Category Archives: Europe / International

Anything to do with European / international issues

Stephen Tall

Can the Lib Dems come second in June Euro elections?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 21st April 2009 - 7:45 am

There must be something in the water in Wales that instils deep confidence in our leaders. The Welsh Lib Dems’ leader, Kirsty Williams, has her ‘Project 31’, with its aim of propelling the party into majority government in the Welsh Assembly. And speaking to BBC Wales last week, ahead of the party’s Welsh conference, national leader Nick Clegg declared his determination that the Lib Dems should push Labour into third place in this June’s elections to the European Parliament.

The party has done this just twice in its recent history, and both times – 2004 and 2008 – were …

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Jonathan Fryer – What Hope for the Middle East?

By The Voice | Wed 15th April 2009 - 6:30 pm

Over at Society Today, Lib Dem blogger and London candidate for the European Parliament Jonathan Fryer examines the prospects for peace in the troubled region. Here’s an excerpt:

… the prognosis for the future need not necessarily be as grim as the pessimists fear. First and foremost, the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House should provide a whole new dynamic to the Washington-Tel Aviv axis. In the past, US administrations – including that of George W Bush – have allowed Israel to get away with murder, literally and figuratively. That has included the ongoing expansion of Jewish settlements in

…

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Mark Pack

Better news from Afghanistan and Pakistan

By Mark Pack | Tue 14th April 2009 - 3:20 pm

An update on two of the the trio of stories I blogged about earlier this month, all relating to the treatment of women.

In Afghanistan, the controversial law which would have severely curtailed the rights of women, for example by requiring married women to get permission from their husbands before leaving the house, has been shelved.

Meanwhile in Pakistan, the public flogging of a teenage girl in Swat (footage of which was broadcast on Channel 4) has now triggered a government inquiry.

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Mark Pack

How Twitter is fuelling a revolt against communism

By Mark Pack | Tue 7th April 2009 - 3:18 pm

Two days ago the Communists were declared victors in Moldova’s elections, triggering widespread unrest as people claimed the elections were rigged. Twitter has played a key role in organising the protests, as The Telegraph has reported:

Organisers used the social networking site Twitter to rally opposition to a Communist victory in legislative elections.

At least 10,000 protesters gathered and police fired water cannon but were unable to stop the crowd from breaking into the buildings…

“The election was controlled by the Communists, they bought everyone off,” said Alexei, a student. “We will have

…

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Stephen Tall

Nick’s pick of the greatest Parliamentary speeches in the last century

By Stephen Tall | Mon 6th April 2009 - 7:28 pm

A big tip of my hat to Michael White in today’s Guardian for his feature, Greatest speeches in parliament of the past 100 years, 1909-2009, which links to a number of the Hansard transcripts of Parliamentary speeches nominated by ’46 distinguished figures, mostly living peers and MPs, plus a few officials and observers’.

It’s well worth browsing lazily through – as, incidentally, is the Hansard website, which you can access here. You can, for instance, search on speeches by “Jo Grimond”, and read ‘Major Grimond’s’ (as he then was known) maiden speech from March 10, 1950 …

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Mark Pack

“Women Erased in Israel, Flogged in Pakistan and Restricted in Afghanistan”

By Mark Pack | Sat 4th April 2009 - 9:12 am

The New York Times headline neatly wraps up three stories about the at times grim, and in the photoshopping case verging on farcical, struggle for women’s rights across much of the Middle East:

On Friday, The Associated Press reported that Israeli newspapers “aimed at ultra-Orthodox Jewish readers” digitally manipulated a photograph of the new Israeli government, to remove two female cabinet ministers, Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver…

The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reports on Friday that Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, is “taking serious notice of the public flogging of a girl in Swat” and “has ordered the authorities to inquire

…

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Stephen Tall

Ed Davey on Lisbon treaty: “I’ve read all the key parts”

By Stephen Tall | Fri 3rd April 2009 - 3:42 pm

Caroline Flint, Labour’s minister of state for Europe, sparked some minor controversy earlier this week, after she admitted she had not read parts of the Lisbon treaty: “I have read some of it but not all of it,” she confessed. The Tories professed their outrage, seemingly forgetting Ken Clarke’s famous declaration, back when he was a senior member of John Major’s cabinet, that he had not read the Maastricht treaty.

