Bailout Of Greece Causes Shift In German Political Landscape

Recently Germany held elections for it's parliament also, which were overshadowed by the elections in England, but the voter sentiment there, as elsewhere, is showing signs of a cooling attitude towards those in power.

The biggest issue in Germany, whose economy is suffering right along with everybody else, decided it would be a good idea to give Greece £19 billion. As a result the party to which Chancellor Merkel belongs to, the Christian Democratic Union took a beating in the polls. A lot of the sentiment in Germany is not in favor of one party or the other. Like England they have three predominant parties, the other two being the Social Democrats and the Free Democrats. How about that? A country where everybody is a Democrat.

The CDU is considered a right leaning party according to European standards.

Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to have been dealt a political body blow on tonight when her Christian Democratic party recorded its worst ever result in crucial region elections.

Exit polls in North Rhine Westphalia — Germany’s most populous region with 18 million inhabitants — suggested that the Christian Democrats won barely 34 per cent of the vote and were like to be toppled from the regional government. Plainly the party has had to pay for some of the popular discontent about Chancellor Merkel’s aid package for Greece.

The United States has pledged about $6 billion to aid Greece, which may be the first of many other countries to go into default. The most talked about others are Spain and Portugal. A heavy reliance on federal government handouts and being nursemaided by the central government is a large part of the reason these countries are in trouble. It simply did not take long for there to be more moochers then there were contributors to their economies and as a result they could not meet their obligations.

And as evidenced in Greece, the kiddies are not happy about having their allowance cut off.

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today

The man who opened the Berlin Wall
On November 9th 1989, Harald Jäger wanted his night shift at the East Berlin border crossing at Bornholmer Strasse to go quietly. Instead, Jäger opened the first crack in the Berlin Wall and helped make history.

“But then things happened, that I would have never imagined even in my worst dreams,” remembered the former state security officer in a conversation with the DPA new service. His border crossing was the first to open - without an order from above. The hours leading up to the opening were the most dramatic in his life.

“I’m happy that only thing that flowed was fear-induced sweat and not blood,” Jäger said.

In the canteen around 7 pm that evening, he had followed the press conference with the East German official Günter Schabowski, which outlined new travel rules for the country's citizens. Almost offhandedly, Schabowski announced the immediate opening of the border. The impact of the announcement was almost immediately visible, said Jäger.

“At first there were just a handful of East German citizens there, but by the minute there were more. It went from hundreds to thousands, who chanted, ‘Open the gate!,’” explained Jäger, who was in charge of 30 guards and three border posts that night.

“We stood just an arms-length away from the masses, who were separated from us by just a closed crossing gate,” he said, explaining how he was scared of a mass panic. “We no longer had the situation under control,” said Jäger, now 66 years old. He kept trying to phone his superiors for orders. “But higher up, chaos reigned just as it did for us.”

Around 9:40 pm, the order came to allow especially “provocative citizens” through the border, but not to let them back in. But this “ventilation” tactic didn’t help.

“At 11:20 pm, I then ordered the crossing gate to be opened and to allow everyone to leave without inspecting their papers,” said Jäger. About 25,000 people used their new freedom on that evening to cross into West Berlin.


“In the first moment, something was really empty inside me. I didn’t understand the world anymore,” said Jäger. Today, he’s “a bit proud” that he prevented the situation from escalating. He believes that because of his cool-headed handling of the situation, he made some amends for his 28 years of service with the East German border troops.

It was good that “the East Germans didn’t exclude us, instead they embraced us,” said Jäger. The reaction from his then-superiors was also mild. “My knees were shaking when I called up my colonel to report on what was happening. He said only, ‘it’s good, my boy.’”

After Germany reunited, Jäger had to “start from zero.” He was unemployed for two years and then trained to become a taxi driver. He also sold ice cream and newspapers and worked as a security guard. Coming to terms with his past took many years, Jäger said. A series of interviews with Gerhard Hasse-Hindenberg, who wrote a biography of Jäger that was published in 2007, helped considerably.

Today, Jäger lives in the town of Weneuchen in Brandenburg and spends a lot of time in his garden tending cacti. After 20 years, he wants to go back to his former border crossing on the 9th of November and mix with the others there.

But he can’t fully savour the freedom to travel that came with the fall of the Wall: he doesn’t have enough money for the dream trip to Mexico that he’d like to take.

Via The Local

Meanwhile, as Berliners and dignitaries celebrate the Fall of the Wall and remember those who died during their attempt to flee the communist paradise, BarryO won't be there.

In his first year in office, Barack Obama has visited more foreign countries than any other president. He's touched ground in 16 countries, easily outpacing Bill Clinton (three) and George W. Bush (eleven). It's an itinerary befitting a "citizen of the world."

But there's one stop Obama won't make. He has begged off going to Berlin next week to attend ceremonies commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. His schedule is reportedly too crowded. John F. Kennedy famously told Berliners, "Ich bin ein Berliner." On the 20th anniversary of the last century's most stirring triumph of freedom, Obama is telling them, "Ich bin beschäftigt" - i.e., I'm busy.

It doesn't have quite the same ring, does it? Obama's failure to go to Berlin is the most telling nonevent of his presidency. It's hard to imagine any other American president eschewing the occasion. Only Obama - with his dismissive view of the Cold War as a relic distorting our thinking and his attenuated commitment to America's exceptional role in the world - would spurn German president Angela Merkel's invitation to attend.

Obama famously made a speech in Berlin during last year's campaign, but at an event devoted to celebrating himself as the apotheosis of world hopefulness. He said of 1989, "a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."

The line was typical Obama verbal soufflé, soaring but vulnerable to collapse upon the slightest jostling from logic or historical fact. The wall came down only after the free world resolutely stood against the Communist bloc. Rather than a warm-and-fuzzy exercise in global understanding, the Cold War was another iteration of the 20th century's long war between totalitarianism and Western liberalism. The West prevailed on the back of American strength.

But Obama doesn't think in such antiquated, triumphalist terms. Given to apologizing for his nation abroad, he resolutely downplays American leadership. "President Obama is applying the same tools to international diplomacy that he used as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side," the Washington Post notes, approaching "the world as a community of nations, more alike than different in outlook and interest." To the extent that the Cold War doesn't fit this unbelievably naïve worldview, it's an intellectual inconvenience.

