Update : 17th February

During my absence on the European Web front, I focused my time on my research proposal for my application for a PhD that should be starting in September 2009 if it is successful.
I am particularly interested in the European integration process, the future of Nationalism and the emergence of a European political identity among the EU citizens. Thus, my thesis proposal roots from the idea that the current financial crisis seems to have some impacts on the support of the European integration in countries such as Iceland, Ireland and Denmark. Its main model will have to do with the impact of external armed conflicts and economics crises on levels of national and European identities of citizens, both at the individual level and at the aggregate level. It will, therefore, advance the current understanding by examining the link between external shocks, its consequences on political identities formation and the support of public opinion for the European Union political integration. My major preoccupation, in undertaking this piece of research, is to establish whether crises have "integrative or disintegrative consequences" (Inglehart 1970) for Europe and its current process of integration.

Now with this projet well advanced, I will have more time to restart my Blog on European news. I would like to thank all the regular reader of this blog and to apologize for the 2 months break from the Web.

Identity : 10th December The National Interest

The EU vs the national interest. NoseMonkey, EUtopia (en)
"... The Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent Bruno Waterfield has made an interesting contribution to a pamphlet by the Manifesto Club, No Means No! Essays on the Eve of the European Council Meeting ... Ignore the populist eurosceptic rhetoric of the title, there’s actually a lot of interest here ...
... As such, Waterfield’s essay goes to the heart of this ongoing dispute about both the “democratic deficit” and future direction of the EU that’s a perennial favourite among those of us who like to blather on about the thing, and ends up effectively a short overview of the more secretive aspects of EU decision-making - and a very useful one at that. I do urge you to go have a look ..."

Identity : 9th December Eurobarometer Anniversary

La la la la I can't hear you. Open Europe Blog (en)
" ... I went to Paris for w.hat was billed a "very special birthday party" - the 35th anniversary of the Eurobarometer (what, you missed it?)Well it was worth it. Not in a fun way - more in the sense that it was an invaluable insight into the Commission's attitude to the latest 'no' vote.When I walked in I was handed a nice canvas briefcase (full of stationary) which would otherwise prove useful in future were it not for the '35th Eurobarometer anniversary' logo on the front. Good to see the Commission is still rolling out the expensive taxpayer-funded propaganda in these times of recession ...

... Silly, silly voters.No mention of people's feeling that the EU is undemocratic. No mention of the fraud, the waste, the lack of transparency. No mention of the problematic trade policy and unpopular CAP. No, the only thing wrong with the EU in the eyes of the Commission is that the people of Europe know nothing about the EU, and are therefore ungrateful for it ..."

Identity : 8th December

“Under the illusion that the borders are disappearing, they are actually rapidly growing”. Nosemonkey, EUtopia (en)

Nosemonkey's perspectives on multiculturalism. Julien Frisch, Watching Europe (en)
" ... And although rather negative, the article is extreme well written ..."

Identity : 12th November

Sarkozy: emotion not commemoration. Henri Samuel, The Telegraph (en)
... In Douaumont, the French choir sung the European anthem - Beethoven's Ode to Joy – but there was no hand-holding: Germany was represented by the president of the German senate, not by chancellor Angela Merkel. Mr Sarkozy's "decentralisation" of the commemoration from neutral Paris to the killing fields of Verdun was apparently not to her liking. The Franco-German motor is in serious need of anti-freeze ...
... "The time has come to honour all the dead, without exception," Mr Sarkozy went on. This phrase did not go unnoticed in France, as it signalled Sarkozy's wish to rehabilitate the 675 Frenchmen shot for deserting or cowardice even though many were too exhausted, injured or traumatised to advance ...
... He has always been fervent about revisiting the past to boost a sense of national purpose. But as so often with this president, his way of doing things irks many French. "Choosing Douaumont over the Arc de triomphe is siding with the victims rather than the victors," historian Antoine Prost told Le Monde. Mr Prost and others accuse the president of inappropriately trying to extract "emotion" from war rather than plain commemoration ..."

Identity : 10th November

Laurent Cohen-Tanugi: The Shape of the World to Come. Guy La Roche, A Fisful of Euros
" ... Laurent is courageous and correct in saying that today’s multi-polar world is not just more equal but also more unstable, contrary to the European hope of equalizing relations with the United States. Nationalism is returning and we are “moving away from the post-modern ideal of global governance,” and we are witnessing a return of “nineteenth-century geopolitics.” ..."

