Yet another aspect of Brussels hitting the “big time” lies in the realm of security, intelligence, and spying. Yes, there are now important, vital secrets buried there which intelligence services from around the world would love to ferret out, as we are reminded by a brief yet fascinating recent piece in La Dernière Heure*: Belgium bungles a European listening affair. It seems that as far back as in 2003 signs were detected of bugging devices located no less than in the Justus Lipsius Building, which is the home of the European Council (i.e. the EU organization that directly represents the interests of the member-states). In particular, the “R Committee” – “R” for renseignement or “information,” as that is the body of the Belgian parliament that supervises the country’s intelligence services – concluded that it was likely that the French, German, Spanish, and UK delegations had been bugged – i.e. most of the big boys.

By whom? Well, the piece mentions the Mossad, the (in)famous Israeli intelligence service, but no one ever found out for sure. That was mainly because Brussels is still stuck back in the provincial capital age – or perhaps we could call it the “Inspector Clouseau stage” – when it comes to effective counter-intelligence. That same “R Committee” report noted how progress in following up the initial discovery of the espionage activities was very slow, while information supplied by the responsible officials to Justice officials was incomplete. The latter just recently decided simply to drop the entire matter, as they still didn’t have anyone they could indict!

*The Dernière Heure piece generously credits its Dutch-language counterpart De Tijd with initial reports over this affair. In such cases I like to go to that original source instead and use the material there – but this time I could not find it on the De Tijd site!

                          

What were the Czech authorities in charge of EU relations thinking? Černý, after all (whose last name simply means “black”), has always been notorious, it’s accurate to say, rather than just “famous” within the Czech cultural world, bursting onto that scene in 1991 by painting the tank constituting a Soviet war-memorial in Prague a shocking pink color in one daring night-time raid. Although he was briefly arrested for that, that pink tank became a metaphor for the wacky, world-turned-upside down ambiance of the Czech Republic, and Prague in particular, in the years immediately after the 1989 “Velvet Revolution.” Barely pausing to catch his breath, Černý went on to produce a series of additional eye-catching works of sculpture, a few of which you can appreciate on his Wikipedia page. Those “tower babies,” for example: you can pick them out crawling all over the gigantic TV tower, itself located in the Prague 3 district, from much of the rest of the city. And that “riding a dead horse” statue is mighty big and impressive in its own right – look for it at the internal shopping-and-movie-theater-area located within the Lucerna building at the corner of Wenceslas Square and Vodičkova Street (a magnificent building once owned by Václav Havel himself, built by his father – also named Václav Havel).

The thing is, I hope that even with this smallish sample you can still perceive a common theme to Černý’s work. Pink tanks, medieval knights riding their steed upside-down: could we perhaps call it “impishness”? How could the responsible Czech authorities, if they had not been in a coma and/or posted to Outer Mongolia the last fifteen years, ever think that Černý could be induced like a leopard to change his spots and actually produce a “mature” work that the Czech government would be able to present to Brussels without a squabble?

Even more, how could they be so “out of it” as to let things get to so far a stage as the sculpture actually successfully being mounted in its allotted space at the European Council building without anyone in charge looking askance? But they were, and it was, and if you don’t care to follow the NYT link to find out what exactly the problem is, I can reveal to you here that what Černý came up with (and named “Entropa”) was a sculpture representing some kind of plastic-frame structure that you get when you purchase a model of some airplane, with the individual pieces placed within that frame by a thin plastic link, designed to be broken off so you can glue everything together. Except that here the individual pieces are shaped in the forms of the 27 EU member-states, but with artistic flourishes added on to them to poke a little satirical fun at each country. The piece that has raised the most ruckus so far is Bulgaria, as that country is depicted by Černý as nothing more than an assembly of interconnected Turkish toilets (i.e. squat holes-in-the-floor), but Černý manages to lampoon each member-state, including his own.

(We’ll go over them state-by-state shortly. By the way, a lesser “scandalous” aspect of this affair is that, in his proposal for the commission, Černý promised to work with artists from all member-states so that the artistic vision of how to depict each country would come from a native, but in the end he apparently did all the “conceptual” work himself working together with two of his friends.)

“It’s Only Art – And I Don’t Like It!”

The context here naturally points to the Czech press as best-placed to add some informational value to the NYT account. Turning to the leading business newspaper, Hospodářské noviny, we have Vondra and Černý apologize for Entropa. A part might be removed. The quotes are basically what is worth paying attention to in this piece. That “Vondra” is Alexandr Vondra, Czech vice-premier and in charge of European affairs, and now he is protesting his horror at how Černý could surprise him so unexpectedly. He states, “We think that Entropa is a work of art – nothing more, nothing less. I hope that we can agree on that with the rest of the European Union. It does not have to be anything that makes up the image of the Czech Republic or the government and does not represent our view of European lands either.” Furthermore, Vondra expresses his willingness to be open to reactions from other European states and even to institute changes/removals to the work if such were insisted upon. As for Černý, the article actually quotes him thusly: “We deliberately led them [meaning the EU countries and the Czech government] into error [i.e. pulled the wool over their eyes]. For us it was not about insulting anyone but ourselves. I did not make use of any State funds for the installation and I in fact returned them.”

Then we have an accompanying article, also in HN, A difficult day dawns in Brussels. The Czechs must convince the EU that they are witty. About the only new thing this piece adds in its text is the interesting “see no evil” attitude to the controversy on the part of the current Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolánek: “I don’t understand art that much, so I don’t know whether that is a work of art.” But he does hope to be able to get around to seeing it for the first time – some day. (Don’t worry, Mirek, as premier of the country with the EU presidency, you’re not going to be able to avoid Brussels – or the European Council or the building where it is housed – even if you tried.)

But the real valuable aspect of this HN article is that, down below, it has a click-on-the-picture gallery of the individual countries as Černý and his drinking-buddies chose to depict them – or of most of them. (In the following I go in order top row to bottom row, left to right.)

• The UK: It’s not there at all! Its spot in the “frame-of-model-pieces” is taken up by a big space that looks like that piece has already been removed.
  
• Hungary: Strange indeed. You see Hungary filled with melons, and a structure arising in the middle that looks like Brussels’ famous Atomium, but here composed of melons at the vertices, connected by sticks of Hungarian salami!
  
• Lithuania: A straightforward message here: five sculptures of Brussels’ famous Mannekin Pis statue are presented, all of them “mannekin pissing” over into neighboring Belarus.
  
• Austria: Shown as a nice, grassy country – but with four nuclear-reactor towers right in the middle! It’s appropriate, as Austria has famously been hyper-sensitive to the (Soviet-era design) nuclear reactors located in neighboring countries (mainly the Czech Republic and Slovakia), from way back in Communist times.
  
• Bulgaria: As already described, an interconnected arrangement of squat toilets.
  