Wouldn't Obama at least want to take the occasion to celebrate freedom and human rights - those most cherished liberal values? Not necessarily. He has mostly jettisoned them as foreign-policy goals in favor of a misbegotten realism that soft-pedals the crimes of nasty regimes around the world. During the Cold War, we undermined our enemies by shining a bright light on their repression. In Berlin, JFK called out the Communists on their "offense against humanity." Obama would utter such a phrase only with the greatest trepidation, lest it undermine a future opportunity for dialogue.

Pres. Ronald Reagan realized we could meet with the Soviets without conceding the legitimacy of their system. He always spoke up for the dissidents - even when it irked his negotiating partner, Mikhail Gorbachev. Whatever the hardheaded imperatives of geopolitics, we'd remain a beacon of liberty in the world.

Obama has relegated this aspirational aspect of American power to the back seat. For him, we are less an exceptional power than one among many, seeking deals with our peers in Beijing and Moscow. Why would Obama want to celebrate the refuseniks of the Eastern Bloc, when he won't even meet with the Dalai Lama in advance of his trip to China?

So Obama huddles with Merkel during her visit to Washington and leaves it at that. An American president will skip events marking the end of a struggle to which we, as a nation - under presidents of both parties - devoted blood and treasure for 50 years. For Barack Obama, 1989 is just another far-away year - and the Democratic party of such men as Harry S. Truman and JFK has never seemed more distant.

Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review.

Via RCP

It's Come to This: Obama As Toilet Art

There's just no escaping this crap.

A public toilet in Munich which has been transformed into an art museum has attracted hundreds of people in the first days after opening, a spokesman for the city's tourism agency said on Thursday.

Built in 1894, the toilet house was originally constructed to serve nearby households which lacked necessary facilities.

After being in use for over a hundred years, the toilets were locked up in 1992 because they were very rarely used.

"On the night we opened, around 800 people came to see our work," initiator of the museum project, Mathias Koehler told Reuters.

He said that a toilet was a great place for artistic expression because art is a form of relief in the same way that going to the toilet is.

The art exhibited is mainly graffiti often with a political theme. Examples include images of Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel flanking a urinal in the corner of the room. Four artists contributed their work to the exhibition.

Great. Now you can look at Obama while taking a leak.

Idiot in Search of a Village

Somebody let Hugo Chavez near a microphone again, and Hugo did not disappoint.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has set off on a visit to Latin America, after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez linked her party to Hitler.

Mr Chavez threatened to confront Ms Merkel on Friday at a summit in Peru of Latin American and European leaders.

Not happy with calling Bush names, Chavez is branching out.

"She is from the German right," said Mr Chavez. "The same that supported Hitler, that supported fascism. That's the Chancellor of Germany today."

The Venezuelan leader stopped short of telling Ms Merkel to go to hell, saying: "Ms Chancellor, you can go to... because you are a lady, I won't say any more.

That's an interesting perspective since Hitler, like Chavez, was a leftwinger.

Chavez reminds me of the town drunk you see staggering around, raving at passers-by. But he is an equal opportunity raver:

Mr Chavez is no stranger to insulting international leaders.

He has called President Bush a "devil" and was told to "shut up" by King Juan Carlos of Spain after calling former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar a "fascist"

Somewhere, a village is looking for its idiot.

Talking Down The NATO Summit

Take some European pacifism, add some aversion to the concept of national defense; stir well.

Now add some BDS . . . .

Europe Waits Out the Bush Administration
[....]

'Foundation of the Alliance'

Beginning this Wednesday, leaders of NATO states will meet in the Romanian capital Bucharest, where they will air differences that, in the assessment of the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs, have long torn at the very "foundation of the alliance."

The agenda includes Afghanistan, a perpetual bone of contention, the expansion of the alliance eastward and the controversial plans for an American missile defense system. NATO is deeply divided on most issues. It appears former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was right after all, when he divided the continent into an "old" Western and a "new" Eastern Europe.

The Eastern Europeans valiantly defend American positions, while Western allies have long since written off US President George W. Bush, for whom the Bucharest NATO summit will be his last. "The Europeans are in a wait-and-see mood," says Stephen Larrabee of the Rand Corporation, an influential American think tank. "They want to wait out the Bush administration."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, of all people, stands at the head of those seeking to slow down NATO's plans. If Bush has his way, the alliance will be expanded to include more than just Croatia, Albania and Macedonia. A "membership action plan" has even been put in place to facilitate rapid entry into the alliance for Ukraine and Georgia.

Another Sensitive Project

Secretary General Scheffer and the Eastern Europeans support the plan, which has encountered bitter resistance in Moscow. "No Russian president can ever accept the NATO membership of Ukraine," says current President Vladimir Putin. Merkel supports his position, although for different official reasons.

As in not wanting to offend Vladimir Paranoid, Angie?

"Many Western European partners agree completely," said German defense expert and Green Party member Alexander Bonde after a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels. Bonde is convinced that they are hiding behind the Germans and are "confident that Ms. Merkel will remain resolute."

The Germans are also expected to try to delay another sensitive project: the Americans' controversial missile defense plan. Berlin diplomats have stated that the summit will "generally" support the Bush project to station 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar facility in the Czech Republic, the goal being to defend against Iranian missiles, if need be. But at Berlin's urging the triumphant announcements Washington wants will not happen.

So, other than fearing Putie, why are the Heinies lukewarm to the idea?

Because the American missiles cannot protect Europe completely, the United States wants to develop a second missile defense system -- at its partners' expense. This system would protect Turkey and Norway to the north against a nuclear threat from Iran, but it would also cost enormous sums of money. Experts estimate that it would require an increase in the German defense budget of at least €1 billion ($1.58 billion), leading to a total of more than €30 billion ($47.4 billion). Officials at the Chancellery say that this would not be politically feasible, prompting Berlin to postpone a decision on the second system.

And avoid 'offending' Vladimir Paranoid.

'German Combat Battalion in Kandahar'

These delaying tactics reflect the hope that a new US administration under Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would not support the costly missile defense system as adamantly as Republican President Bush.