LDV felt duty-bound to put the question to Ed Davey, the Lib Dems’ shadow foreign secretary – here’s what he told us:

I’ve read all the key parts, but there

…

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Richard Huzzey

Ex-Lib Dem Postmaster joins UKIP

By Richard Huzzey | Wed 1st April 2009 - 5:23 pm

Deva Kumarisiri, the postmaster who introduced a controversial policy against customers who spoke poor English, has joined UKIP and, the BBC reports, will stand for them in the European elections. He has apparently found a kindred soul in that party’s leader, Nigel Farage.

Regular readers will recall that Mr. Kumarisiri was once a Liberal Democrat councillor.

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Antony Hook

Opinion: Hannan Lifts Channel Fog – but there’s much more to be done

By Antony Hook | Mon 30th March 2009 - 8:20 pm

Daniel Hannan, a Tory MEP in the South-east of England, has done a favour for everyone who cares about British public engagement in European politics.

I do not mean that in a back-handed way, and only a churlish person would deny that his response to Gordon Brown in Strasbourg last week was astoundingly well delivered political oratory. (You can watch it here on YouTube). I hope I have the chance to debate with Daniel Hannan on the hustings in our region.

The benefit of his speech was to draw attention to the European Parliament. The last mainstream news story I recall about the European Parliament was the December vote on the Working Time Directive. Editors concentrated on “rebellion” against Gordon Brown rather than the Directive’s effects, the arguments for and against it, or what prospect it had of coming into force in Britain. I cannot remember the last reported European Parliament news story before that, and I expect most readers will agree that 2-3 times per year is a fair estimate of how often main news outlets report on the Parliament.

Indifference and ignorance of European Parliamentary politics is an absurdity that will bemuse future citizens looking back at our present. You would not think from the paucity of serious news attention that 70% of legislation is decided at a federal European level.

Many party members’ opinions about our MEPs tend to rely on little knowledge, or even curiosity, about legislative records.

I try to my match my predecessor Chris Huhne in helping every local by-election in the South East Euro Region (email [email protected]) but that is not all being an MEP is about. Liberal Democrats should know that, for example, Graham Watson was behind the European Arrest Warrant so criminals cannot avoid justice, that Chris Davies is leading legislation for Carbon Capture technology, and that we have just passed a law to slash mobile phone roaming charges from this summer.

When you next hear about the Duke of Westminster and other agricultural oligarchs receiving £300,000 in CAP subsidies you should know that the Commission proposed a limit in these payments but Labour vetoed it in the Council of Ministers, and that the Conservative record includes opposing protection against homophobia in Europe.

A functioning democracy needs people to know what is being decided in their name. Here are just 5 ways – there are, of course, many more possibilities – we can alleviate this crisis of politics and identity:

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The Politics of Globalisation after ‘The Third Way’

By Alison Holmes | Mon 30th March 2009 - 8:56 am

For those actively involved in party politics, the temptation to frame any analysis of unfolding events as a story consisting only of national and domestic concerns is constant. However, at moments of widespread crisis in the international economic and state system, questions well outside these constraints can no longer be avoided and indeed, may help to explain the underlying currents we are dealing with.

Along with a growing number of international relations commentators, I have argued for some time that there have been two identifiable ‘eras of globalisation’. The first was at the end of the 19th and into the early years of the 20th century and gave rise to a range of political movements including socialism and of course, the New Liberalism. The second era began in the mid-to late 1980s and continues through to the present day. It also created a move to ‘progressivism’ for British political parties, including the Third Way.

I have suggested that, by posing the Third Way as a reaction to wider systemic change and the process of globalisation, one begins to see recurring and persistent cycles that only become apparent when looked at from a different level of analysis. Effectively I have argued that, as we are now coming to the close of this second period, we have much to learn in terms of our domestic politics from these wider trends of state development.

For example, as party activists, we tend to look at the creation of the New Liberalism as a philosophical response to the practical problem of the extension of the franchise and the birth of socialism. In this view, we generally overlook the importance of changes in the role of the state as an entity, the economic system as a whole and the international system of states.