• The Czech Republic: This one is hard to understand, as it appears to be simply a glossy-blue silhouette of the country, with golden trim. But located within that silhouette there should be placed (they were supposed to appear at the time of the dedication ceremony) various statements of current Czech President Václav Klaus. They’re mocking Klaus like he’s some sort of latter-day Chairman Mao – get it?
  
• Romania: Made up to look like a Dracula theme-park. Not too original, don’t you think?
  
• Cyprus: The bloc-figure of Cyprus is cut in two and sways apart into the two halves. But that’s because, in fact, Cyprus itself is an island divided in two parts, where it’s really only the southern, Greek part that is an EU member-state.
  
• Latvia: Latvia is depicted “as if we had mountains,” when in reality Latvia has no mountains. I guess Latvians dream of having mountains.
  
• Finland: This one I have a hard time understanding myself. Finland is shown with various exotic, red-colored animals on it: a hippo, an elephant, a crocodile. Of course, in reality such animals are to be found there only in Helsinki’s zoo, if even there. But the figure of Finland itself is clearly made out of planks of wood, so at least that is very accurate about Finland.
  
• Greece: Greece is depicted as a scorched, burned-out land. For whatever reason.
  
• Ireland: Depicted as a big set of bagpipes.
  
• Malta: A pedestal with an elephant on it, and a big magnifying glass for looking at the (smallish) elephant with. Because elephants are said to have lived on Malta 20,000 years ago, you see.
  
• Luxembourg: An ingot of gold shaped like Luxembourg, with a “For Sale” sign extending from it. OK, finally one that is understandable.
  
• The Netherlands: Flooded with water, from which only seven minarets protrude. Finally one that is actually excellent, very spot-on!
  
• Italy: Italy as one big soccer-field, complete with players.
  
• Estonia: Simply with modern, up-to-date versions of both hammer and sickle. Rather cruel to the Estonians, who would gladly pay to have their country towed out to sea so that it could be located far, far away from Russia.
  
• Belgium: A candy-box, with chocolate bon-bons and those famous Belgian pralines.
  
• Portugal: Shown as a chopping-bloc with three chunks of raw meat on it. Interestingly, those chunks are themselves shaped like Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique. So this is a comment about Portuguese colonialism.
  
• Spain: Was just as colonial as Portugal, probably more (although not as late). Nonetheless, Černý and his team depict the country as just a building-site, with a stray uncovered, unexploded bomb (from the Spanish Civil War?).
  
• France: Short and sweet: Covered by a banner proclaiming “Strike!”
  
• Germany: Overlaid with nine strips of what is obviously autobahn – which some see as arranged in a vaguely swastika pattern.
  
• Sweden: Not in the form of Sweden, but just a long box – like the kind IKEA furniture comes in. (Get it?) But this time, the “furniture” inside is apparently Gripen fighter-planes.
  
• Slovenia: Just an inscription carved in English: “first tourists came here 1213.” Ha ha. Actually, the lands that are Slovenia were very close to the Roman Empire, so that Černý and his team could have added a “B.C.” to that “1213″ and probably been more correct.
  
• Slovakia: Depicted as a joint of Hungarian salami, bound together with string in the three Hungarian colors of red, white and green. Rather insulting to the Slovaks, I must say, who have had considerable problems with Hungary through their history, including a certain tension remaining between the two countries even today, due in part to the considerable number of Hungarian-speaking minority citizens in parts of southern Slovakia. You’d half-think that this would be the next one (i.e. after Bulgaria) to prompt an official diplomatic protest and a withdrawal – but would the Slovaks want to be so openly rude to the Hungarians by doing that?

Who’s missing? Denmark, for one! Poland, for another! I really would like to know the take from Černý & co. on those countries, but no amount of Google-imaging has turned anything up yet. The only clue about Denmark that I have is from this article from the Kristeligt Dagblad ((but which is sourced to the Danish news-agency Ritzau; title is “Scandal-artist apologizes to everybody”) that Denmark is presented as made out of Lego-blocks (OK, makes sense) in a way that somehow recalls the famous “Mohammed-cartoon” drawing of the Prophet with a bomb in his turban. Interesting! If/when I find pictures for the Danish or Polish entries on-line I’ll post an update with the links – if I remember.

UPDATE 1: Can’t anybody be thorough and comprehensive anymore? You can go here to see a slide-show of many – but not all – of the EU member-states as portrayed in Entropa. This includes Poland, which shows four men dressed as priests raising a flag Iwo Jima-style – the rainbow flag of the Gay Rights movement! I’m still looking for a picture of Denmark, though.

                          

When last we left portly, avuncular old King Albert II, he had received Prime Minister Yves Leterme’s resignation but had yet to decide whether to accept it. In fact, he did not, but what he did do was appoint three “mediators” with assignment of working out some way to breakthrough the current government deadlock. The fundamental problem is that the political representatives from Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern half of the country, of whom Leterme is currently the leading representative, are not willing to let things go on without some concessions from the other half of the country, French-speaking Wallonia, which would increase the former’s and reduce the latter’s influence over the national government, especially concerning what federal tax monies are spent on (of which the Flemings contribute the larger share). And interestingly, the three “mediators” King Albert appointed have nary a Fleming among them: they are two politicians from Wallonia (François-Xavier de Donnea, Raymond Langendries) and one from the tiny German-speaking part of the country (Karl-Heinz Lambertz).

They might have been handed something very close to a “Mission: Impossible” if the analysis from “V.R.” in today’s La Libre Belgique is anything to go by (Ten Days to Get Out of the Impasse). The deadline to accomplish something seems to be 31 July, but who set that deadline? The King? Well yes, in a way, in that that is the day the King wants to see some sort of preliminary report from the three. But it was Bart De Wever, head of the somewhat militant Flemish political party Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA), who set a more seriously deadline by announcing on Friday that he expected to see some concessions from the French side by that 31 July date on the subject of reforming the Belgian State along the lines his party desires (as summarized above). De Wever can throw his weight around like that, you see, because his N-VA is a large part of the coalition with the more moderate Flemish party of Yves Leterme (the Christen-Democratisch en Vlaams, or CD&V) – and with three parties from the French side – that forms the present Belgian federal government. It’s the existence of that coalition that enabled the King to reject Leterme’s resignation in the first place, in effect saying “No, you go back to your coalition and resume governing the country.” If/when the N-VA leaves the coalition, then it no longer commands a majority in the federal parliament and some other Prime Minister has to be found who can put together a coalition that does – the King certainly does not have the power to appoint as Prime Minister anyone he pleases, only one that has that kind of support in parliament, because after all Belgium is a parliamentary democracy. (Yes, a prime minister can be appointed from a minority coalition, but of course only then with additional guarantees from outside-the-government parties that they will not vote to topple it in vote-of-no-confidence – in the present situation, basically tantamount to having to have a majority coalition behind you.)

