Serbia becomes newest EU candidate

The EU has named Serbia its most recent candidate for membership, France24 reports. In a summit in Brussels on March 2, EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy called the step "a remarkable achievement." 

Now will come the real work, according to many observers, which will involve stubborn disagreements on the country's relationship with Kosovo, and over lingering feelings from the international community toward Serbia. The new candidate was largely seen as a pariah state, responsible for much of the bloodshed in the Balkan region throughout the 1990s.

“The EU is gradually dismantling the Balkans-shaped bomb lying right next to it,” said Daniel Korski, a senior-level analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London.

Now for a tone change: check out my story on a day spent in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, published this week on the travel website Ethnotraveler.com. Here's an excerpt:

"Petar poured juice into two green glasses and sat down across from me on the couch. I worked up the nerve to ask him about the wars of the 1990s, whether Serbia’s bloody past was having any bearing on his life now.

“It has a daily effect,” Petar said. “I still think about it all the time. Everyone does. Time has passed, my generation is now working and starting families, but it’s part of our lives, as if it were still happening. Now, for example, when I have money, I ask myself, ‘Should I buy groceries? Should I save it? Or can I buy this television, this computer program, get my car fixed?’ This type of thinking comes from war.”

He said it made no sense to brood over the past. “Sadness turns to anger,” he continued, “and anger ruins your life.”

I couldn’t believe his candor, his eloquence. I wanted to express my gratitude but just then his cell phone beeped. It was a text message from his girlfriend. “She wants to meet you,” he said. “I have an idea.”

Petar told me to shower and take some medicine for my stomach. In the meanwhile he made sandwiches. He called his girlfriend back and made arrangements for us to pick her up.
Before we headed out the door, he turned to me. “One other thing about the future,” he said, “about this after-war life we’re living here. We Serbians, we have this crazy will, this crazy will, and when we want to do something, no matter how long it takes or how hard it is we do it. Look at Novak Djokovic.”

“The tennis player?”

“Twenty-one years old and top three in the world,” he said. “No fancy facilities, no amazing coach, just that crazy Serbian will. Know that. That’s Serbia too.”

Did you like this story? Hate it? Let me know in the comments section. Watch this space for more excerpts from this story and others.

 

Youth unemployment exceeds 30 percent in eight member states

Whoa! 

Nothing to add here, just a title I thought was as worthy of sharing as it is frightening. From EUobserver:

"Youth unemployment rates surpass 30 percent in Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain, the European Commission said on Tuesday (31 January). Eurostat figures show that in December 2011, the youth unemployment rate was 22.1 percent in the EU27 up from 21.0 percent in 2010."

Merkel to Go to Bat for Sarkozy Campaign?

From this morning's France24:

"Sarkozy’s German-inspired reforms are likely to please Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is believed to have offered to lend her support to Sarkozy’s re-election bid.

Merkel and Sarkozy were nicknamed ‘Merkozy’ for their close relationship and joint efforts to tackle the Eurozone crisis.

FRANCE 24’s International Affairs Editor Douglas Herbert said: “I think he is very happy to have Merkel’s support but it works both ways.”

“Sarkozy is someone she thinks she can trust to keep Europe on the right path.”

A "Budget Commissioner" for Greece?

This just in from the Wall Street Journal: Germany's Wolfgang Schauble is part of a group involved with the resolution of the Euro crisis that suggests the EU appoint a "budget commissioner" for Greece. The effort would aim to secure trustworthiness--and, ultimately, a way out--for the seemingly never-ending circles made around finally coming to a eurozone currency crisis fix. From the article: 

"Europe is "prepared to support Greece" with the new loan package, Mr. Schäuble said, but he warned: "Unless Greece implements the necessary decisions and doesn't just announce them…there's no amount of money that can solve the problem."

The remarks came as German officials last week floated the radical idea of appointing a European "budget commissioner" with veto powers over Greece's spending, partially suspending Greece's national sovereignty over its budget, in return for aid."

Graphic: How the EU Gets and Spends Its Money

More great infographics from the Guardian. See "Where does the European Union get its money from – and how does it spend it?", part of the newspaper's new "Europa" venture with several other leading European dailies. 

Megacities

... And we're back! EurAmerican has been dormant these last few, but here's something I couldn't help but share. "The Rise of the Megacities" is a new study published by the Guardian, detailing global trends on cities and the signs that urban life will be the prevailing mode of living for the 21st century. Article here, zoomable graphic here.

Also check out the online newspaper I'm involved with, the European Daily, whose "Abroad" page features my latest editorial wizardry. Enjoy!

Repeat and Recycle: Is Romney Giving Neocons a "Second Chance?"

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. 

I just found this post and, though it's a hoary-bearded three weeks old, I find it interesting enough to dust off and shamelessly re-hash in a way that would be acceptable in no other time than our own: the Retweet Generation. So: For those Europeans (or interested others) out there who want to know what the leading Republican candidate's foreign policy might look like, check out the Atlantic Review's post on Mitt Romney's foreign policy team. 

Most controversial is the preponderance of George W. Bush administration veterans that comprise the list, including marquee names such as Michael Chertoff, Eliot Cohen, and Robert Kagan, to list just three. 

Liberal US commentator Rachel Maddow titled her response as: "Romney Gives Bush Neocons A Second Chance," but Joerg Wolf, the Atlantic Review's author, is less excited by the news, re-quoting Washington think tanker James Joyner who said of the announcement, "like Romney himself, it's not particularly exciting. Nor, thankfully, is it frightening."