Given the Bolshevik Revolution within the New Democrat party, neither Obama nor Hillary will be the next White House occupant.

But even a new US president will not make things easier for Germany in Afghanistan. One thing that Bush and all of his potential successors have in common is the call for more German troops. They agree that what Obama calls the "dirty work" in the embattled south and east should no longer be left entirely to the Americans, Canadians, British and Dutch.

"The Americans," says a member of the staff of German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, a Christian Democrat, "are still dreaming of a German combat battalion in Kandahar." Scheffer, who shares their dreams, wants the remaining Europeans to deploy troops to the combat zones "in solidarity." According to Scheffer, there can be "no division of labor in which some specialize in fighting while others handle the cleanup work."

This is another area where Merkel is applying the brakes. She repeatedly insists that she is opposed to a "contest of dangerousness," and that Germany will stick to its deployment in the quieter north, even though, as she adds, "isolated assistance" elsewhere, "when friends are in need," is a matter of course.

The north can also be dangerous, as the German military, the Bundeswehr, experienced only last week near Kunduz. Three soldiers were injured, two seriously, when the force from the explosion of a Taliban explosive device swept their "Dingo" armored vehicle off the road.

The French Show

In response to pressure from the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), government experts' deliberations on whether to significantly expand Germany's Afghanistan mandate have been placed on ice for the time being. The Bavaria-based sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) is anxious not to enter into such a politically risky proposition before its state parliamentary elections in September. Even Bush understands the domestic political pressures faced by the Merkel administration, a relieved German diplomat reported from Washington. "We will not be pilloried in Bucharest," the diplomat said.

By contrast, French President Nicolas Sarkozy now plans to make a show of France's efforts in Afghanistan. Paris diplomats in Brussels have announced that the president wants to send 1,000 regular troops and 200 members of the special forces to support the US in the east and Canada in the south. There are currently about 1,500 French soldiers in Afghanistan, most of them stationed in relatively calm Kabul.

NATO will finalize two documents on Afghanistan in Bucharest. One is meant for the public and describes in general, superficial terms the goal of "self-supporting stability." The other document, a "political and military plan of action," is to remain confidential.

The secret document is based on ideas that Defense Minister Jung presented to his counterparts last fall "as part of an exit strategy." Jung spoke at length about "networked security" and reconstruction, while the "fight against the insurgents" was generally mentioned as an aside. The US's priorities, so far, have been precisely the reverse.

Precarious Situation

The secret compromise document now contains a graduated plan intended to enable NATO to eventually pull out its troops. The document specifies dates by which Kabul is to satisfy certain requirements for drug enforcement and the development of a justice system, and which regions NATO could gradually turn over to Afghan forces.

But neither the Germans nor the Americans and British are interested in setting too specific a timetable. Berlin fears that this would force it to enlarge its NATO contingent and send additional war material, like helicopters, to Afghanistan. The Americans, British and Canadians are hesitant to announce a fixed withdrawal date. Because of the precarious situation in the east and south, they would probably be the last to bring their soldiers home.

If one thing is certain, it is that the NATO Secretary General's dream of transforming the 2009 anniversary summit into a conflict-free, visionary and harmonious meeting will not come true.

The Americans would have preferred to celebrate in Berlin, but Sarkozy wants to celebrate his country's return to the military structures of NATO, from which the French armed forces removed themselves in 1966 at the behest of President Charles de Gaulle.

The anniversary summit, which is now to be held in Strasbourg and its smaller German neighbor across the Rhine River, Kehl, is unlikely to last very long in the first place. French diplomats recently insisted that the Bucharest meeting, initially planned for three full days, be shortened to no more than 48 hours. President Sarkozy's "capacity," astonished NATO diplomats were told, is "limited to two days."

Never misunderestimate a Fwenchman's delusions of grandeur.

Via Spiegel International

Thug Mugabe Seethes Over EU Criticism

Poor Robert Mugabe. This stain on humanity takes umbrage with European leaders having issue with his brutal dictatorship, which has left Zimbabwe in economic ruin.

Maybe he should take it up with the UN High Commissioner for the Personally Aggrieved.

Defiant Mugabe tells Europe he won't be lectured

A defiant Robert Mugabe told European leaders on Sunday he will not be lectured on how to rule Zimbabwe, hitting back at the German chancellor and other EU leaders who accused him of ignoring human rights.

Mugabe raised his fist in defiance, smiling widely, when asked by Reuters what message he wanted to send Europe on the second and final day of an EU-Africa summit.

"On human rights and good governance, Africa sets its own agenda, of its own free will," Zimbabwe's controversial president said, as quoted by two EU diplomats who listened to his speech to the first Europe-Africa summit in seven years.

The West and rights groups accuse Mugabe of wide-spread human rights violations and wrecking his country's economy but he is viewed as an independence hero by many in Africa.

The Southern Africa Development Community has tried to mediate between Zimbabwe's government and the opposition.

Britain's Gordon Brown boycotted the meeting to protest Mugabe's participation, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel challenged the summit on Saturday to confront human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, saying: "the situation of Zimbabwe is damaging the image of the new Africa."

But Mugabe was quoted by EU diplomats as saying: "Does the German chancellor and the other pro-Gordon Brown people really believe they know better than SADC and the African Union, we have to fight this arrogance."

How anyone with decency can support this thug is beyond comprehension. After ignoring abuses in Zimbabwe for many years, at least Europe is speaking out more forcefully. In the end, until this tyrant is dead or out of power, his country has little hope.

More here and here.

Inflation in Zimbabwe is now the highest in the world at nearly 8,000 percent and Mugabe was also heavily criticised by the West earlier this year when his security forces assaulted opposition leaders.

However Mugabe said Africa did not need lectures from Europeans given that democracy only came to his continent once the era of colonialism was ended.

"Why is the prime minister of Britain not here? Because he has his spokespeople in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. These are his megaphones," he said.

"They spoke yesterday, not from their own own hearts, but what their own friend, master and ally in Number 10 Downing Street (the British premier's office) would be pleased to hear."

Mugabe, in power in the former British colony since independence 27 years ago, was attending the summit despite an EU travel ban imposed after he allegedly rigged his 2002 re-election.