Leterme The Only Choice

At this point I finally realize how naïve I was in my previous entry over Belgium’s latest crisis, when I concluded that the King would not reject Leterme’s resignation because “that’s really not the sort of thing you do.” In fact, that was likely the only thing the King could do here because, with Leterme gone, there was really no one else Albert II could think of who would be both willing and able (defined as being able to command a majority coalition) to replace him as head of government. Of course you keep the guy who is already there, otherwise Belgium is plunged again into a chaotic and annoying situation in which there is no government, there is no prospect of a government, and while everyone argues about what should be done there is no duly-constituted national authority in place to make the policy decisions that need to be made about affairs both inside and outside the country. Belgium has already faced that situation too many times in the recent past – generally, after every recent national election, including most especially the nine months of this exquisite sort of political purgatory after the latest such elections in June, 2007.

So Albert II avoids that for now by telling Leterme to get back to work – but the point of that July 31 deadline from the N-VA is that the N-VA will start getting what it wants politically or else it will withdraw from the coalition then, so that Leterme cannot be Prime Minister anymore, and so plunge the country once again into this purgatory. Really, imagine that sort of thing happening in your own country: no national government, and nobody able to say when there will be a national government or who it will be. It’s really something that’s barely tolerable, and the important thing is that, each time it happens, everyone gets that much more exasperated with the present system. Belgium happens to be a very federal country already, with substantial powers and responsibilities handed over to the regional governments who never have crises of this sort, for the simple reason that the regions more-or-less correspond to the separate cultural/linguistic areas. So the answer that becomes more and more obvious to the electorate is to do away with this national government that seems to be always paralyzed – do away with the nation – and proceed with only the regional governments. (But then there remains the question of who takes charge of the notable island of prosperity, tax-revenue, and EU institutions that is Brussels: a French-speaking island – but not by much – surrounded by Dutch-speaking Flanders . . .)

Rainy, Gloomy Celebration

Anyway, it was 21 July yesterday so the show had to go on with the usual festivities. Appropriately, though – just so that no one would forget themselves or the situation and get into too festive a mood – yesterday was also a very rainy Monday, coming after quite a rainy weekend, and De Standaard reported that, temperature-wise, it was one of the coldest July days of the last hundred years. Still, Brussels Celebrated Despite the Political Crisis. The royal family attended the traditional Te Deum Mass at the Brussels cathedral, accompanied by Yves Leterme who slipped into the cathedral by a side door. Naturally, the cardinal president at the service preached for mutual understanding in his sermon. Then, despite the rain, the customary military parade took place in front of the Royal Palace, starting at 4:00 PM. In addition to Army soldiers and vehicles, representatives from the police also took part in the parade; De Standaard notes their particularly notable demonstration of riot control personnel and equipment. And King Albert gave his National Day speech: “In our land we must think of new forms of society.”

Meanwhile, as his own contribution to National Day, the mayor of Antwerp, Patrick Janssens, noted that Belgium was reverting to where it was back in the beginning in the 19th century, when only Finance, Justice, Interior and Foreign Affairs were competences handled at the national level, everything else was in the hands of the regions. (French-language reporting in Le Soir here, to give a bit of balance.) It’s not sure whether he thought that a good thing. But the Gazet van Antwerpen issued the results of its own poll, which indicated that 33.7% of the Flemish people would like to unite Flanders with the Netherlands. (The respondents had some funny ideas about how that would happen, perhaps reflecting their over-estimation of the hand they would hold in negotiations to bring that about. Name of the new country? How about “Vlaanderenland” or “Nedervlaanderen,” although “Nederlanden” would probably be best – cf. the current “Nederland” as the Dutch name for the Netherlands. Capital? Amsterdam, or maybe Antwerp. Head of state? Preferably no royal family; if there has to be one, then let it be the House of Orange, i.e. the Dutch Royal Family, certainly not the Belgian Royal Family. Etc.) On the other hand, a collective of “progressive Flemish intellectuals” marked the National Day by releasing a manifesto (“The Flanders That We Want,” printed here in the French-language paper La Libre Belgique) in which they regretted that political interests in the 21st century still seem to have to be based upon regional and language interests, denounced the long-standing demands from the Flemish political parties for a “re-balancing” of the federal government more in favor of Flanders, and called for a new political order in Belgium.

                          

At least this time the leaders of the 25 present-and-future EU member-states did not have to endure any marathon negotiating sessions stretching way into the night and ultimately into Monday morning, as had been the case before (including most notably at that very Nice summit three years ago). No, this time it was all over officially by 14.15 hours on Saturday afternoon, when EU Council President Silvio Berlusconi announced to the press that there was still “total disagreement” on the voting-weights question so that there was nothing left to do but go home and try again later under the Irish presidency. In fact, even by lunchtime Saturday the only remaining issue for the assembled heads-of-government to sort out was what was going to be put into the final communiqué.

GET ME TO THE MATCH ON TIME!

Taking up coverage from the French Le Monde (Silvio Berlusconi Tries to Avoid Failure for the European Summit), it seems that Berlusconi had made it clear to his fellow heads-of-government from the beginning that a weekend-long negotiation session was not in the cards. At lunch on Friday, trying to lighten the atmosphere, he proposed that initial conversation revolve around “women and football.” (See the Belgian coverage just below for his comedy routine at that point.) “Football” gave him the opportunity to mention that the Italian team that he owns, AC Milan, was scheduled on Sunday morning at 11:00 to play the Argentine team Boca Juniors for the Intercontinental Cup in Milan – and that he intended to be there.

After lunch the summit got underway for real, with both the Belgian and Danish prime ministers (Guy Verhofstadt and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, respectively) speaking up to defend the work of the Constitutional Convention and advocate that it be accepted as unchanged as possible. But it soon transpired that the real action towards seeking some sort of compromise that could enable the summit towards to achieve its goal was taking place away from the plenary sessions, in one-to-one meetings between Berlusconi and fellow heads-of-government that the former called “confessionals”: come to Papa Berlusconi and tell him your wants and your fears – and especially tell him where you’re willing to back down so he can put together a compromise!

NIGHT ON THE TOWN

After a last plenary session from 18.00 to 19.30, Berlusconi abruptly suspended the Intergovernmental Council’s (IGC) work for that day, which meant canceling the common state dinner that was supposed to happen later that evening. Instead, more “confessionals” followed, as heads of state headed out to Brussels restaurants and hotels in self-selected groups to continue talking and get something to eat. Belgium’s De Standaard takes over the story from here (EU-Top Descends into Bartering): Gerhard Schröder, Jacques Chirac, and Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt dined together at a fancy Japanese restaurant, while Berlusconi himself huddled mainly with Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller – in a back-brace and wheelchair – which was a highly appropriate choice since at that point Miller’s refusal to yield on the Council voting-weights was threatening to sink the summit. Saturday morning was likewise more about bilateral discussions than full plenary sessions, and by noon it had become obvious that there was no more progress to be made.