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Michael Moore – Stop these broken promises

By The Voice | Tue 24th March 2009 - 6:58 pm

Over at the New Statesman, Michael Moore, the Lib Dems’ shadow international development secretary, argues that the G20 summit offers a key opportunity to revitalise the international community’s commitment to development at this difficult economic time. Here’s an excerpt:

The Liberal Democrats believe that the G20 summit offers a key opportunity to revitalise the international community’s commitment to development at this difficult economic time. In an interconnected world tackling the impacts of the crisis on the developing world is not just a moral imperative, but in our own self-interest.

If we do nothing it will not be long before humanitarian crises,

…

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Michael Moore

Opinion: Development in a downturn

By Michael Moore | Mon 23rd March 2009 - 8:20 am

Writing in the Guardian, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has added his support to the growing chorus of voices demanding that the needs of the world’s poorest to be placed at the heart of international efforts to stabilise and boost the global economy. With unemployment and financial hardship at home making the headlines, we cannot and must not overlook the potentially enormous problems facing the developing world as a consequence of a situation for which they are entirely blameless.

Last week the G20 finance ministers met in Sussex to set the agenda for the forthcoming London Summit. Although it was encouraging to note that the communiqué that emerged from this meeting clearly indicated recognition of the need to support the developing world at this time of crisis, the extent to which these sentiments will be carried forward to the leader’s summit and reflected in significant new financial or institutional commitments remains unclear.

The G20 summit cannot achieve its aims without putting into place a comprehensive framework of support for vulnerable nations. Declining levels of Foreign Direct Investment, shrinking remittance flows and low commodity prices will all have a disproportionate impact on the lives of people within the developing world, with the World Bank estimating that the economic slowdown could keep an additional 53 million people in poverty in 2009. The complex and urgent nature of the task at hand should be reflected in the solutions offered by the G20; short term entitlement protection must be accompanied by more substantive reforms if the London summit is to successfully set the scene for an economic recovery and longer-term stability.

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Mark Pack

Prime Minister set to quit because of his unpopularity

By Mark Pack | Sat 21st March 2009 - 7:09 pm

In Hungary, of course.

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Diana Wallis MEP

Opinion: The Member States should each propose one female and one male candidate for the next European Commission

By Diana Wallis MEP | Thu 19th March 2009 - 3:21 pm

Simone Veil’s historic address to the European Parliament on the subject of gender equality last week, thirty years after her election as the first President of the directly elected European Parliament prompted us to observe that the current college of European Commissioners (where only a third of whom are female) does not exactly shine in terms of gender balance. We believe that a further step is needed, drawing on the model of the European Court of Human Rights.

Judges at this court are elected from a shortlist of three candidates put forward by governments. Only lists containing at least …

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The Voice

Lib Dems urge Tories not to join with homophobes

By The Voice | Wed 18th March 2009 - 9:39 am

Lib Dem equalities spokesperson Lynne Featherstone has written to the Tories shadow foreign affairs spokesman William Hague asking him to clarify if his party intends to join forces with a Polish party in the European parliament known for its homophobic remarks. Politics.co.uk reports:

The party in question is called the Polish Law and Justice party. The Tories are being pulled towards them after leaving their grouping in the European parliament – the centre-right European People’s party. It was the culmination of a promise David Cameron made while running to be party leader, but he must now form a grouping with at least six other parties to earn EU recognition and funding.

But Liberal Democrats and Labour warned the party could easily be thrown into the arms of non-mainstream parties, putting them on “the lunatic fringe” of European politics. Senior politicians from the Law and Justice party have made homophobic statements, as well as describing Barack Obama’s election in the US as marking “the end of white man’s civilisation”, the Liberal Democrats said.

The full text of Lynne’s letter to Mr Hague is below:

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Mark Pack

Two key figures sacked in surprise government reshuffle

By Mark Pack | Sat 14th February 2009 - 3:21 pm

In an unexpected reshuffle that is likely to see a shift in government policy, two powerful figures have been sacked and a woman appointed to the highest post ever held by a female.

The news is from Saudi Arabia, where King Abdullah has sacked Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan, who was the country’s head judge and had talked about it being acceptable to kill the owners of TV channels that broadcast immoral shows.

Also gone is Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ghaith, the former head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (aka Saudi Arabia’s religious police).

Norah al-Faiz has become …

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Stephen Tall

Does the Israeli election result prove PR just doesn’t work?