Previously on Mugabe.

Germany Takes on Neo-Nazis

Germany has been grappling with this issue for many years and may have a new solution to their problems.

What's shocking to me is the fact some of these extremist groups have apparently been receiving state funding.

How crazy is that?

For four years, ever since a 2003 push to ban the neo-Nazi party NPD failed in Germany's high court, political leaders have been looking for a strategy to combat the country's extremist right wing. But ideas -- most of them centering on a renewed attempt at prohibiting the party -- have been wanting, and action has been virtually non-existent.

On this Thursday and Friday in Berlin, though, interior ministers from Germany's 16 states will discuss a plan to weaken the NPD by eliminating state funding from foundations and organizations that espouse the party's right-extremist views. It is time, many believe, to move beyond a commitment to banning the party and begin looking for ways to make the lives of Germany's neo-Nazis more difficult.

"We have to publicly stigmatize people who fund the NPD and the associations that support it," Schleswig-Holstein Interior Minister Ralf Stegner (SPD) told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. "We should name by name the trade organizations that recruit using their right-extremist ideology and that prefer to give apprenticeship positions to young neo-Nazis. We should not stand back and be polite about this."

The problem, say many, is that the NPD, as a legal political party in Germany, receives federal and state funding based on election results. NPD representatives in the state parliaments of Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, for example, got a combined €1.38 million for campaign costs in 2006.

Germany's Social Democrats are still in favor of a second attempt at banning the NPD, but have not pushed hard for the idea at the federal level. The Christian Democrats under Chancellor Angela Merkel fear that a second failure in German courts could give the NPD a boost and are against pursuing a ban.

"If we wage a second attempt, we have to be sure that we're going to accomplish our goal," Saxony's Interior Minister Albrecht Buttolo (CDU) told Deutschlandradio Kultur on Thursday.

There are numerous ideas on the table for cutting funds to the right. In Saxony, for example, the law requires that subsidies be paid to foundations and organizations if the party they are affiliated with has been represented in the federal or state parliament for two legislative periods. Since 2004, NPD has held seats in Saxony's state assembly and has founded an "Educational Institute for Homeland and National Identity."

Euro-Socialists: We'd Rather Die Than Accept American Help

Proving once again socialism is a mental disorder.

Central Europe Socialists reject U.S. missile shield

Central European Social Democrat parties rejected on Thursday a U.S. plan to build part of its missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, saying it threatened to bring about a new arms race.

Top Socialists from Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia said after talks in Prague that any such system must not be built unilaterally or bilaterally.

"We are concerned about the decision to deploy the system and are at one with the large majority of our populations in rejecting it," the parties said in a joint statement, which was signed among others by Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer, Germany's SPD chief Kurt Beck, and Polish Socialist leader Wojciech Olejniczak.

They called on the European Union, the NATO alliance and the NATO-Russia council to consult on missile defense.

Beck said the statement was also a message to conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with whom the Socialists jointly rule.

"We agreed we are against any new arms build-up in Europe," Beck said.

The ruling Hungarian Socialists attended the meeting but refused to join in.

"The Hungarian Socialist Party believes that if Europe is exposed to a terrorist threat we have to defend ourselves," said Imre Szekeres, deputy party chief and the country's defense minister.

I'm sure the terrorists are quaking in fear of the Hungarian Socialists.

This odd mindset of leaving yourself vulnerable because you fear an arms race is something I can't quite grasp.

If you protect yourself, that should lessen the fear of an attack, since your enemies will build arms regardless of what you do.

No wonder Socialism has crept toward the dustbin of history. The shame is there are still enough idiots practicing it.

Poles to EU: Nope

Poles smudge EU agreement before the ink has even dried
A deal on Europe’s future, stitched together at last week’s bad-tempered summit, began to unravel yesterday after the intervention of the EU’s most unpredictable leader.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Polish Prime Minister, who sent his brother Lech, the President, to the summit, stunned Brussels by declaring his determination to renegotiate the compromise. The twins spent much of last week’s detailed negotiations on the phone to each other and Lech had said that his brother was content with the package. But Jaroslaw, who demanded extra voting power for Poland, insisted yesterday that the deal had not taken full account of Poland’s demands.

Now he wants a permanent mechanism that allows a minority of dissenting states to be able to delay EU decisions for up to two years. His latest outburst has alarmed EU leaders, who were hoping for a trouble-free passage to a final text in October and a signing ceremony in December. An Inter-Governmental Conference will open on July 23, with representatives from all 27 EU nations to write the EU reform treaty, which critics say will be a thinly disguised version of the failed EU constitution.

With general agreement on the contents, all seemed to be going smoothly until Jaroslaw Kaczynski, referring to the deal to delay new voting weights for each country, said: “We have to finally resolve this issue at the Inter-Governmental Conference.” The European Commission responded furiously. “This was clearly settled at the European Council last week,” a spokesman said. “A mandate is a mandate and a deal is a deal. Now it is time for IGC to finish its job.

The Dutch and le Froggies gave you a mandate two years ago; and that was to shove the EU constitution up your brain.

Portugal, which takes over the EU’s rotating presidency from Germany tomorrow, said: “There was a deal at the highest level and we hope that deal will be respected.” A German government spokesman added: “The outcome of the summit was unanimously backed and Poland agreed to it.”

Ahhh, the European Commission is furious with Poland. They got their jaws tight over Iran, too.

Expect an Up yours! to be sent from Warsaw to Brussels, perhaps via Berlin, in the near future. Then the EU/EC can send the Poles the tried and true s t e r n l y ... w o r d e d ... l e t t e r.
Then the Fwench - led by the ever-intrepid Koslings - can spring into action and surrender save the day.

Previously on JWF

As The Truth Emerges

Get out and sharpen the pitchforks.

You're stuck with Blair's EU deal, says Portugal
Gordon Brown will find his hands tied as it becomes clearer and clearer that Tony Blair's European Union treaty deal resurrects the constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters two years ago.

The incoming Portuguese EU presidency, which takes over the six-month rotating job from Germany this weekend, has made it clear that the new British Prime Minister is bound by the mandate agreed by Mr Blair last week.