The Standaard article reports considerable dissatisfaction among several national delegations over Berlusconi, in particular over his usual off-the-cuff style in leading the common discussions. He followed that joking proposal of his at Friday lunch that they just start out talking about women with the suggestion that German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder lead that discussion, since “you know all about that, Herr Schröder!” (who indeed has been married four times). At another point, De Standaard reports, Berlusconi made the observation that most of Italy would be happy to see him thrown out of a helicopter – something Leszek Miller could not have appreciated much, since a serious helicopter accident from the week before last was precisely why he was going around everywhere in a wheelchair.

The Belgian French-language newspaper La Dernière Heure (which means “the last hour”) appropriately-enough has noteworthy coverage of the summit’s end-game in its article EU Summit: Delegations Confirm Failure. It seems that what precipitated Berlusconi’s decision to simply call the whole thing off was a late-morning meeting he had with the leaders of France, Germany, and the UK; it was after this that he announced his decision to the summit’s other participants at Saturday lunch, and the communiqué-writing began. A Belgian inside source told DH that a new meeting of the IGC, at whatever level, could happen as early as January (although, as we’ll see in other reports, the Irish expect nothing like that to happen under their presidency until March at the earliest). As a Belgian paper, perhaps it is no surprise that in its reporting DH included Belgium with France and Germany as among the stoutest defenders of the Constitutional Convention’s work; but maybe that is valid anyway, as Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel distinguished himself from his colleagues by abandoning the usual policy of non-recrimination to criticize “countries which are unwilling to recognize the results of the Convention” at a press conference at the summit’s end.

TOWARDS A “TWO-SPEED EUROPE”?

German Chancellor Schröder choose much the same path in his remarks after the summit’s close, as covered by the FT Deutschland (EU Constitution Summit Failed). Regretting the summit’s failure, he attributed its “decisive point” to the decision of some countries (no prizes for guessing which two he meant) to place their national interests before the European ideal. The task now was to use the additional time to bring these countries around from that position. If they refused to be brought around, then he had something else for them to think about: Europe could split into a “Europe of two speeds,” with Germany intensifying its integration with like-minded countries (he named France and the UK) to push through measures among this restricted circle that perhaps would not be approved by the entire EU. “Those countries that want more integration should think about this path.”

Coverage of the summit’s break-up on the CNN.de website also reports these remarks, and adds that Schröder defended Berlusconi’s stewardship of the summit, saying that he had done all that he could. It also reports on parallel post-summit remarks by French President Jacques Chirac, that perhaps that “two-speed Europe” would be a good idea. The failed summit had reinforced the concept in his mind that there was a “cultural difference” between EU member-states, namely between those who have long been members and others with “less European experience.” (CNN.de also includes a quote from Leszek Miller, one of those with “less European experience”: He expressed the hope that the failed summit “will make our entire European family wiser in the coming weeks and months.”)

Belgium’s Le Soir amplifies Chirac’s thoughts about how to go on from here in its article After the Summit’s Failure. Chirac actually preferred to use the phrase groupes pionniers (“pioneering groups”) rather than “two-speed Europe.” “I persist in thinking that this is a good solution because it will provide a motor, provide an example. I think that that will permit Europe to go faster, further, and better,” he proclaimed to the press. Of course, to many others a “two-speed Europe,” or groupes pionniers if you like, is just another way to phrase the break-up of the European Union, as groups of like-minded states despair of getting approval for EU-wide action and instead go off together to do what they want. On the other hand, it’s also very accurate that that “two-speed Europe” already exists in areas such as defense (where some member-states are neutrals while others are very active in NATO), border controls (the Schengen group is the sub-set of EU members which has abolished border checks on their common borders), and of course the euro (still not adopted by the UK, Denmark, and Sweden). At least Luxembourg Premier Jean-Claude Juncker was willing to recognize that Schröder’s and Chirac’s idea was essentially being used as a “stick” – meant to bring Poland and Spain around and back into line in time for the next summit – when he told reporters that “two-speed Europe will only be the result of persistent disagreements.”

It is also in this Le Soir article that we hear from Irish Premier Bertie Ahern about what happens next: “There won’t be any other IGC in the next months to come. I don’t think there will be any agreement before March. There’s not enough political will to find an agreement.” And an interesting comment from Guy Verhofstadt at his post-summit press-conference: “A number of countries, which includes Belgium, are no longer prepared to make a Constitution by bargaining ["par des marchandages"].” This marks an important change; before, reaching an agreement – any agreement – was key, so European leaders would bargain into the night to finally find it. But now member-states are prepared to walk away and face the prospect of failure straight-on. That explains why such business as there was at this Brussels IGC could be wrapped up by early Saturday afternoon; it also goes a long way towards explaining why it failed. Is this failure better than the “success” at Nice, which apparently produced a treaty whose terms so many European leaders regret today? (Remember Valéry Giscard d’Estaing: Better No Constitution Than a Mutilated Constitution.)

POLISH SUSPICIONS

In its early coverage warning readers that the Brussels summit had failed, A Fistful of Euros did a particularly good job in choosing a sample out of the Polish coverage (namely Gazeta Wyborcza’s Fiasco-Summit in Brussels. The Irish Will Take Up Negotiations over Constitution), which raises some interesting questions about just what went on there from the Polish/Spanish bloc’s perspective. Poland and Spain were ready to compromise at Brussels, Gazeta’s writers proclaim (three writers, with long Polish names and strange letters within them; I’ll refer you to the on-line article itself if you’re just dying to know who they are). The problem was simply that the Italians presented no compromise offer. Indeed, according to one source quoted from the Polish negotiating team, “No one made any special efforts to come to a compromise. There wasn’t even one full plenary session, and never any offer placed on the negotiating table.” Was Berlusconi and the his Italian delegation being incompetent – or was he just not much in the mood to try too hard for any solution, and instead looking for an excuse to cut the summit short and get out of town? Just what influence did the international football match he wanted to attend in Milan on Sunday morning – again, an appointment of which he had made everybody aware from the beginning – have on the course of this summit?

Finding no assistance from those who were supposed to be in charge, Poland and Spain made their own offers. Throughout the summit they pushed – to anyone who would listen – for the “rendez-vous clause” compromise, which would put off consideration of the Council voting-weights question until a later point. Later, they even proposed a compromise which would retain the Nice voting system but adjust it to recognize Germany’s greater population: Germany would be granted an additional two votes, to a total of 31. But the German side was not interested.

In the end, where the blame for the summit’s failure should be placed is clear to the Gazeta writers: on France and Belgium. As the negotiations went on through Friday night and Saturday morning, it was Jacques Chirac in particular, with the support of Verhofstadt, who rejected repeated compromise proposals which Poland, Spain, and Germany had found acceptable. And then, after it was all over, there was that Belgian Louis Michel, facing the press and denouncing the “egoism of some [states],” who by their actions had merely “shot themselves in the foot.”

