex webs of internal loans and interest payments which have slashed the companies’ tax bills. These arrangements, signed off by the Grand Duchy, are perfectly legal.

The documents also show how some 340 companies from around the world arranged specially-designed corporate structures with the Luxembourg authorities. The businesses include corporations such as Pepsi, Ikea, Accenture, Burberry, Procter & Gamble, Heinz, JP Morgan and FedEx. Leaked papers relating to the Coach handbag firm, drugs group Abbott Laboratories, Amazon, Deutsche Bank and Australian financial group Macquarie are also included. …….. 

……. The revelations will be embarrassing for the new president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who was prime minister of Luxembourg between 1995 and 2013. In a speech in Brussels in July, Juncker promised to “try to put some morality, some ethics, into the European tax landscape.” He has insisted that the country is not a tax haven.

Pressure is already building on Luxembourg after the European Commission launched a formal investigation into whether Amazon’s tax arrangements in the Grand Duchy amount to unfair state aid. The Luxembourg tax arrangements of Italian carmaker Fiat’s finance unit are also under official scrutiny by Brussels.

Asked recently if such a crackdown risked damaging the economy of Luxembourg, one senior figure closely involved in the G20 reform programme said: “I don’t care. It is like saying: ‘If you fight drugs there will be no jobs in certain parts of Mexico.’” …… 

 

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Novorossiya: Putin calculates that Obama will bark and show his teeth but will not bite

August 31, 2014

Putin did not cause the descent of Ukraine into anarchy. That was the EU and the US respectively trying to expand the boundaries of Europe and NATO. The EU sold the “benefits” of joining Europe very hard and raised expectations in the country which no President could live up to. In the process they supported the opposition to the elected (but disliked) President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. That included substantial support for Ukraine’s neo-Nazi, nationalist Right Sector. The EU bureaucrats in Brussels were elated at the potential for expanding the EU. Catherine Ashton and John Kerry were so full of themselves and their “success” in spreading democracy that they miscalculated the consequences. Yanukovych was toppled in February 2014 and the EU and the US celebrated. But the Right Sector lost no time in “pushing” and pressurising the Russian speakers especially in Eastern Ukraine. The push-back started and Crimea “voted” to join Russia. Russia ratified the decision and effected the transition on the ground. The EU and the US responded with sanctions. A missile fired by Russian separatists – perhaps aimed at a Ukraine military aircraft flying in the shadow of a commercial jet – brought down Malaysian flight 17. Sanctions were extended. The EU made noises. Obama demonstrated his risk aversion when even the atrocities by ISIS did not lead to any action by the US beyond a few drone attacks.

And so Putin has probably made his calculation that while Obama is by no means toothless, he will bark and show his teeth and foam at the mouth, but he will not bite. NATO will not start a war in Europe except as the tail of a belligerent US. The EU has 28 members and 28 strategies and no real leadership.

The US and EU have now established that regime-change of a government they disapprove of is a legitimate justification for the use of force. Vladimir Putin and Russia and China have taken notice. And the regime-change started by the US and the EU in February 2014 will probably be brought to some kind of conclusion (for the time being) as Putin establishes Novorossiya.

Novorossiya - graphic Washington Post

Novorossiya – graphic Washington Post

Whatever is left of Ukraine will be land-locked and Putin will again have control of the Black Sea.

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“My goal is a white Ukraine” – Swedish neo-Nazi

July 24, 2014

Whether they admit it or not, the European Union and the United States have helped the growth of the far-right, neo-Nazi Right Sector in Ukraine. My belief is that this was more due to incompetence in applying foreign policy (what else would one expect with John Kerry, William Hague and Catherine Ashton in charge?) than due to any well analysed implementation of foreign policy. The growth of the Right Sector – which makes no secret of its fascist, anti-semitic, anti-black views –  was probably not intended, just as the growth of ISIS and Al Qaida related groups was not intended in Syria. Just as the growth of ISIS in Iraq or the rebirth and growth of the Taliban in Afghanistan were not intended.

Ukraine and the Right Sector have also provided the idiot, neo-Nazi, white supremacists of western Europe with a cause to rally behind and an opportunity to exercise their yearnings for violence. Just as Syria and ISIS have provided young, radicalised, idiot Muslims of western Europe with a cause and an opportunity. (That this was not foreseen by the governments of Europe and the EU is another indicator of incompetence and also that the “common” EU foreign policy is just a “dumbing-down” of the policies of its member countries).

In Ukraine the Azov Batallion  was formed by, and operates under, the authority of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. It is, ostensibly, a volunteer force, about 300 strong and has provided a home for the more violent, far-right Ukrainian hooligans. It has also provided a home for neo-Nazi “volunteers” from at least Sweden, Finland, Norway and Italy.

Svenska Dagbaldet:“My goal is a white Ukraine. I am a nationalist and I want that white Europeans will remain in Europe” , says Mikael Skillt from Sundsvall. SvD reached him by telephone with the Azov Batallion somewhere outside Donetsk.  

Skillt is a member of the Swedish neo-Nazi, Swedish Party. Since February, he is in Ukraine. Now, he is in the Azov batallion and leads a search party outside Donetsk.

Skillt has also been talking to the BBC:

The appearance of far-right activists, both foreign and home-grown, among the Ukrainian volunteers fighting in east Ukraine is causing unease. Mikael Skillt is a Swedish sniper, with seven years’ experience in the Swedish Army and the Swedish National Guard. He is currently fighting with the Azov Battalion, a pro-Ukrainian volunteer armed group in eastern Ukraine. He is known to be dangerous to the rebels: reportedly there is a bounty of nearly $7,000 (£4,090; 5,150 euros) on his head.

In a telephone conversation from an undisclosed location, Mr Skillt told me more about his duties: “I have at least three purposes in the Azov Battalion: I am a commander of a small reconnaissance unit, I am also a sniper, and sometimes I work as a special coordinator for clearing houses and going into civilian areas.”

…… Mr Skillt believes races should not mix. He says the Jews are not white and should not mix with white people. His next project is to go fight for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because he believes Mr Assad is standing up to “international Zionism”.

Italians and Finns and Norwegians are also in the Azov Batallion.

YLE: 

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a demand on Monday for Finland, Sweden, the Baltic countries and France to investigate claims published in Italy’s Il Giornale newspaper that citizens from these countries have voluntarily left to fight alongside government troops in east Ukraine.

The article in Il Giornale, published over the weekend, said the international fighters had joined the armed volunteer group the Azov Brigade, said to be made up of around 300 far-right extremists fighting against pro-Russian separatists.

Il Giornale featured an interview with one Italian volunteer who had joined the brigade, who says he and his colleagues are there of their own will and for their own ideological reasons.

“Many have joined us from the Nordic countries, like Sweden, Finland and Norway,” the fighter says.

It would seem that the Azov Batallion is the unregulated military arm of the Ukrainian government.

 

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Posted in European Union, Politics, Ukraine | Comments Off on “My goal is a white Ukraine” – Swedish neo-Nazi

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