Portugal wants a quick treaty finish and will hold Mr Brown to the 15-page text, backed up by as yet unpublished legal documents signed by Mr Blair and regarded as binding for his successor.

"We do have a clear, precise and detailed mandate handed down to us. We believe that the conditions and guidelines are set out to us in that mandate," said Portugal's Europe Minister, Manuel Lobo Antunes, yesterday. "We will be sticking strictly to the terms we have been given."

Mr Brown is stuck with a deal that he must defend against opposition calls - and a Telegraph campaign, now signed by more than 1,300 people - for a referendum.

The Prime Minister has not been helped by EU leaders, such as Germany's Angela Merkel, lining up to boast that the new "amending treaty" is the old constitution in a new form. "The substance of the constitution is preserved," Mrs Merkel told MEPs on Wednesday. "That is a fact."

Labour MEPs have pleaded, on behalf of Downing Street, with EU institutions to downplay elements of the constitution to help the Government domestically "undersell" the deal to avoid a referendum.

But the pleas have fallen on deaf ears and the drip, drip of opinions, especially those rubbishing the legal force of Britain's opt-outs, will continue throughout the summer.

Formal treaty negotiations begin on July 23 and will mainly be conducted in secret, an arrangement primarily put in place to help Mr Brown. Foreign ministers will discuss a 150-page "draft treaty text" in the Viana do Castelo, Portugal, on Sept 7.

Cowardly bastards.

Paying attention, Jerusalem? This is the asshat being sent to secure peace in our time, just as another British asshat claimed after delivering then-Czechoslovakia to the Austrian corporal.

There's more. Much more.

Tweaking The Heinies

The stuffed shirts in der Fatherland motherland have their Windeln full.

Poland riles Germany with a lewd take on the motherland
A glossy magazine cover depicting a bare-breasted Angela Merkel suckling the nationalist twin rulers of Poland reignited tensions between Berlin and Warsaw days after a bad-tempered European summit nearly collapsed because of Polish resistance to a German blueprint on how to run the EU.

The last time Germany had a blueprint on how to run Europe . . . .

The right-wing Warsaw weekly magazine Wprost, which backs the conservative nationalist regime of the prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and his twin brother, the president, Lech Kaczynski, has the cover of its latest issue as a montage showing "a beaming chancellor Merkel as "Europe's stepmother" baring her breasts to nourish the infant Polish twins.

In an article in the magazine, a Polish government official reacted to the weekend summit in Brussels, at which Poland stood alone threatening to wreck a deal and won big concessions from Mrs Merkel, by arguing that Germany was treating its eastern neighbour "neo-colonially" and refusing to accept it as a European partner. He accused Mrs Merkel of "humiliating" Poland at the summit because she was "full of complexes herself".

There's more. Enjoy.

Note: I am a Heinie and therefore not offended by use of the term in the post's title. If you're a Heinie and are offended, grow up and develop a sense of humor. Ja?

The Dawn Compromise

Angela Merkel demonstrated her skills as a tough negotiator, as did Lech and Jaroslav Kaczynski.

Tony Blair turned into a French Poodle as Nicolas Sarkozy had no trouble out-smarting Blair.

The Czechs, Slovaks and Lithuanians subtly demonstrated that New Europe will be a force to be reckoned with.

But who really came out a winner from the EU's Brussels summit?

Europe's Marathon Talks Clinch a Deal
[....]

A showdown between Merkel and Kaczynski brought the summit to the brink of failure. Merkel heaped on the pressure by saying that she would launch treaty negotiations without Poland, but once a compromise deal was reached, she had to deal with other countries' resistance to what they felt had been too many concessions to Britain.

Once a deal was finally hammered out, all the heads of states pronounced themselves pleased. Polish President Lech Kaczynski praised the diplomatic skill and "solidarity" of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair. Sarkozy said he had worked hand in hand with Merkel and described the deal as "good news for Europe." He said it was a key achievement to have struck a deal with Poland. "After all, we didn't want to leave the biggest country in Eastern Europe behind."

The agreement is crucial for the EU. After the collapse of the constitutional project, following its rejection by France and the Netherlands in 2005, the bloc was caught in a state of paralysis. But Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel had been determined to revive the plans to streamline the EU when Berlin took over the presidency in January. She has spent the past six months trying to hammer out a deal for a slimmed down treaty that could be accepted by all 27 members. And she finally succeeded. The member states have agreed to an intergovernmental conference which will give the deal a legal framework. The treaty will then be ratified by the member states and should come into force by 2009.

Poland Wins Concessions

As expected, the biggest hurdles to overcome were Poland and Britain. Poland felt that its role in the future European decisions would be diminished while bigger countries, in particular Germany, would have a greater say under the new "double majority" voting system. Under the new system, decisions made by the European Council will no longer be made unanimously but rather by a combination of 55 percent of EU states, which have to represent at least 65 percent of the total EU population.

In the run up to the summit Poland's undiplomatic rhetoric, including its repeated references to the Nazi occupation during World War II, shocked and enraged many EU leaders. Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said Poland's population would have been much bigger than its current 38 million if it weren't for the fact that millions of Poles died during the war.

The compromise with Poland includes the postponement of the new voting system until 2014, and it will now not be fully implemented until 2017. In essence, it means the Poles can maintain their current level of influence in the EU for another 10 years. Under the current system Poland has 27 votes on the EU's decision-making council, compared with 29 for Germany, although its population is twice as big.

Warsaw was also offered pledges of solidarity in the event of any future energy crises, a major concern as Poland is dependent on Russia for much of its energy supplies. Indeed, German-Polish relations took a dramatic turn for the worse when former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder* signed a Baltic Sea pipeline deal in 2005 that bypassed Poland. The Poles felt Germany and the EU was ignoring their concerns about being over-reliant on Russia for energy supplies.

The agreement was only reached after a dramatic struggle the likes of which has not been seen at an EU summit for many years. Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who did not travel to Brussels, seemed to be calling the shots from Warsaw. When he rejected Merkel's first compromise offer, which included a delay to the voting system until 2014 and more seats for Warsaw in the European parliament, it looked as if Germany's dream of a summit success would end in tatters.