Let’s conclude by consulting a handy scorecard on the issues that remain unresolved published by Le Soir (The Principal Stumbling-Blocks). Number one is the European Council voting arrangements, of course, where (to recall) disagreement is still “total,” according to Silvio Berlusconi. But other issues remain outstanding as well, such as the argument about whether to reduce the Commission to fifteen voting members as the draft Constitution proposes. According to Le Soir, France and Germany still insist on that fifteen-member solution, while it seems Italy has proposed a compromise under which each member-state would get its one voting Commissioner until 2014, at which point the argument about what to do next would presumably erupt all over again. Further unresolved points include that question about whether to write an explicit reference to Europe’s Christian heritage into the Constitution, about whether to grant the European Parliament the final say over the EU’s budget as the Constitution proposes, and on the placement of certain policy-areas (to include foreign affairs and fiscal policy) into the “unanimity” or “qualified-majority voting” categories in the Council.

                          

For a review of that European press coverage, I think I’ll just refer you to Deutsche Welle’s English-language “European Press Review” (a link that I myself found out about from the scottymac blog). At least they also cover Austria and Italy, which I don’t, but do allow me to mention the essential superficiality of that press review, in light of the comprehensive reading that I’ve already done of the treatment in today’s European press of the run-up to the summit.

LET’S JUST ADD A LITTLE DEPTH

For example, they cite De Volkskrant, but that Dutch newspaper has broad, multi-article coverage that is probably impossible to summarize adequately in such a pat manner. As just one example, check out (if you read Dutch) The Netherlands Doesn’t Like to Make Threats, But Now . . .”, for a great treatment of what the Dutch position is, why Dutch ministers are determined to “play hardball” (keihard spelen – ooooooooh! We bad!) – and how, nonetheless, it’s doubtful that anyone will bother to listen to them, or that a couple of their main objectives will be attained. (Want to know what those objectives are? The right to veto EU multi-year budgets – the Netherlands is one of the main states that contributes more money to those budgets than it gets back from them, you see – and, of course, putting some needed teeth into the euro’s Growth and Stability Pact.)

Or there’s the FT Deutschland’s excellent treatment (but only one out of three articles on the subject in its on-line edition) EU Constitution: Scenarios for the Outcome of the Negotiation-Poker which, as the title implies, presents four scenarios for the way the summit could end up: Failure (self-explanatory, no?), Continuing to Negotiate Later (namely starting in January, under the new Irish presidency), Continuing to Negotiate Much Later (in this scenario, the Council voting-rights question is the one remaining thing left standing in the way – so that issue is put off for renegotiation at a point closer to 2009, when the current Nice Treaty system can actually be replaced; we’ve discussed this before), and Conclusion, i.e. success: everything is taken care of this weekend at Brussels. And what about the French press? Presumably Deutsche Welle feels that, being German, it can’t review the German press, but believe me, there was plenty of interesting stuff in the French press – quite beyond the viewpoint from our far-left friends at the Communist Party newspaper L’Humanité that is always fun to consult. The point is that the Deutsche Welle coverage could be much better, much more complete, and I could provide that – despite the small fact that I generally prefer to cover one nation’s press at a time, so that I can put each weblog entry into a unique national “category” for sorting purposes. (For example, this entry must needs remain uncategorized.) I just don’t have the time now, mainly because I want to supplement my coverage of the French response to the Pentagon’s contract-exclusion order with that of the German. In-depth EuroSavant treatment of the European press’ coverage of what this weekend’s summit actually accomplished will surely follow shortly, once the smoke clears and it becomes apparent what they did actually accomplish.

SUNDAY NY TIMES-TYPE COVERAGE

So let me just take the opportunity to note for you a few more interesting elements out of that European coverage. Yegads, the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung each have multi-article special sections on the topic. What’s more, the Dutch NRC Handelsblad offers an opinion-piece, entitled Better a Delay than a Bad-Compromise EU, co-written by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Giuliano Amato, and Jean-Luc Deheane, who just happen to be the Chairman of the EU’s Constitutional Convention and his two deputy-chairman. That is actually the third installment in a series of opinion articles these august gentlemen have written about their view of the future form of the EU, published earlier in the NRC (and who knows where else; surely somewhere else, and surely somewhere else in English). If you’re interested, and can read Dutch, you certainly can access the other two, provided you’re willing to register with the NRC’s website for free; they are (in chronological order) Europe Is and Remains A Creation of its Citizens and The European Commission Must Remain the EU’s Axis. (Don’t even think that that last has anything to do with World War II. Please review the various other definitions of axis.)

By the way, it’s also interesting which papers had no coverage of the upcoming Brussels summit. In the Dutch press: De Telegraaf (but that one you could have expected – little Princess Amalia is still but barely a week old), Algemeen Dagblad, Het Parool, and (this one really hurts) Trouw. It’s very disillusioning. Maybe (or “of course!”) they had some sort of brief coverage in their paper editions, but there was nothing on their on-line sites. Just how important is the EU’s prospective Constitution, people? I may be a EuroNerd (Chorus: “No, MAO, you’re a EuroSavant, or at least you were quick enough to be the first to snatch up that ‘.com’ domain!”), but I think it’s all rather important, as well as (usually) pretty interesting. So perhaps writing later about those three pieces by the EU Constitutional Convention chairmen, after the summit, to contrast those gentlemen’s advocacy of what should happen with what actually did, might be an interesting idea for a weblog entry in the near future.

                          

According to Miller, his injuries won’t prevent him from attending the climactic EU summit in Brussels over the draft Constitution coming up this weekend, even if he has to show up there in a body-cast. In a recent analysis entitled The Poles Are Europe’s New Nay-Sayers, the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende points out that what is likely to be waiting for him there, at the least, are marathon negotiating sessions stretching long into the night “which can force even healthy politicians to their knees.” And that even means “healthy politicians” whose member-states have mainly stayed on the sidelines during the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), remaining above the acrimony. For the main protagonist in the process that the Poles have become, on the other hand, the coming days can be expected to bring not only long nights but also intense pressure.

WILL POLAND BLINK?

According to this analysis by Ole Bang Nielsen, Poland is now considered the number-one obstacle to agreement being reached next weekend in Brussels over a new Constitutional Treaty. The main problem is of course the unresolved issue of voting arrangements in the European Council. Yes, both Poland and Spain have been standing firm together against a large part of their fellow member-states in insisting that voting arrangements brought in with the Nice Treaty of 2000 not be superseded by a simpler “double majority” scheme proposed in the Constitution (although they’ve recently won some support for their stand, see my earlier treatment here). But ultimately everyone expects Spain to give way, at least at the last minute, Nielsen writes, because Spain (and specifically Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar) has given way like this at earlier EU summits to enable agreements to be reached.

With Poland, no one can be quite so sure. The Poles themselves have certainly put up a brave face that they don’t intend to give in, no matter what. And they might very well be serious; Prime Minister Miller’s SLD (leftist, post-Communist) government is seriously weak and unpopular, enjoying only minority support in the Sejm (the Polish parliament) and suffering from a number of corruption scandals. It could very well be true that that government has taken a much harder line in the IGC negotiations than it would have otherwise preferred in order to try to win back political support – which means that failing to get its way over the issue of the Nice voting arrangements (which has received such extensive coverage in the Polish press) could constitute a political blow which could tip it over the edge.

