Transatlantic Politics

So it’s official. Obama’s honeymoon with Europe is over. Yesteday’s overwhelming vote against a key agreement on EU-US bank data transfers is the first major snub from the European side after Obama’s inauguration last year.

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…

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It’s common popular knowledge that Skype calls are allegedly un-spyeable. Investigative journalists frequently tell their sources to use this Estonian-designed computer-to-computer telephone system in order to avoid being wire-tapped. Provided the computer itself is bug-free, as well as the webcam/microphone used. And of course, with no mobile phone around, which can be used as an eavesdropping device, even if it’s turned off.

A recent decision of the European Union’s judicial coordination body - Eurojust - indicates that popular knowledge is not so far from the truth. Eurojust decided to support Italian prosecutors who claim that their anti-Mafia and drug dealers investigations would be so much easier if Skype allowed them to tap into conversations.

So far, VoIP programs are not subject to EU or US wiretapping or data retention legislation. Skype told EUobserver it had "extensively debriefed Eurojust on our law enforcement programme and capabilities" and said it did cooperate with police and prosecutors "where legally and technically possible."

German authorities apparently also tried to tap into Skype conversations and commissioned an IT firm to develop Trojans which could perform this task, according to documents obtained by Piraten Partei, an European movement promoting freedom on the Internet. However, the Bavarian’s efforts proved unsuccessful, as the German police publicly admitted.

Of course, Eurojust claims that wiretapping Skype and other voice-over-IP programs (VoIP) such as Yahoo messenger talk, InternetCalls etc, would only take place as part of criminal investigations, with a court order. But once they have the power and it is technically and legally possible, who can really guarantee that no abuses will happen?

Update: After some media frenzy on the matter, Eurojust decided to drop its plans and announced it had issued the statement "prematurely" and that it was "incorrect". Lovely EU institutions, aren’t they? Very professional and consistent…

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Guess what: these pretty windmills have no impact in reducing CO2 emissions. At least not in Europe, world leader against climate change.

This is what the German Green Party secretely acknowledges, in emails obtained by Spiegel Online.

Here is how it goes: the EU has set up this emission trading system. Heavy pollutors and energy companies can buy them. It’s supposed to be an incentive to switch to eco-friendly technologies.

But in fact, the actual amount of CO2 stays the same, no matter how many wind turbines the Europeans erect.

Not to mention the fact that in Germany, for instance - leading country in renewable energy technologies - the more companies make the switch to renewables, the cheaper CO2 certificates get. So in fact, the incentive is the other way around, giving energy companies a reason not to invest in such costly technologies with no impact.

It’s the economy, stupid!

That is exactly what happened in recent trading. A certificate to emit a ton of CO2 cost almost nothing. As a result, there was very little incentive for big energy companies to invest in climate friendly technologies.On the contrary. Germany was able to sell unused certificates across Europe — to coal companies in countries like Poland or Slovakia, for example. Thanks to Germany’s wind turbines, these companies were then able to emit more greenhouse gases than originally planned. Given the often lower efficiency of Eastern European power plants, this is anything but environmentally beneficial.

Indeed, when it comes to climage change, investments in wind and solar energy are not very efficient. Preventing one ton of CO2 emissions requires a relatively large amount of money. Other measures, especially building renovations, cost much less — and have the same effect.

"Do the Greens think that this problem (of climate change) will solve itself if we just screw solar panels onto our rooftops?" says one e-mail.

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So Biden has made quite an impact with his "hit the reset button" with Russia remark at the Munich security conference over the week-end. But this comes as bad news for Eastern European countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic or Romania - hailed as "special partners" by the previous Bush administration. Not to mention Georgia and Ukraine.

On the planned missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, Biden said the US would "continue to develop missile defenses to counter a growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven to work and cost effective."

"We will do so in consultation with our NATO allies and Russia."

Well, since Russia has consistantly opposed this project and with Germany and France not very keen on the project either, chances are pretty slim that the shield is ever going to be installed, despite serious political damages to the Eastern European governments involved, after they put their credibility at stake with the Bush-backed plan.

Here’s some background from the Wall Street Journal:

In advance of Mr. Biden’s speech, White House aides had said the vice president would announce that the U.S. was prepared to reconsider plans for a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe. Moscow has long opposed such plans. Mr. Biden’s actual remarks appeared vaguer. A senior administration official traveling with Mr. Biden said the administration toned down the language because of unease in Washington that Moscow was behind last week’s proposed eviction of the U.S. from an air base in Kyrgyzstan used to support the military in Afghanistan.

So the Obama administration would have no problem in scrapping the missile defense shield and it is probably a matter of months until they will do so, the moment Moscow signals some opening.

Already the Russian envoys reacted warmly to Biden’s statements.

"The U.S. sent a very strong signal, and the signal was heard," Russian foreign minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters. "It’s obvious the new U.S. administration has a very strong desire to change, and we’re ready to cooperate with this administration on all levels."

Sad day for Eastern Europe. A new entente between big European countries - France, Germany, UK - Russia and the US could only come at the expense of Eastern Europe, still seen by Moscow as its own backyard.

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Forget the war on terror. Now that Obama is shutting down Guantanamo and all CIA prisons, it’s clear that the enemy is elsewhere: It’s on your plate. Especially if you are a schnitzel or a steak-lover in Germany.

This is no joke. It’s for real. Here’s what the Guardian reports:

Germans have been urged to rethink their meat-eating habits if they want to help the planet. Germany’s federal environment agency has issued a strong advisory for people to return to prewar norms of eating meat only on special occasions and otherwise to model their diet on that of Mediterranean countries. Agriculture was responsible for around 15% of Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions and meat production was the most energy-intensive form of farming. With that in mind, reducing meat consumption was a logical step forward.

People, where is this going to? Have we all lost our common sense? Are we heading towards state-planned, rationalised eating schemes? What about freedom? What about choice? What about individual responsibility? Germany should know better, it’s not that long ago that they had state-planned societies - first during Hitler, then during the Soviet Union, in Eastern Germany.

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Romania’s top anti-corruption prosecutor Daniel Morar was awarded  as "European inspiration of the year" in an Oscar-like ceremony on Tuesday night. The awards are a must to the Brussels "creme de la creme", although Mr Morar could not attend himself, but was represented by his spokeswoman.

The European recognition comes at a crucial time for the beleaguered prosecutor, whose mandate expired in August and was temporarily prolongued until the end of December. He has few supporters among the local politicians, who have gathered against him and his highly performing unit which has investigated and prosecuted high level corruption for the first time since the fall of Communism.

Corruption is still a major problem in Romania and it was thanks to Mr Morar and a reformist justice minister, Monica Macovei - ousted just three months after the country joined the EU and her presence in the government was no longer seen as necessary to convince Brussels that the Romanian politicians were committed to fight corruption.

Also highly bullied at home, Ms Macovei recently received the "Woman of Europe" award from the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, who expressed his deepest admiration for the reforms and fight against corruption she led at home, urging Europeans to follow her example.

How many more recognitions from abroad must come for the Romanian politicians to finally get it? Their impunity is an offence to the rule of law and respect for citizens. Yet some of the blame has to go also on the Romanians’ high tolerance for corruption. Former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, charged with several counts of corruption, has just been elected as MP on Sunday, in the new direct voting system.

But this is also why reformists and anti-corruption fighters should be promoted and let to do their work, not bullied and sacked. They should be able to set an example and lead their country forward. Mr Morar should stay on as a top prosecutor and Ms Macovei maybe return as a justice minister in the new cabinet to be formed next month.

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