A Surprise Ultimatum

But Merkel's reaction was swift: She presented Warsaw with a surprise ultimatum, threatening to move ahead with the treaty without Poland. Her move was a gamble, with Poland's allies the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Slovakia rushing to defend Warsaw, but it prompted a last-minute rush of mediation and finally Poland was convinced by Blair, Sarkozy and Luxembourg Primer Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who played the good cops to Merkel's bad cop. The German chancellor then presented her last offer to the Poles, and they accepted.

There's more.

*Just prior to leaving office, Gerhard Schröder signed a deal with Russia to build the Nord Stream pipeline. Shortly after leaving office, der Gerhard accepted a lucrative position with a consortium that is controlled by Russian energy monopoly Gazprom --- which is building the pipeline.

It Wasn't Supposed To Be Like This

The European Union is no closer to compromising on the EU constitution treaty than they were a week ago. In fact, there are more disagreements now than there was before the summit began.

EU Struggles for Eleventh-Hour Deal
The European Union negotiations on a new treaty have yet to produce any tangible results. While outstanding issues have not been resolved, the EU leaders have managed to create even more points of disagreement.

Everyone had warned that the negotiations at this week's crucial European Union summit were going to be tough. The EU leaders have gathered in Brussels to hammer out a deal to replace the now defunct European constitution. But while some may have been hoping against hope that the posturing at home would give way to compromise in Brussels, it seems that instead most leaders are digging their heels in and are even finding new issues to argue about.

The delegates to this week's European Union summit were told to take an extra shirt -- the talks are expected to go on well into Friday night, and even Saturday morning. Summit host German Chancellor Angela Merkel is reported to have presented a revised draft treaty to EU leaders late on Friday afternoon. Now they are going to have to pull up their shirtsleeves and look for a compromise.

The summit is intended to resolve the issues that divide Europe, but over the course of the last 24 hours it seems that European leaders have failed to make any headway on outstanding issues, but have added more points of division to the pot.

While Poland and the UK had already laid out their opposition to the treaty, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was one of its main promoters. But France's attempt to persuade EU leaders to drop a reference to the goal of "undistorted competition" in the treaty has succeeded in putting another spanner in the works.

Under the original proposal, one of the EU's main objectives was listed as an "internal market where competition is free and undistorted." But France persuaded Germany, current EU president, to put a full stop after "internal market" in the new treaty. This may have intended for domestic consumption, but the UK and the Commission have found it distinctly unpalatable.

There's more.

The Gloves Have Come Off

This is really getting to be fun.

Poland invokes Nazi occupation to bolster EU case

European leaders today gathered in Brussels for a bruising battle over the future of Europe, with Britain and Poland, the two main obstacles to a deal on a new treaty on how the EU is run, pledging no surrender on their key demands.

Under the chairmanship of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the leaders of 27 states launched an attempt to hammer out a consensus on a "reform treaty" replacing the defunct European constitution.

As Germany sought to lower expectations about a breakthrough after six months of closed-door negotiations on the new deal, Tony Blair announced he was prepared to walk away from the Brussels summit if Britain's four key demands were not met.

Poland, meanwhile, raised old grievances about Germany from the second world war to try to bolster its case for a "fairer" voting system in running the EU.

The Polish prime minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, made the extraordinary claim that it would be eligible for more votes in the EU if the Nazis had not invaded Poland in 1939.

Funny how an inconvenient truth is considered as merely extraordinary.

------ ker-snip ------Mr Kaczynski's statement meanwhile laid bare the strength of the anti-German emotion underpinning the Polish position.

Under current arrangements dating from 2000, Germany has 29 votes to Poland's 27 in EU councils, the ministerial level meetings of member states.

The new system is based on population sizes, and gives Germany more than double the Polish vote. The Poles are incensed and are demanding a new way of calculating votes that would diminish German "hegemony".

"If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would be today looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million," Mr Kaczynski said.

The Polish prime minister again threatened to "veto" agreement at the summit today. But he also appeared to leave himself room for a climbdown.

"The situation still does not satisfy us," Mr Kaczynski told the Warsaw newspaper, Rzeczpospolita.

"We should do everything to push through our proposal or to obtain some other solution that would equally satisfy our ambitions. Either we obtain that, or there will be a veto."

Some climbdown.

More like an "Up yours!"

Those Failing To Remember History . . . .

For many Americans, the history of Europe - just as their own - is a mystery within an enigma; surrounded by a puzzle.

Ask about the Articles of Confederation, Continental Army, Federalist Papers or anti-Federalist Papers, or the Grand Army of the Republic and you'll most often be answered with a blank stare.

The same holds true with the Beer Hall Putsch, Munich Accords, Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Operation Anthropoid, Yalta Conference, Potsdam Agreement and the Nuremberg trials.

However, to their credit, we must acknowledge that American Leftists and students, just like the inhabitants of Koslamistan, are very much aware of - and have adopted as their icon - Komrade Che.

In current events, the traditional media has paid little or no attention to the contentiousness that exists between Germany and Poland, or how it may affect the proceedings and outcome of the EU summit.

As a result, most Americans are clueless.

A History Of Betrayals
[....]

The divisions are probably the most important explanation for the exceptional patriotism of the Poles. While all modern European nations invent their own symbols during this era, the royal Polish throne and regalia were taken to Russia, never to be returned. Polish flags and coats of arms were banned, and singing patriotic songs became an act of high treason. The result, writes British historian and Poland expert Norman Davies, was a feeling of patriotism that exempted everything Polish from criticism.

This sentiment recedes slightly into the background only in 1918. With the final collapse of the monarchies in Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany, Poland regains its place on the map. The rebirth of the republic is celebrated frenetically by the population. But Germany views the loss of German-speaking territories in Silesia, Pomerania and Western Prussia -- part of Poland by the Treaty of Versailles -- as a great injustice.

Nazi Germany's attack on Poland on Sept. 1, 1939 inaugurates the darkest chapter in Polish-German history. Just six weeks later, the SS commander and chief of Hitler's Reich Security Main Office, [SS-Obergruppenführer] Reinhard Heydrich, announced the "liquidation of the Polish leadership." Jews, Sinti and Roma were not the only victims; Polish politicians and intellectuals were also exterminated. The Nazis erected death camps such as Auschwitz, Majdanek and Treblinka on Polish territory.