“NICE VOTING SYSTEM” EXPLAINED

An aside here to take advantage of Berlingske Tidende’s own side-column, on the right-hand side, explaining the two competing voting arrangements in greater detail. Here we are reminded of what the arrangement is now – and until 2009, no matter what happens – for measures to be passed in the European Council by “qualified majority.” (We reviewed the proposed “double majority” arrangement in this €S entry.) That means that a measure must gain 70% of the total number of votes parcelled out to member-states at the Council. These votes are parceled out in proportions which have rather little to do with actual relative population – the most commonly-cited objection is that Poland and Spain get 27 such votes, while Germany, France, the UK, and Italy each get 29, and for one thing the populations of Poland and Spain each are half or just-over-half that of Germany’s. (Germany’s population is rather more than that of France, the UK, and Italy, for that matter – I guess that’s just another “can of worms” that nobody wants to open up right now.)

But the more-important matter is just how easy it should be to get something passed in the Council. That is hardest when the vote has to be unanimous, which is indeed the case still for many areas of policy, but not all. Perhaps you’d think that, if something doesn’t have to be decided unanimously, then let it pass if just over half of the member states (so 13 in the soon-to-be 25-member Union) agree, or if states representing at least half of the Union’s population agree. But that won’t happen, because then it is simply too easy to let a measure pass which perhaps a significant bloc of EU member-states (if not a “blocking majority”) would oppose; and, so it seems, EU member-states are still highly-sensitive about being forced in the future into something in the European Council that they really don’t want. Instead, the tug-of-war takes place within that part of the voting-spectrum between simple majority (easiest to pass, easiest to be trapped into something you don’t want) at the one end and required unanimity (hardest to pass, never have to accept something you don’t want) at the other. With this frame-of-reference in mind, the draft Constitution’s “double majority” proposal puts things on the “easier to pass side” – which many want, at least theoretically, since it enables the Council better to actually get things done – while the Nice system which Poland and Spain are trying to save is definitely more on the “harder to pass” side.

POLISH-GERMAN SMACKDOWN

Back to that upcoming Brussels summit: If I may translate the Berlingske Tidende’s report into terms any WWF fans can easily understand (that’s “World Wrestling Federation”), it is shaping up to be a “Polish-German smackdown.” Poland leads the tag-team challenging to keep Nice; Germany, with the Union’s largest population, greatest economic power, and most rippling muscles, is leading the camp trying to keep the draft Constitution as unchanged as possible – a camp which otherwise includes the rest of the original “EEC 6″ of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. And this is not just some knee-jerk conservative impulse on Germany’s part, either; rather, German leaders have welcomed the new arrangements proposed in the draft Constitution, particularly the “double majority” voting, as a long-awaited step to grant Germany the power in the making of EU decisions that one would think her size (and the fact that a full one-third of the EU’s budget comes from the German Treasury) would entitle her to. “Nice is a bad treaty,” German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer recently declared, “an insufficient ["utilstrækkelig"] treaty,” and made it clear that not replacing the Nice voting arrangements would be unacceptable to Germany.

But Poland shows no sign of acceding to that, and annoyance at her behavior only increases. As one EU official is quoted in the article, “With their mixture of moral arrogance and political inferiority-complex, the Poles have lost all sympathy within a short period of time.” Poland has even threatened legal action before the European Court of Justice if Nice is not retained – and, remember, Poland is not yet a member-state! Nielsen goes on to list other irritants: the Poles supposedly are too quick to refer back in a bid for sympathy to the Nazi cruelties inflicted on them during World War II, and the Yalta settlement that condemned them to forty years’ dominance by the Soviet Union; the Poles were much too quick and vocal in their support for the American position in the big hoo-haa of last spring over going to war against Iraq; and, remember, Poland has consistently brought up the rear in one European Commission report after the other gauging future member-states’ progress in adapting their national legislation and procedures to EU norms.

How bad could things get? While citing Fischer on the unacceptability to Germany of no change to the Nice treaty, Nielsen also mentions various hints the German foreign minister has let drop about what could happen if the attempt to agree on a new Constitution turns into disaster: Germany, France, and a few other like-minded member-states could very well band together to form a “European hard-core” to cooperate and proceed on their own, something that could ultimately threaten a break-up of the EU. Most observers dismiss this as Fischer merely talking tough before the hard negotiations begin next weekend; but French officials have been heard uttering similar talk.

POLISH WORKERS WELCOME – BUT NOT TOO WELCOME

In this context, a quick look is merited at an article in another Danish newspaper, Politiken, entitled The Door is Half-Open for the Poles. (To an optimist, that is; to a pessimist it’s “half-closed.” Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, the straightforward Danish expression – på klem – doesn’t lend itself to meditations over this sort of duality.) What this is about, despite the reference in the title to Poles, is the measures the Danish parliament (the Folketing) has recently taken to enable Danes and willing citizens from all of the ten soon-to-be EU member-states to take advantage of the latter’s eligibility to work in Denmark as of next May – but not to take advantage of that too much, to the point that – Heaven forbid! – there starts to be downward pressure on the wages native Danes receive.

New EU citizens will certainly be allowed into Denmark to look for work – but they had better be prepared to support themselves until they find it, since they won’t be eligible for any Danish social benefits. When they find it, they’ll get a work-permit, but it will have some special conditions: full-time work only, and no permission to switch to another job, if they find that their wages are too low, before the allowed time of the permit has expired. What’s more, they needn’t expect any child benefits, nor any of the government-mandated maternity/paternity leave that native Danes get. And the authorities still reserve the right to restrict the entry into Denmark of these nationals further, if it finds that, despite its best efforts, so many are coming and they’re working so cheaply that they are taking too many jobs away from those native Danes.

In announcing the new measures, Danish Employment Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen is quoted by the article’s author Jakob Nielsen (don’t be surprised: just about every third Dane’s family name is Nielsen), “Now Danish wage-earners can sleep deeply and soundly. EU expansion will not lead to sweatshops ["løntrykkeri"] in the Danish employment market . . . . And we can all be glad that we have put a fence around the Danish welfare-state.” Now, remember that the Danes are at least behaving better than the Germans and Austrians, who have insisted on a five- or seven-year “transition period” before Eastern Europeans can take full advantage of the free movement of labor that the EU was supposed to mean and come and seek work there (and the Netherlands is contemplating similar measures). Still, taking that and the Polish-German smackdown all into account: Whatever happened to the joyous reunion of brother-and-sister European countries under the umbrella of the EU that was supposed to happen after the anti-Communist revolutions of 1989 and 1990? I guess there is too much serious money and power involved here for such sentiment.