By Stephen Tall | Thu 12th February 2009 - 8:22 pm

Whenever electoral reform – ie, proportional representation or ‘fair votes’ – is debated, those who oppose it will almost inevitably use a variation on the following arguments:

• it produces coalition governments which are weak, divided and indecisive (far better, obviously, to have strong government regardless of whether a majority of people actually voted for it);
• coalition are created by political deals in “smoke-filled rooms” which the voters have no control over (unlike our Parliamentary system of whipping and Prime Ministerial patronage, of course);
• The government which emerges bears no relation to the individual parties most voters support (compared with …

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Stephen Tall

Clegg condemns Brown’s ‘British jobs for British workers’ dog-whistle

By Stephen Tall | Mon 2nd February 2009 - 9:08 am

As wildcat strikers adopt Gordon Brown’s dog-whistle slogan of ‘British jobs for British workers’, the Lib Dem leadership has made clear that it sees no point in getting in to “a blame game” with other European workers.

Vince Cable, the party’s deputy leader, commented at the weekend:

We’ve got to be very careful – on the one hand we’ve got to listen to workers who are angry, we need to help them to find some way forward. But it would be very, very dangerous and foolish to fall into this beggar my neighbour game with people in one country

…

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Opinion: With Darfur still burning, the question that must be asked – has the Liberal hand lost its touch in times of crisis?

By S | Fri 30th January 2009 - 3:40 pm

With the relentless genocide in Darfur still incendiary, our attention must turn to the lack of affront from the liberal contingent. Unlike the Arab/Israeli conflict or the violence in Sri Lanka, the Liberal Democrats have lucid policy on the crisis in Sudan. Without a doubt the strength of Lib Dem rhetoric does not match the strength of our policy. This begs the question: has the Liberal hand lost its touch in times of crisis?

It was Liberals who hailed the end of Apartheid. The recent death of Helen Suzman was a poignant reminder of this. It was liberal democracy that salved …

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The Voice

Lembit: “Time to talk to al-Qaeda”

By The Voice | Fri 30th January 2009 - 1:20 pm

The BBC reports on Lembit Opik’s plea for the West to speak to al-Qaeda:

It is time to talk to al-Qaeda. Having been through this in the past, I know this is right. Declaring war on terror does not deliver peace. The random killing of hundreds of civilians has obviously secured headlines from the perpetrators. As long as this cycle is repeated, we have relatively little chance of achieving closure on the terrorist methodology.

“For those people that want revenge, it’s hard. But then the crime will have created its own ricochet. That would distract from any chance of strategic solutions

…

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Mark Pack

Do your MEPs turn up to meetings?

By Mark Pack | Mon 26th January 2009 - 9:56 pm

Good news from the Liberal Democrat MEPs with the success this month for Diana Wallis’s campaign to get more information about Euro-MPs’ attendance records published:

welcomed the Parliament’s decision at her instigation to publish on its internet site in collated form information about all Members’ attendance at plenary and committee meetings…:

“Making such public information more accessible is a modest step for the Parliament to take, but it is an important one, particularly ahead of the next elections in June. Citizens need to have the tools to keep their elected representatives to account.”

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Stephen Tall

Foster brands BBC “disgraceful” for refusal to air charity appeal for Gaza

By Stephen Tall | Sat 24th January 2009 - 6:25 pm

The BBC reports on the latest developments in the ongoing row over the Corporation’s decision not to screen an appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee for Gaza because it does not want to compromise its commitment to impartiality:

ITV, Channel 4 and Five are to show a charity appeal for Gaza amid a row over the BBC’s decision not to run the film. Ministers urged the BBC to recognise “immense human suffering” and show the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal. … Protesters gathered outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House in central London on Saturday, and chants of “BBC, shame on you” were

…

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Stephen Tall

Clegg: refusing to discuss the euro is a “failure of political leadership”

By Stephen Tall | Wed 21st January 2009 - 10:15 am

Cast your minds back to the Lib Dem conference, and you may recall a coordinated drive by Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Chris Huhne to signal that the Lib Dems’ attachment to the Euro was no longer a top priority. Nick said the party needed to recognise that the debate had been “neutered”, while Chris declared:

The truth is, within the British debate, it’s completely off the radar and there is simply no point in regarding it as a runner worth investing political time in.”

Their stance was welcomed by significant majorities in both LDV’s online poll of readers, and …

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Graham Watson

Graham Watson: what sort of President does the European Parliament need?