The regime of occupation was brutal: Following the elimination of the Polish intelligentsia, the Germans shipped thousands of Poles to Germany as slave laborers. The SS and the Wehrmacht struck down the Warsaw Uprising in the Polish capital in 1944. It was the largest act of resistance against Nazi rule. More than 200,000 people died, and the city was razed to the ground house by house.

At the Yalta Conference in Crimea in February of 1945, the Poles were only granted observer status. Poland had been destroyed, and the Red Army was stationed within the country, which Stalin wanted to turn into a Soviet satellite state. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was prepared to recognize the provisional communist government and British resistance to the plan was weak. Poland fell into the Soviet sphere of influence.

At the Potsdam Conference, half of Poland's eastern territory was separated from the country and made part of the Soviet Union -- the very territories granted to the Soviets as part of the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact. The new Poland was compensated by land in the west -- territory which had previously belonged to the Germans. More than 10 million Germans fled or were expelled. Poles from the country's former eastern territories were resettled and move into the homes of the expellees.

The Communist rulers stoked Polish nationalism, but mostly they fanned the flames of anti-German fear. Their message was that only Poland's alliance with the Soviet Union could prevent the return of the German "crusaders."

Still the first step towards reconciliation came from Poland. In 1956, Polish Catholic bishops sent a letter to their German colleagues. "We grant and request forgiveness," they wrote -- at a time when German expellees were still openly demanding that the Oder-Neisse Line -- the new border between Poland and East Germany -- be redrawn.

The Ostpolitik or Eastern European policy of German Chancellor Willy Brandt broke with the dogmas of the Cold War. When he knelt down in front of a monument commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in December 1970, it caused a scandal within the German right. But in Poland, the gesture was hushed up. The iconic image of the kneeling chancellor became known to the public only during the 1980s: The Communists had no use for the new face the peaceful Germans were presenting to the world.

When General Wojciech Jaruzelski violently suppressed Solidarność ("Solidarity"), the first freely constituted trade union in the Soviet bloc, the German government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt responded mildly, arguing that Jaruzelski effectively prevented a bloody Soviet invasion. To this day, many former dissidents have not forgiven the German left for Schmidt's words.

Nor will they anytime soon.

There's more.


Earlier, Polish Diplomat Speaks Out

Polish Diplomat Speaks Out

As Thursday's beginning of the European Union summit draws ever near, those pesky New Europe folks in Poland continue to seek a novel concept within the EU . . . equality among member states.

We Aren't Idiots
Mariusz Muszynski, the 43-year-old commissioner for Polish-German relations in the Polish Foreign Ministry discusses the Warsaw-Berlin impasse on the successor treaty to the failed EU constitution. He also accuses Germany of being more concerned with consolidating its own power than EU unity.

The Poles kind of have more than a little knowledge about such things.

The Polish government has thrown a wrench into German Chancellor Angela Merkel's efforts to jump-start the European Union's long-stagnant constitutional process with its adamant rejection of the "double majority" voting system that is currently outlined in the EU treaty. Despite a weekend of shuttle diplomacy that saw Merkel trying to persuade Polish President Lech Kacyznksi to come on board, Poland appears prepared to veto the landmark agreement at the EU summit in Brussels this Thursday and Friday that will be hosted by Merkel.

Warsaw is demanding a replacement of the proposed decision-making system of the European Council, which allocates votes in proportion to the population of member states, with an alternative "square root" system, which would increase Poland's voting weight in relation to its more populous EU neighbors like Germany and France.

------ ker-snip ------

Our concerns regard the distribution of power within the EU and our ability to influence the EU's development. Reforms, on the contrary, are material areas. Why should Poland agree to a decrease in its influence? We aren't idiots. Anyone surprised by the fact that we would like to increase our influence should not be engaged in politics.

Such mishegas, Polish logic!

There's more. And this diplomat minces no words.

Will They Get It?

More bad news for Angela Merkel, Tony Blair and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Voters in five west countries want referendum on EU treaty
Strong majorities of voters in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain want their governments to put any reworked EU constitutional treaty to a referendum, according to a poll published Monday.

The Harris Interactive Survey in the Financial Times business daily showed that 75 percent of Spaniards, 71 percent of Germans, 69 percent of Britons, 68 percent of Italians and 64 percent of French want the EU treaty that emerges from a Brussels summit later this week to be put to a public vote.

Voters also responded negatively to the idea of having a full-time EU president replace the current system of rotating six-month presidencies, with just 46 percent of those with an opinion supporting the idea.

Just 14 percent of Britons supported the proposal, while 54 percent of Spaniards were behind it.

A proposal for a new EU foreign minister post received more backing, however, with a total of 77 percent of those voicing an opinion saying they supported the proposal.

Again, Britain was the least keen on the idea, with 41 percent supporting it, while 81 percent of Italians were supportive.

Support for further EU enlargement -- particularly the addition of Turkey to the bloc -- was low, with none of the five countries in which respondents were questioned producing a majority in favour of further enlargement.

On the question of Turkey joining the EU, 71 percent of French voters and 66 percent of Germans opposed the idea.

Harris Interactive questioned 1,025 Britons, 1,014 Germans, 1,012 French, 1,090 Italians and 1,010 Spaniards over the Internet between May 31 and June 12 for the survey.

Interesting numbers, considering the EU constitution amending treaty was supposed to have been a done deal.

The poll also asked the question, "Which one, if any, of the following countries do you think is the greatest threat to global stability?"

Sorry, but you'll have to scroll the poll to see the results.

When Grand Plans Unravel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made it one of the goals of her European Union presidency to get the bloc's stalled constitution back on track. However Poland, worried about losing influence under new voting rules, has apparently made it a goal to stop her. And after a weekend of intensive diplomacy, Merkel seems to be no further forward, just days before a crunch EU summit where the treaty will be approved -- or not.

Merkel even admitted on Sunday after talks with Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker that it wasn't impossible that the summit, which will take place Thursday and Friday in Brussels, will fail. She said that as current EU president she would naturally do her best to make sure that it succeeds, but that "a presidency can only be as successful as the willingness to compromise on the part of all the states."