                          

As you would expect, a specifically-Czech tidbit is thrown into Hospodarske noviny’s reporting: Czech foreign minister Cyril Svoboda has been lobbying at these events to prevent the EU “Minister of Foreign Affairs,” envisaged in the draft Constitution, from actually having that title. According to Svoboda, much better would be something less grandiose, like “Foreign Policy Representative.” “Minister,” you see, implies a sovereign state – and we don’t want to give any support to the notion that this Constitution will in any way create a sovereign state. (Actually, within the Czech Republic it is primarily President Václav Klaus and his opposition ODS party who are sticklers on points such as this; Svoboda’s campaign reflects his government’s weak position in the Czech legislature, which forces that government to keep the ODS sweet by taking up its causes in this way at the EU level.)

The HN article speaks of a compromise “package” that EU President Silvio Berlusconi undertook at the Brussels summit to fashion, which would be examined by the EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Rome on 28/29 November, to prepare it hopefully for acceptance at the end-of-presidency EU summit of 12/13 December. It also mentions the mid-November “mini-summit” that Berlusconi wanted to hold to help him along with this; but that last bit has probably by now been overtaken by events, given the reluctance to meet yet again on the part of EU government heads that emerged in the French and Dutch press.

                          

An especially valuable piece comes from Friday’s NRC Handelsblad, EU Lands Critical over Constitution’s Progress. (But the NRC is an evening paper, anyway; so it has even more time than its morning competitors to update readers on what is going on.) In the NRC’s pages, quotes expressing dissatisfaction come flooding from Benelux leaders at the summit. Luxembourg premier Jean-Claude Juncker: The summit had “no value-added.” Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstad: “We can’t just keep on repeating our points-of-view.” (Jacque Chirac’s public commentary on this is suitably sphinx-like: simply that “I know the European culture of my friends Juncker and Verhofstadt. That is all that I want to say.”) And of course Dutch premier Jan-Peter Balkenende: “If we keep on having these sorts of talking-rounds, we won’t get there.” (“. . . schieten wij niet op.“) Balkenende added, “Whether we’ll be able to make December [i.e. finish deliberations with a final-version Constitution acceptable to all], you can’t say.” Another article on the summit, from the Volkskrant (European Leaders Dissatisfied with Constitution’s Tempo) adds comments from German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, to the effect that he had heard “nothing new” at Brussels (the one day he spent there), and that someone needed to hurry up and get some compromises going, before everyone simply hardened their respective positions.

(Oh, and there’s also the photo on the front page of Friday’s Het Financiële Dagblad (the Netherland’s leading business newspaper), which I can’t show here for obvious reasons. Silvio Berlusconi and Jan-Peter Balkenende are standing together at the Brussels summit; Berlusconi is explaining something to Balkenende, gesturing, and the Dutch prime minister has his hands clasped behind his back and looks very, very bored.)

As a result of all this discontent there were already changes to his plan forced on Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. He had mentioned the possibility of yet another EU summit, an “informal” one, in mid-November. Given the “no value-added” opinion about this one, that suggestion went over like a lead balloon among Berlusconi’s European colleagues, and it seems like it has now been dropped. Instead, mid-November is supposed to see Italy come forth with its compromise proposals, derived from bilateral consultations which the Italian Foreign Ministry will hold between now and then with the other twenty-four member/future-member countries. Previously, Italy had promised this for the end of November. Instead, that already-planned foreign ministers’ meeting will take place on 28-29 November. That is supposed to clear the way for a successful conclusion to negotiations at the regular Rome summit of 12-13 December.

Whether that actually happens certainly remains to be seen. The Finns, at least (from a Finnish diplomat quoted in the Volkskrant article) calmly contemplate negotiating all the way up until next May – by which point all twenty-five countries will actually be members of the EU. But there simply has to be a final result by then, for elections to the European parliament take place in June, 2004, and the plan is to hold the referenda on the Constitution (in those countries that will have them) on the same occasion.

                          

Une réunion pour rien? (“A meeting for nothing?”) asks the Nouvel Observateur in its excellently-titled article Europeans Mark Time with Their Constitution, by Emmanuel Georges-Picot. Yep, it seems that the twenty-five heads-of-state/government (present EU members plus those joining in seven months, natch) convened once again, in Brussels, less than two weeks after they had already had the pleasure of each other’s company (that was 4 October, in Rome) – only to hear basically the same statements that they had delivered there in Italy. (Let me skip ahead briefly to the Le Monde article that I’ll discuss in detail later: it’s claimed there that Spanish premier José Maria Aznar actually repeated the same speech he had made in Rome, word-for-word!) Naturally, the same impasses remain in the matter of the draft Constitution, which is to say 1) The make-up of the Commission: Most small countries (not to include the Benelux) insist on one-country, one Commissioner; and 2) Voting: Spain and Poland continue to insist that the Nice arrangement, which gave them an advantageous voting deal, be preserved.

What to do? The pressure is on Italy here (specifically, on Berlusconi), not only because it holds the rotating EU presidency, but also because Berlusconi fondly hopes to be able to wrap up things by December so that a final-version Constitution can still be signed during that Italian EU presidency. (Don’t hold your breath.) Naturally, Silvio does have plan, namely to issue at the end of November an omnibus compromise proposal – perhaps in connection with a planned meeting of EU foreign ministers on the 28th and 29th. So don’t worry that nothing was decided about the Constitution here in Brussles, see; it was all about listening. (Actually, European Parliament President Pat Cox said that. But Mr. Cox, didn’t all that “listening” already happen on October 4?) The Nouvel Observateur also raises vague talk about scheduling yet another European summit, in Rome, before the end-of-presidency summit on 12/13 December, also in Rome.

Georges-Picot puts it well: “Hardly very excited by the Intergovernmental Conference business” (“Guère passionés . . . “), the assembled leaders spent a bunch of time on other things. Thursday afternoon was mainly occupied with a new proposal for a big economic initiative (basically, funding public works projects, twenty-nine of ‘em; I’ve got additional material on that, that I hope to present to you in another entry). As mentioned before, Chirac and Schröder did manage to get away on Thursday (it seems that it was during lunch – maybe a big sacrifice for the Frenchman Chirac) to talk on the telephone with Vladimir Putin about the US’ Security Council resolution on Iraq. And everybody gave final approval to the Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet taking over from Wim Duisenberg as head of the European Central Bank. Yay.

To the Nouvel Observateur’s account Libération adds only a little. The “divergences are deep,” although, as Libération writer Yves Clarisse puts it, “the moment of truth – or of crisis – isn’t expected until the summit of 12-13 December.” (Well, crisis for Italy, maybe, since its dream of bringing the proceedings to a close during its presidency will be in grave danger unless there is significantly more progress on the Constitution by that point. On the one hand, there is a certain amount of time still available in the new year (under an Irish presidency); on the other hand, if there’s no or very little progress by December 12/13, that will be a very worrying sign as to whether a final-form Constitution is attainable at all.)