Wolf concludes with this, highlighting the figures responsible for the Europe dossier:

"Nile Gardiner from Heritage is co-chair for Europe. The other co-chair is Kristen Silverberg, Chief Operating Officer at Vorbeck Materials; Ambassador to the European Union (2008-2009). I wish he would have advisors with a bit more experience. I can think of a few such think tankers in Washington.

"What do you think? To whom should the Republican presidential candidates turn to for advice on Europe, or on foreign policy in general? Which think tankers or former officials would make the best national security and foreign policy advisors for a Republican president?"

EurAmerican has kind of a thing for neoconservatism, in a hot-and-cold, critical-distance sort of way. See past post include the one here. 

As on the Atlantic Review site, comments are welcome here. 

Euro Summit: Chinese Help and Italian Trouble

The Economist just published this post on the element of this week's eurozone summit that would involve Chinese cash as a part of the currency zone's recapitalization plan. Ever instructive, the article lays out the China factor in some of the magazine's trademark economics-in-layman's-terms. I didn't know, for example, that the EU is China's biggest trading partner. Given all the hub-bub stateside, wouldn't most Americans assume that position was enjoyed (or maligned) by the United States? 

Yet the piece's author makes an effort to signal that the appeal for Chinese cash is neither revolutionary nor a particularly important change in the status quo. He takes a longer-term view on the EU-Chinese relationship, which of course bears direct influence on the American role between the two. 

"Grand political bargains between China and Europe—money in return for more representation at the IMF, or market-economy status—seem wildly improbable. These prizes will eventually come anyway; and weak though parts of Europe are, the EU cannot be seen to trade them too nakedly. Bargaining of this sort would also require both parties to change their positions markedly. China is keen not to be seen as a source of “dumb money”, but requiring big political concessions in return for cash is a pretty clear signal that this is not a commercially attractive investment. As for the euro zone, it can hardly claim that senior Spanish and Italian debt is now safe for institutional investors if it has to horse-trade too hard to get China on board."

And further along the pessimism spectrum is the Wall Street Journal, which, true to form, has expressed typical euro-skepticism on the summit's results and bemoaned the plan's lack of detail and the risks that remain for U.S. companies and stakeholders. Though the European Financial Stability Facility will "backstop" troubled eurozone countries against default, the paper says, this week's decisions fall short of the muscular moves called for by experts and do relatively little to stem fears of a backslide toward recession in Europe and worldwide. 

Both articles signal the lingering dangers of the tenuous Italian situation, where fractious politics in Silvio Berlusconi's government has dimmed hopes for any kind of meaningful action against the euro's woes. Italy is heavily in debt and, as the third-largest economy on the euro, its future determines that of a host of other dependent nations both in and outside the monetary bloc.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal and ICAP

Though the chart refers to Italy only, its title -- "Brief Relief" -- sounds just as appropriate for the whole of the eurozone for the many observers that continue to be concerned about the currency's immediate and middle-term prospects.

Update: European Daily

All apologies for a lapse in activity at EurAmerican.  Just a heads-up, I'll be contributing to the European citizen newspaper European Daily, specifically to the "Abroad" section, on a regular basis.  You can check out my work for the Sunday page here.

Mixed Feelings on Mid-Crisis EU

Behind the euro crisis is a crisis of confidence, felt differently but to similarly intense degrees throughout the Continent. 

Northern countries have been feeling taken advantage of, with the common refrain echoing a feeling that the southern EU countries have spent with abandon the considerable benefits received from their neighbors. But "the feeling is mutual," reports Global Post, and in the case of Spain, many feel they have exchanged cash for compromised protections of rights, crisis-time mismanagement, sacrifice of national sovereignty, and kowtowing by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero toward demanding eurocrats in Brussels. 

Nobel laureate Robert Mundell said on August 26, "I don't think the euro is on the verge of collapsing."

Alan Greenspan, the former head of the US Federal Reserve, said on August 24, "The euro is breaking down."

Eschewing with the "United States of Europe" idea, Romanian Mircea Cărtărescu favors a union centered around the "European mind" and a federation "not solely focused on the issue of economic survival." He says: 

"Present-day Europe relates to the United States as Athens once did to ancient Rome. And although at one point Athens sought to emulate Rome, I can see no reason why modern Europe should seek to emulate the United States."

German ex-foreign minister Joschka Fischer counters that "we need to work toward the United States of Europe now."

In Estonia, a slightly but definitely more optimistic note can be heard in the public opinion of the country's lot as it relates to the EU, again reported by Global Post. Says Swedish Prime Minister, Carl Bildt, 

“I remember the days when the counters of the shops in Tallinn were empty and the people were starving. The economy more or less had to be rebuilt from scratch... If you had asked people on Aug. 20, 1991 whether in 20 years “Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would be seen as economic success stories in Europe, would be full members of NATO, full members of the European Union,” Bildt asked, “if anyone had said yes, that person would have been seen as a fairly likely candidate for lunacy.”

But such a public, party-line voice is bound to be tempered by ordinary citizens, in this case from Tallinn, the Estonian capital:

"Nineteen-year-old Katrina Ulbeerte, bopping along with her younger sister, laughs when asked what she knew about Soviet times before she was born. In American slang, she said her parents have told her that life then was difficult. “They told about special lessons about, like, communists and, like, all kinds of military stuff. I’m happy I don’t have to go work in a factory!”

"But 55-year-old Ieva Inauska, who couldn’t speak English but conveyed her thoughts quite clearly in broken German and hand gestures, doesn’t see much of a change. “Soviet Union? Bah. European Union? Bah. The European Union bureaucracy is even bigger than the Soviet Union’s!” And, she indicated, she preferred the latter."