Laurent Cohen's video via the Columbia University Press Weblog.

Identity : 31th October 2008

The euro Seeking shelter . The Economist (en)
" ... Even solid ex-communist countries such as Poland want to speed up their preparations to meet the conditions for joining the common currency. And rich EU members that stayed out by choice, Sweden and Denmark, are thinking again. Joining the euro, at least in some eyes, means a loss of national identity ..."

Identity : 29th October Island next EU Member ?

L'Islande, 28ème Etat membre? Jean Quatremer, Les Coulisses de Bruxelles (fr)
" ... Un sondage publié hier par le quotidien Frettabladid montre que 68,8 % des personnes interrogées souhaitent que leur pays présente sa candidature contre 55,1 % en février 2008 et 48,9 % en septembre 2007... Mieux: 72,5 % des sondés sont en faveur de l'abandon de leur couronne dévaluée pour l'euro. Un autre sondage publié la semaine dernière indique que 70 % des Islandais souhaitent un référendum sur l'adhésion de leur pays ...
... En tous les cas, ce sondage démontre que la pédagogie de la crise fonctionne parfaitement. Le problème est que, dans le cas de l'Islande, il est un peu trop tard... Et on se demande pourquoi il faut en arriver là pour que les peuples comprennent l'intérêt de constituer une puissance globale face aux menaces extérieures. Comme si un petit pays isolé -Malte, France ou Allemagne- pouvait résister à quoi que ce soit ..."

Identity in Time of Crisis : 28th October National Legacies

Hardships Past Haunt Europe’s Search for Financial Safety. Katrin Bennhold, The NYT (en)
" ... In America, wealth and retirement savings are much more tied up in the stock market, with a majority of people owning at least a modest stake. By contrast, only 13 percent of German households and 24 percent of French ones own shares, according to 2006 figures compiled by the European Savings Institute ...
... history teaches Europeans that situations can go from bad to perilous in no time, and there is a long tradition of burying the family’s treasures in troubled times ... History matters. In times of crisis you really get to know a country and its people,” said Toni Pierenkemper, a professor of economic history at the University of Cologne. “Traumatic events are seared into the collective consciousness and often survive into the next generations.” ...
... In France, gold sales have also increased, but people are more trusting of the government.The entire French banking system was state-owned as recently as 1987, and the state has played a prominent role in the economy since the days of Louis XIV. In contrast to the unease and suspicion among most Americans about the government’s taking stakes in distressed financial institutions, many people in France feel comforted — even vindicated — in their belief that the state has a responsibility to look after the economy ...
... “We nationalize, we denationalize and we re-nationalize. That’s the way it goes in France,” quipped Bernard Candiard, director-general of Crédit Municipal de Paris, a 231-year-old pawnshop that is doing brisk business these days and is a state monopoly ... "

Identity : 15th October

Italian racism - not just against Roma. NoseMonkey, EUtopia (en)
" ... the economic nationalism of the 1930s ....
... If the current economic crisis doesn’t sort itself out soon, will such attacks against “foreigners” become more common throughout Europe? It’s not like there’s not already a sizable fear and resentment of foreigners knocking around…*"

Europe's first revolution. Tom Holland, The New Statesman (en)

" ... one group of MEPs protested, in an official letter of complaint to the president of the European Parliament: "The EU is of a secular and neutral nature."
It is an opinion, ironically enough, that would not be disputed by the most unyielding and formidable religious leader that Europe has. To Pope Benedict XVI, however, the EU's claim to an identity that transcends religion, whether as an honest broker between rival faiths, or as an institution that should have nothing to do with such faiths at all, is hardly a positive ...

... Today's secular Europe may well pride itself on having arrived at a post-religious state of moral and intellectual superiority - but it is no less Christendom's heir for that. "

Identity : 14th October

As Europe slumps, is the far Right rising? Richard J. Evans , The Times (en)
" ... History never repeats itself, and there are effective restrictions on the kind of fascism that flourished in the 1930s. We are unlikely to see blackshirts marching through Turin or Vienna shouting for the death of the Jews or the launching of a war of conquest in the Mediterranean or Eastern Europe. What we should worry about is not a re-emergence of old-style fascism but the abuse of its memory to encourage hatred and violence towards vulnerable minorities. ... "

Identity : 10th October

Euro parliament adopts flag and anthem. The Telegraph (en)
" ... Beethoven's Ode to Joy, the final movement of his choral ninth symphony, will be used to open the parliament after each election and for formal sittings where heads of state are present. The blue flag with 12 gold stars will be flown on all parliament buildings and displayed in parliament meeting rooms and official events ...