Clarrisse adds more detail to Silvio Berlusconi’s plans to fix things. It all sounds a bit trite: he intended at this Brussels summit to go around the table, to each of the twenty-five current/future members, to have them each give two or three “key points” where they wanted to see changes in the draft Constitution’s text. It also sounds a little bit strange, given that there’s an important bloc that basically wants the draft Constitution to be adopted in the form with which it came out of the Constitutional Convention last June – namely the original six founding members (that’s Germany, France, Berlusconi’s own Italy – yet he’s asking everyone for suggested changes! – and the Benelux. To this the Le Monde article also adds the UK – and that sounds strange to me, too.)

Wait, check that: Now “certain Benelux countries” (Libération won’t reveal which of the three) have put forth a compromise proposal on the question of the Commission size: Let there be 18 voting Commissioners, so that during any given Commission, two-thirds of EU members will have a voting Commissioner (assuming twenty-seven member-states), with one-third of the states gaining and losing their voting Commissioner with each new Commission. Well . . . for one thing, this disregards the desire by the Union’s big countries to retain their two Commissioners, if the consensus is to expand the Commission’s numbers anyway. More fundamentally, it also disregards my own point (discussed here) that the nationalities of European Commissioners shouldn’t matter – the Commission is best viewed as the EU’s Cabinet§, and Commissioners should be the best-qualified for the area of policy they are assigned, no matter where they happen to come from. I haven’t found this point anywhere else out there in the “real [on-line] world,” though – is it me who is insane?

Finally, there is the Le Monde article, which is different and interesting in its own right. First of all, the article takes up the “founding members” position, i.e. “just leave the draft Constitution alone and approve it.” You can tell, because in its introduction it emphasizes how the draft was “anyway the fruit of six months’ difficult [but] fruitful negotiations between representatives of governments, of national assemblies, and the European Parliament and Commission.”

Beyond this, Le Monde adds some important points – like the unease some are already starting to feel about the whole Constitution process. It quotes Luxembourgois premier Jean-Claude Juncker: “Today’s meeting didn’t bring any new element,” he is said to have “sighed.” “I’m a bit worried about how this affair is unfolding. Meeting after meeting, [and] the positions become more and more fixed.” What is more, together with Belgian premier Guy Verhofstadt (and further supported by President Chirac, Le Monde says), Juncker has already started to attack Italy’s ideas about how to proceed to get out of this mess and attain agreement on a final-form text. “We’re not going to find a solution this way,” Verhofstadt is quoted as saying. (For that matter, Polish premier Leszek Miller is quoted as saying “I didn’t have the impression of any rapprochement of positions,” and “The name of the compromise is Nice” – in other words, you all had your “compromise” at Nice, and I don’t want to hear any talk of any more “compromise.”)

So it’s “no progress” at Brussels, folks, not on the main agenda item of the Constitution. And the natives are worried, and getting restless.

* But there will be no “Wasted (Brussels) Sprouts”! Clean your plate!

§ A “cabinet” with rather more authority than the the US Cabinet taken alone – and rather less authority than the US Cabinet taken together with the US President.

                          

But the war phase is now over, and the occupation phase has begun.

There are now plans for a “Polish” zone of occupation in Iraq, and this of course is a tribute to the Polish military contribution. But the sticking points are 1) Money, and 2) Troops: Poland feels it doesn’t have enough of either to really take charge of that “Polish” zone.

We won’t deal with the money question here – that shouldn’t be any problem in the end, Poland should be able to “get by with a little help from its friends” – but where to find the troops? Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski thought he had the answer in the joint Polish-German-Danish NATO army corps based in Szczecin, in northwest Poland, which after all has an existing headquarters and planning staff that should be able to execute this mission. But now it seems the German authorities are saying “Not so fast!”

And the Poles are highly annoyed. Niemcy mówia: nie! (“The Germans say: No!”) reads the headline in the main Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza: “The German government excludes due to technical and political reasons the taking-part of the joint Polish-German-Danish corps in the stabilization forces in Iraq,” it quotes German government spokesman Bela Anda as saying. And Rzeczpospolita, in an article entitled Zalezy nam na Niemcach (“We depend on the Germans”), has Szmajdzinski all the more embarrassed because this was the plan he arrived at with the authorities in Washington, when he was there last weekend accompanying Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz on a visit. (Strangely, German Defense Minister Peter Struck was also there at about the same time.)

(Strange, there is no mention in the Polish press of anyone asking the Danes their opinion about whether they feel like sending their troops to Iraq to help “stabilize” in the Polish zone, although I do know that they have offered to send troops to Iraq generally. Maybe it’s time for a EuroSavant visit to the Danish press!)

Rzeczpospolita also does it part to illuminate this contretemps by including in today’s editions interviews both with Minister Szmajdzinski and, if not with the German Defense Minister himself, then with the German “shadow” Defense Minister, opposition politician (and former actual Defense Minister) Volker Rühe.

Szmajdzinski: It would be better to undertake the “stabilization” mission in Iraq using the Northeastern Corps [i.e. the joint Polish-German-Danish NATO Corps], since the Germans have an excellently-organized and schooled military. But we could do it ourselves if we had to. Still, I’m counting on the Germans’ changing their minds. After all, it’s also in their interest to participate in the stabilization mission. For decades their foreign policy has been built around the German-American relationship, but in the past few months that fundament has been somewhat broken-up.
Interviewer: Don’t you think the Germans would find it somewhat of a dishonor to serve under the Poles?
Szmajdzinski: I don’t think so. Anyway, it’s time to put dignity [Polish: ambicje] to the side, for there are serious interests involved here. And it’s not so strange these days for the forces of one country to serve under the command of another – the Germans have recently commanded others in Afghanistan.

And the Volker Rühe interview. Nothing on the current disagreement over the Polish zone of occupation in Iraq, but he does say some interesting things about last week’s “mini-summit” on defense of France, Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg, in Brussels (covered previously by EuroSavant – just page down the weblog):
Polish interviewer: Do you think that, after the recent Iraq crisis, American and Europe will grow apart, or will they again come closer together?
Rühe: A coming-together is in the cards, because this has to happen. But first Europe must show itself worthy of such a coming-together. It must show that it can speak with one voice on essential issues.
Polish interviewer: The EU doesn’t yet have a common foreign and security policy, nor true rapid reaction forces, but recently there was a new initiative from Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg – a so-called avant-garde for a common EU defense. What do you think of that initiative?
Rühe: That was no avant-garde. That was a mistake. Even more so due to the anti-American tinge that it had. Great Britain did not take part in the dreaming-up of that initiative. For now this much is clear: if Europe wants to seriously address the military question, the question of security policy, that intention will only take shape when the English, Dutch, Italians etc. also take part.

But maybe it’s not too late to find some solution to the latest German-Polish misunderstanding, perhaps through the intervention of Jacques Chirac: The heads of state of France, Germany, and Poland – the so-called “Weimar Three” – meet tomorrow in the Polish city of Wroclaw. Interested in getting a report on that – from the perspectives of the French, German, and/or Polish press? Then just drop a line to (drumroll, please) EuroSavant!