Merkel had spent much of the weekend trying to persuade Poland to soften its position on the treaty's new voting system. She met with Polish President Lech Kaczynski at the German government's guesthouse, Schloss Meseberg, near Berlin Saturday and followed that up with a phone call on Sunday. However she made no progress.

"The positions have not changed," she said Sunday in reference to her conversation with Kaczynski, and said there were "serious problems" which still needed to be solved.

Kaczynski too said after the meeting that both sides were sticking to their guns. "I told the chancellor that the solution we have proposed is already a compromise," Kaczynski said in a statement broadcast by Polish television after the meeting.

Merkel has made it one of her main objectives for her EU presidency -- which runs until the end of June -- to resurrect the bloc's constitution which has been on ice since the Dutch and French populations rejected it in referenda in 2005.

Merkel is hoping to get approval for a revised EU constitution -- which will now be called a "treaty" -- at the summit this week. Germany wants the EU governments to agree to a roadmap to allow a slimmed-down treaty to be ratified by 2009.

If the draft treaty is adopted, the EU voting process will be changed so that it will be easier to make decisions in the expanded 27-member bloc. A new "double majority" voting system will be introduced whereby an EU decision has to be approved by 55 percent of the EU states, which must also represent 65 percent of the bloc's entire population.

The new system will significantly decrease Poland's influence -- and increase Germany's. Poland's population only comprises about 8 percent of the EU total of 490 million, compared to Germany's 17 percent.

Unsurprisingly, Poland, worried about losing power relative to its neighbor, is opposing the new system. It is threatening to use its veto at the summit this week to block any agreement on the treaty, and wants to re-open the discussion on how the voting system will work. It has proposed an alternative "square root" system which would base the number of votes on the square root of a country's population -- and give Poland relatively more clout vis-à-vis Germany.

The issue is seen as a potential dealbreaker at this week's crunch summit, which politicians had been hoping might lift the EU out of the doldrums it has been in since the constitution stalled. Merkel rejected the suggestion Sunday that the issue of the voting system could be excluded from this week's summit and left for detailed negotiations later in the year. "I do not see that as an option," she said.

Germany demanding appeasement from smaller states.

Blair and Sarkozy in a sweetheart deal.

And Gordon Brown apparently having at least some of the intestinal fortitude of Sir Winston.

I love it when a plan coms together.

EU Bigs Fear Constituents

In what seems to be a desperate attempt to get the fix in, we learn that Sarkozy's ready to endorse Blair's demands in Europe.

Tony Blair is poised to forge a united front with Nicolas Sarkozy at next week's European summit in Brussels, raising hopes that Europe's 27 leaders will finally reach a deal on replacing the EU constitution.

The only thing being replaced is constitution. They're going to call it a treaty so the great unwashed can be denied the opportunity to vote in a referendum.

In a dramatic illustration of how Anglo-French relations have been transformed by the departure of Jacques Chirac last month, President Sarkozy is expected to endorse key British demands at the summit.

Britain is confident that Sarkozy, who is said to have lobbied for Blair to become the new permanent president of the European Council, will agree that Britain should be exempted from two measures that have been seized on by Eurosceptics.

These are: making the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which increases the rights of workers, legally binding; and depriving EU member states of their national veto on criminal justice matters. Blair wants an 'opt out' from the former and an 'opt in' on the latter, giving Britain the right to decide which criminal justice matters it would agree to negotiate.

What's good for Britain isn't for Poles, Czechs, Romanians or Swedes? How . . . democratic Progressive.

------ ker-snip ------
The summit, which will take place on Thursday and Friday, will be one of the most important EU meetings in years. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor who holds the EU's rotating presidency, is determined to reach agreement on a replacement for the EU constitution which was rejected two years ago in referendums in France and the Netherlands.

Merkel, who was due to meet the Polish president Lech Kaczynski near Berlin last night, pleaded with EU leaders to give ground. 'The readiness of all to compromise will be necessary for it to be adopted,' Merkel said in her weekly podcast. 'If we get to work in this spirit next week, then I hope we will reach an agreement.'

Germany believes that failure to reach an agreement would plunge the EU into another round of infighting. Merkel wants to agree the key outlines of a new treaty - replacing the EU constitution - that would then be signed at the EU's end-of-year summit in December after a short inter-governmental conference in the autumn.

But Merkel faces a tough week. Britain is adamant that its 'red lines' - essentially the charter and the criminal justice voting changes - cannot be crossed. Poland is determined to dilute Germany's voting weight in the council of ministers.

The summit presents a particular challenge for Gordon Brown who will take over days after Blair returns from Brussels. Brown is encouraged by Merkel's decision that the constitution should be abandoned in favour of an 'amending treaty' that would simply change existing treaties. This would allow him to avoid holding a referendum on the measure that would probably be defeated.

In an earlier post, President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic was quoted in regard to the European Union. It's worth repeating.

I am frustrated that the people in Europe do not see this fundamental metamorphosis sufficiently clearly and especially do not think about its inevitable consequences. I am angry with politicians and their fellow travelers that they do maximum to hide it and to make it fuzzy.

I consider it wrong. I am not satisfied with making only cosmetic changes. I am, therefore, in favour of redefining the whole concept of the European Union.

Mr. President, methinks your voice is being heard.

G8 Leaders Agree To Climate Deal

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G8 would negotiate within a UN framework to seek a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol by the end of 2009.

No mandatory target was set for the cuts, but Mrs Merkel's preference for a 50% emissions cut by the year 2050 was included in the agreed statement.

UPDATE: Bush agrees to CO2 cut, with strings attached

· US will consider deal to cut emissions by 50%
· China and India must be included, says president

George Bush last night pledged the United States to a "substantial" cut in greenhouse gas as the west's leading industrial nations agreed to negotiate a new climate change deal within the next two years.

After strong lobbying from EU leaders, Mr Bush agreed to "seriously consider" a proposal that would result in a 50% cut in carbon emissions by 2050 but made it clear that US involvement depended on India and China being included in any agreement.

Long forgotten is the fact that William Jefferson Clinton never submitted the Kyoto Accord to the Senate for ratification. Never, the Goracle notwithstanding.