By Graham Watson | Thu 15th January 2009 - 9:55 am

We live in a world of armchair experts: amateur psychologists, sofa-based football players, and in the (slightly nerdish) world of politics, would-be Leaders. Here in the European Parliament, there is a range of figures to criticise, including party leaders, group leaders, and the President of Parliament himself. That post becomes vacant after the European Parliament elections in June. On the basis that it’s not quite cricket to carp from the back that “I could do better” I’ve taken the plunge and announced that I will be a candidate for the job.

It won’t be an easy ride. …

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Matthew Harris

Opinion: Israel has no option but to defend itself against Hamas and Iran

By Matthew Harris | Tue 13th January 2009 - 4:10 pm

Lib Dem Voice has invited both the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine (article published here yesterday) and the Friends of Israel to submit articles looking at the current Middle East crisis. Today we publish this contribution from Matthew Harris, Secretary of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel.

At the pro-Israeli peace rally on Sunday 11 January, Trafalgar Square echoed to the sound of speaker after speaker calling, as the thousands of placards read, for “peace for the people of Israel and Gaza”. As a Liberal Democrat who believes in human rights and the rule of law, I cannot echo those …

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Opinion: The West must take some responsibility for the current crisis in Gaza

By Andrew Baldwin | Mon 12th January 2009 - 7:40 pm

Lib Dem Voice has invited both the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine and the Friends of Israel to submit articles looking at the current Middle East crisis. Today we publish this contribution from Andrew Baldwin, Secretary of Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine.

The recent violence in the Gaza Strip is extremely damaging for the so called ‘peace process’ in the Middle East. The international community has been slow to act, issuing statements urging Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel, but this almost abandonment of the Palestinian people is extremely dangerous for the future, and ignores the fact that the international …

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Stephen Tall

How would you make the positive case for Europe?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 12th January 2009 - 10:10 am

The countdown to elections to the European Parliament – to be held in tandem with local government elections on 10th June – is now on. Last week, here on LDV, the Lib Dems’ vice-chair of our Euro election campaign, Willie Rennie, staked out the internationalist, liberal principles around which he said the party should fight the elections, and contrasted it with ‘lethargic Labour’ and ‘isolationist Tories’.

And, over the weekend, two Lib Dem bloggers also elaborated their own views of Europe, the EU and what the Lib Dems should be saying. James Graham at Quaequam Blog! noted the …

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Stephen Tall

YouGov Euro poll: Lib Dems at 15%

By Stephen Tall | Sun 11th January 2009 - 2:20 pm

Today’s Telegraph publishes the result of a YouGov opinion showing the current state of public voting intentions for this June’s elections to the European Parliament. The figures in brackets are changes from actual 2004 result:

Con 35% (+8)
Lab 29% (+6)
LD 15% (n/c)
UKIP 9% (-7)
Grn 5% (-1)
BNP 4% (-1)
Nats 4% (+2)

All opinion polls come with health warnings, and LDV flags them up loud-and-clear. This is all the more so for Euro polls because (i) we don’t have any other pollsters’ surveys to compare these figures to, and (ii) the general record of opinion polls for predicting Euro and local election national …

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Willie Rennie

Opinion: How the Liberal Democrats should fight the European elections

By Willie Rennie | Thu 8th January 2009 - 12:13 pm

European cooperation was initially designed to avoid another world war but because this has been so successful only a few on the extremes believe there is any prospect of war between western European countries today. It’s not a danger that most British people think is realistic. Although Lib Dems will highlight this major achievement in the European Elections in June it is unlikely to shift a significant number of votes in our favour.

The European Union has also made significant improvements to the lives of people which is something we will highlight in our communications. Yet people rarely …

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Mark Pack

Graham Watson running to be President of the European Parliament

By Mark Pack | Thu 8th January 2009 - 8:50 am

Graham Watson, one of the South West’s Euro-MPs, has written on Comment is Free:

Everybody wants to get a first in something: a race, a university degree, a newspaper scoop. This week I launched my campaign for president of the European parliament knowing that I am not the first British candidate, but I am the first – of any nationality – to run a public campaign, and that is already something to be just a little bit proud of.

The chattering classes love to have a pop at the behind-closed-doors culture that we are told thrives in Brussels. Europe’s reputation for secrecy

…

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