Taking the Union out of Europe. The Telegraph (en)

" ... The reassertion of national interest will hearten Euro-sceptics. But, by the same token, it will prompt federalists to urge acceleration towards "ever closer union", initially by adopting the Lisbon Treaty which the Irish rejected in June ..."

Identity : 7th October

Lost in translation: the German-American relationship (guest blogger). Vitaliy, The 8th Circle (en)
" ... The official byline is below, followed by the guest post itself. Annika M. Hinze is a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago."

Identity : 1st October Austria Elections

"Les extrême droites en Europe se sont diversifiées". Jean-Yves Camus, chercheur à l'Institut des relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS), Le Monde (fr)
" ..." La crise de la construction européenne s'exprime-t-elle dans ce vote ?
- Incontestablement. C'est un des problèmes majeurs de la gauche que de voir lui échapper une partie des électeurs les plus populaires qui ont envie d'entendre sur cette question un discours qui soit celui d'une réorientation de l'Union européenne sur des bases plus sociales. Et non pas simplement la simple acceptation de la situation actuelle ...

Identity : 29th September

L'euro, un bouclier discret, trop discret. Jean Quatremer, Les Coulisses de Bruxelles (en)
" ... Au tout début de l’euro, en 1999, Wim Duisenberg, le premier Président de la Banque centrale européenne (BCE), avait lancé à un journaliste qui s’inquiétait du recul de la monnaie unique face au billet vert : « si vous demandez à un Américain : que vaut le dollar ? Il vous répondra : le dollar ? Un dollar est un dollar. Et je crois que nous devons apprendre en Europe à dire nous aussi : un euro ? Un euro est un euro » ...
... Cette identification de l’euro à l’Europe montre aussi que la monnaie unique est perçue, par le monde extérieur, comme un élément de l’identité et de la puissance naissante de l’Union. Mais cela n’est pas vrai au sein de l’Europe : l’euro n’a pas créé un sentiment de fierté et d’appartenance, faute, sans doute, pour les politiques de s’en être emparé pour vanter les succès de l’Europe. Cela a même souvent été le contraire, l’euro étant utilisé comme un commode bouc émissaire expliquant les difficultés nationales.
Et, sur une juste remarque d'Arthurh et les conseils amicaux d'Hims Lapin, voici une vidéo de Jay-Z, rappeur US, qui brandit des liasses de 500 euros comme élément de richesse..."

Identity : 23rd September

Russians back hardline policies. Charles Clover, The FT (en)
" ... A majority now do not consider confrontation with the west to be a threat to internal stability, according to Valery Fedorov, director of Vtsiom ... this view resembled the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, where “war is peace”...

... The prototypical Europhile is an 18- to 24-year-old female Muscovite with higher education and property. The prototypical “America-hater” in Russia is male, attended technical school, is over 55 and lives in a small town ... "

Identity : 22nd September

European communication (III): Euro-speak. Julien Frisch, Watching Europe (en)

My faith in politics is restored. NoseMonkey, EUtopia (en)
" ... I wonder what the success rate would be for photos of European Commissioners? I’d be amazed if anyone from pretty much any EU state got more than two or three right. Let’s find out - here they are. With no cheating by looking at the filenames or checking the Commission page, how many can you honestly put a name to? How many could you put a job to? ..."

Identity : 17th September (en)

Try to define Britishness and not sound banal. Mick Hume , The Times (en)

Identity : 15th September 9en)

The rise of new world order rhetoric and the current identity crisis. Nosemonkey, EUtopia (en)
" ... The US, Russia and the EU are all passing through identity crises - the US finding it’s neither as loved nor as powerful as it once thought, Russia shaking off the embarrassment of defeat through a resurgent sense of national pride, the EU going round and round in circles through indecision and a lack of clear purpose ... "

Identity (ies) : 13th September

MEPs find recipe for happy European citizen. David Charter, The Times (en)
" The Ode to Joy, a snappy motto and a waving flag: this is the recipe for a proud and happy European citizen, MEPs have decided.
... “ [They] convey an emotional image of the underlying values of the organisations they represent, they play a part in making abstract ideas intelligible, they facilitate communication and participation and they help to bring the organisations that they symbolise closer to the citizens, thereby contributing to their legitimacy.”