The vote in the European Parliament is particularly embarrassing after Hillary Clinton’s intense efforts in the past week to change the lawmakers’ minds - phonecalls, letters, op-eds.. telling them how important it is for Europe to allow US investigators to get data on their banking transactions on the search for terrorism funding. Nothing helped.

Euro-deputies scoffed at being sidelined in negotiations and claimed the data protection provisions were too weak.

Added to that, and maybe more important than privacy issues, the Parliament used this vote to flex its muscles towards national governments and the EU commission - the bloc’s executive.

A "historic victory" claimed the Socialist leader in the parliament, Martin Schulz. "The US Administration may have wrongly thought they could deal with the European Parliament like Gulliver with the Lilliputians," the German politician said. 

As one fellow journalist put it, "15 minutes of fame for the European Parliament at the expense of EU security."

Now what? Well, the US can still negotiate bilateral deals with the Netherlands and Switzerland, where the company dealing with this data, SWIFT, has its data bases. A mirror data base on US soil, which had been at the thrust of a big EU-US scandal in 2006 has been reconfigured since January 1st, so that it no longer has information on European transactions. That is why the US had negotiated this deal last year, but meanwhile, the new EU legal framework - the Lisbon Treaty - came into force, giving the Parliament the power to reject the agreement.

Washington can also pursue the EU track, negotiating a new agreement with the whole Union, but that would take considerably longer and the European Parliament will still have the right to say ‘nay’ at the end of the process.

The Parliament’s snub comes shortly after Obama himself gave Europe the cold shoulder, when cancelling his attendance to an EU-US summit planned in Madrid in May.

In fairness, the summit more than anything else was a photo-opportunity for the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Rodriguez Zapatero, who has developed somewhat of a crush on Obama. He even attended the National Prayer Breakfast, despite being a convinced secularist, just to shake hands with Obama. His country’s plummeting economy and soaring unemployment rates, his dwindling popularity, were all enough reasons to be depressed. Not to mention that although he is the chairman of the rotating EU presidency, he has way less powers than his predecessors, because of the same Lisbon Treaty that gave a bigger say to the EU parliament. It actually shouldn’t be Zapatero, but the standing president of the EU council - Belgian low-key politician Herman Van Rompuy - who organises such summit. These institutional quarrels were one of the reasons why Obama decided not to go to Madrid. "We’ve told them: ‘Figure it out and let us know,’ " a White House official told WSJ.

However, summitry is what EU is best at. And diplomats say it’s a way to cement relations between the EU and US. Especially after the deep freeze during the Bush years. Obama just doesn’t seem to be bothered by this. Will this come back to haunt him? Maybe the EU parliament’s snub is a first sign already…

Other posts of interest

• May 6, 2007 -- Eurabia Becomes Reality
• March 8, 2007 -- Eastern Europe: growing economy, messy politics
• August 8, 2007 -- U.S. Constitution: Presumption of Innocence?

True, the man seems genuinely attached to the pleople of the former Soviet bloc, and holds mesmerizing speeches in  Poland, Romania and Czech Republic, just the way he did a couple of months ago in Ukraine and Georgia.

But one can’t get rid of the feeling that Biden is used as a consolation prize, as a nice grandpa who will soothe your parents scolded you or - even worse - completely ignore you. Or, to be more precise, Mother Russia and Uncle Sam. Who are now feeling very cosy to each other. And despite all the reassurances of good ol’ Joe, Eastern Europenans are stil a bit jittery when it comes to the Big Bear.

When Biden talks to Romanians about their 20-year anniversary of the fall of Communism, which was the only bloody revolution among peaceful transitions in the region, when he says he brought his daughter and grand-daughter along "to see and understand first-hand the story of this region and of this continent", people are of course impressed. But some of them wonder.. what does this mean, what does it mean that it is this nice old man who is the Vice-President of the US, not the President, who comes here and tells us this. Is it because Obama doesn’t care much for history? Or is it because his priorities are now to get friends with Russia again? Or is it simply that he doens’t really connect with Europeans? Or maybe all of the above..

Other posts of interest

• February 2, 2007 -- good ol’ chirac
• June 10, 2009 -- UK’s Brown and the left’s demise in EU elections
• September 10, 2007 -- Muslim Day Parade in NYC

Other posts of interest

• March 19, 2007 -- Independence Day in Belarus
• August 29, 2007 -- Kazakhstan sets foot in the EU
• March 18, 2007 -- Bulgaria: Russia’s “Trojan horse” in the EU

If the Inspector General - who is directly charged with auditing the Federal Reserve’s activities - cannot grasp the necessity to audit the Federal Reserve’s recent activities, every American is royally screwed from the top down.  Do you know why?  Because according to Bloomberg, the Fed has lent the equivalent of $9 trillion (!) U.S. dollars to prop up our financial system over the past 8 months.  This works out to ~$30,000 USD for every single American. 

Nobody at the Fed knows who has received what and who is owed what.  Over the past 8 months through their various bailouts and lending facilities, the United States Federal Reserve has put every single American alive today on the line for approximately ~$30,000.  This is money that has been "loaned" to the richest and most powerful banks and insurance companies in the U.S. in the form of debt guarantees, bond guarantees, outright loans, etc.  So is it too much to ask that the Inspector General be auditing this activity…?

Are you paying attention as Washington and New York mortgage our future and our children’s future?  If not…why not?

Other posts of interest

• June 15, 2009 -- Medvedev the pacifist
• April 27, 2007 -- Poland’s Paradox: Punishing Anti-Communist Icons
• February 11, 2009 -- European windmills have no impact on CO2 emissions

Other posts of interest

• June 10, 2009 -- UK’s Brown and the left’s demise in EU elections
• February 13, 2007 -- Crazy politics in new europe
• February 2, 2007 -- good ol’ chirac