Western European News Digest
France Alarmed by Post-9/11 FBI Role in Europe
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, France and Europe granted the FBI and associated agencies important powers in Europe. The online daily Reseau Voltaire March 9 continued its focus on the friends of the U.S. neo-cons in the French government, and has disclosed that the judicial reforms recently adopted in France under the title of Perben II, dramatically strengthens laws to deal with "organized bands," suggesting serious criminality or terrorism, were negotiated with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft after Sept. 11, and were aimed at allowing the FBI to extend its investigations into France.
On March 9, RV denounced similar developments across Europe, which refer back to Oct. 16, 2001, when President Bush proposed a series of measures for legal cooperation to all the heads of state of the Council of Europe, i.e., all EU heads of state. The Council of Europe responded favorably, and, on June 25, 2003, an "Agreement for Legal Aid" was signed between the EU and the U.S. To celebrate, a European delegation led by EU President Romano Prodi and Greek Prime Minister Constantine Simitis, and including numerous commissioners and EU ministers, went to the U.S., where the treaty was received by Bush, Ashcroft, and other members of the Administration.
The treaty was concluded on the basis of Article 14 of the European Union Treaty, but was never brought before the national parliaments for ratificationwhich is entirely illegal. The agreement "legalizes" FBI intervention on European territory, including for infiltration operations in the context of the fight against terrorism, organized criminality, and drug traffic. The agreement merely requires that the U.S. Attorney General inform his counterparts of ongoing operations. The article notes that since Ashcroft created the concept of "judicial intelligence," bringing into collaboration the FBI with American secret services, such rights extended to the FBI also means extending them to the other agencies.
U.S., Britain To Conduct Joint Anti-Terror Exercises
British Home Secretary David Blunkett arrived in Washington on March 7 for meetings with Bush Administration officials on setting up a simulation exercise between the two countries on a scenario based on simultaneous terrorist attacks in both. Blunkett, who has proposed such things as lowering the burden of proof in court cases involving terrorist suspects, allowing bugged telephone conversations to be used as evidence, and using special judges to hear cases involving sensitive intelligence, was to make a speech in Washington on "balancing national security interests and democratic freedoms."
Rifkind Blasts Blair on Iraq Intelligence
Malcolm Rifkind, a Defense Minister and Foreign Secretary in the previous Conservative governments, blasted British Prime Minister Tony Blair for taking Britain into the Iraq war, "on a false prospectus." In a commentary in the Independent March 7, Rifkind urged that no government ever again publicly release intelligence material in order to make a case for war. Referring to Blair's infamous September 2002 dossier, Rifkind wrote that when he was in the government, he had access to top secret documents for five years. "Neither I nor any previous Labour or Tory minister would have dreamt of publishing material in the name of the Joint Intelligence Committee. That would have been to politicize the JIC on an issue that divided the nation."
German Exports to China, Russia Grow; Those to U.S. Fall
A preview of official export statistics for 2003 shows that German exports to Asian, Eastern European, and Eurozone countries continued to increase moderately, whereas exports to the United States saw a considerable drop.
The most spectacular single increase was reported in exports to China (up 24.9%), and to Russia (up 6.5%); EU member countries imported 3.5% more from Germany. "EU plus 10" (the expanded EU from May 2004 on) accounted for an increase of 3.8%. Exports to the United States dropped by 9.7%.
Generally, market dependency on Europe increased for Germany, which sold 55.5% of its exports to the European Union, and 64% to the EU plus 10. All in all, the Eurasian Land-Bridge countries played an increasing role for German exporters, in 2003.
Deindustrialization of Berlin Accelerates
The productive sector of the Berlin economy, which 14 years ago still employed way above 400,000 citizens, is down nearly to 100,000 jobs, now. In the course of 2003, another 5,000 jobs got axed, bringing the productive workforce of the citywhich has a total population of 3.4 milliondown to only 107,000.
The de-industrialization process is also accelerating: in the first six months of 2003, the monthly loss of industrial jobs was at about 4%, whereas in the second half of the year, it was between 4.5 and 5.4%.
And with the exception of the BueSo, no other political party seems interested in investing any thinking into plans for re-industrializing the capital of Germany. The other parties have basically accepted that if there are any new jobs in Berlin, they will be in the servicing economy, notably in the entertainment and media sectors. The BueSo, with a crucial input envisaged from the LYM, is beginning to work out a program for creating several hundred thousand new jobs in Berlin, with new productive capacities established in the transport, electrotech, aerospace, power sectors, and in industrial R&D. Maglev would feature prominently in transport, naturally.
Brits Nervous Over Argentine 'Victory' Over IMF
The nervous British press is bemoaning the "victory" of Argentina's Kirchner government over the International Monetary Fund, the dire state of the IMF, and the likelihood that other countries will follow in Argentina's footsteps.
The London Times' foreign editor Bronwen Maddox has a feature article March 11 entitled, "Argentina Deals Another Heavy Blow to Credibility of IMF," which begins by characterizing what has just happened, as "a victory for President Nestor Kirchner," and "an embarrassment for the International Monetary Fund.... The outcome of the game of chicken shows the weakness of the IMF's position."
Reviewing some of the apparent outcomes of the Argentina-IMF negotiations, she says "it was far from clear yesterday that the Fund had won any concessions from Argentina on the main sticking point: how much it should pay back to private creditors owed more than $80 billion...." Maddox growls: "It is a sign of the Fund's generosity to Argentina, that it has agreed to say that it passes the test of negotiating 'in good faith' with those creditors."
The theme running through much of the article, is that the situation the Fund finds itself in, is the fault of just-departed Managing Director Horst Koehler, "mistakes largely made on Koehler's watch," essentially that he kept lending big sums to money to Argentina. That said, she indicates a main fear of leading people in London, i.e., that other countries will follow Argentina, now that the Fund's "credibility" has been badly damaged: "There is no question that the Fund's perceived softness towards Argentina has undermined its reputation. Other governments such as Brazil and Turkey, which have been helped recently with big IMF packages, are looking on with interest at the leniency shown to Argentina."
German Economy Will Be Gone, Before Highway Toll System in Place
A discussion with a senior Central European source on March 9, provided insights into the massive interest which the German elites are investing in making the much-delayed new toll system work. The fact that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder personally convened top officials of the leading firms of the Toll Collect consortium, to push through an agreement the previous week, tells how urgent the introduction of the system is seen.
Toll Collect, a satellite-based electronic system that was expected to extract several billions of euros annually of highway tax from truck and car drivers, was designed to compensate for the ongoing drastic drop in tax income from traditional sources, and also to serve as entry into an entirely new system of taxation, an electronic control of the population's daily communications in the post-industrial future.
The inevitable side-effects of post-industrial priorities have, however, prevented the top firms of German "industry" that produce Toll Collect, like Daimler-Chrysler, from coming up with a feasible technology in time, so that all crucial deadlines for the introduction have been missed, since August 2003. If, as the consortium promised Schroeder, the system should finally be completed, next year, it will arrive too late for Germany. Neither will the system be able, then, to compensate for the big hole in tax revenues, which will have emerged by then, nor to serve as a sound new taxation system in an economy, the collapse of which is in full swing already, anyway.
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