Wine, women and song

Well, I don’t know about song, though music is rarely absent from any story to do with Italy or Hungary, but wine and women definitely turn up in this one.

The wine is spelled variously as Tokay or Tocai and has been a problem for some time. Tokay or, in its correct spelling, Tokaji, that is of the place called Tokaj, is the famous dessert wine of Hungary. Grown and produced for a number of centuries, it is highly valued and, in my own perhaps not unbiased opinion, is the best of that breed, far outranking the French ones. (But I am prepared to listen to alternative points of view on this.)

So proud of this wine are the Hungarians that there is a reference to it in verse 3 of the National Anthem, the words being written by the well-known poet and litterateur of the early nineteenth century, Ferenc Kölcsey. (Hey, you have to keep up on this blog, you know.)

Other wines have been named Tokay as well, including one in Alsace, but the one that has been a particular problem is the Italian Tocai, a medium-bodied, very pleasant, dry white wine from the Friuliano region. Pleasant it may be but it is not a patch on the real Tokaji though it, too, seems to have existed from 1700.

The fact is, however, that French and Italian food and wine producers have benefited from the pernicious EU system of name protection. Now the decision has gone against them and they do not like it much. “Under the terms of Hungary's EU accession, it was agreed that winegrowers in Italy and France, which also had a wine called Tokay d'Alsace, should relinquish the name.”

The story as published on Buzzle.com quotes the Guardian from 2006 and shows that the Italian wine producers were all set either to challenge or to circumvent the decision, whichever came easier. Sadly, they found just as many non-French and non-Italian producers have found in the past that it is not so easy and having produced a wine called Tocai since 1700 is not going to save you from the ECJ deciding who can and who cannot use certain labels.

An appeal by the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region of Italy to the European Court has been turned down, with the judges ruling that Italian Tocai “does not qualify as a geographical indication” because “it has no special quality, reputation or characteristic that is attributable to its geographic origin”.

Gianola Nonino, whose family has been making wine at Udine in Friuli for generations, called the decision “appalling”.

“They have stolen a part of our history,” she said, adding that the new name, Friulano, was "terrible”, since it was simply an adjective describing anything that comes from Friuli.

Marco Felluga, another leading Friuli wine producer, said that the loss of the Tocai brand was “incredible . . . Italy has lost its wine war with Hungary. It’s like saying that from tomorrow Italians cannot call pizza pizza any more.”

Signor Pizzul said that the row was “particularly absurd because the Italian and Hungarian versions of Tocai are quite different”. Italian Tocai is an aromatic dry white made entirely from the Tocai grape (known as Sauvignon Vert in France), whereas Hungarian Tokai or Tokaji is a sweet dessert wine made using Furmint and Haréslvelü grapes.

The latest news is that nothing much has changed. The ECJ maintains that Hungary alone has the right to use the name Tokaji or any version thereof and the Italian wine makers who will now have to call their Friuliano are worried that they will lose sales.

“It would almost be comical if it were not so serious,” the association said. “Chambers of commerce that have to register Friuli wine for 2008 cannot because they don’t know what to call it.”

Indeed, one could say that about almost anything to do with EU regulation that it would be comical if it were not so serious.

Sadly, this victory (if it ever materializes, that is) does not seem to make the Hungarians any happier, perhaps because they are largely unaware of the battle. The Courrier International.com quotes from an article published in the well-known Hungarian weekly, Élet és Irodalom (Life and Literature):

Surveys show that the EU has lost popularity in Hungary in 2007. That's because the EU is seen as an elitist theme, suggests sociologist Pál Tamás. "Gradually, the relationship between Hungary and the EU has changed. True, the EU is still seen as connected with Brussels, officials and regulations ? though in day to day talk the term EU is increasingly used to mean just that - all of the Union. ... At the same time, however, there is a widely accepted view that we are second-class EU citizens. In other words, EU acceptance was their decision, not ours. This notion can only be overcome through demonstrations of our own interests, perhaps through independent decisions on specific issues."

Actually, as we wrote at the time, the support for EU membership was lukewarm at best in most East European countries, particularly Hungary. The turn-out for those referendums was very low, not even reaching 50 per cent in Hungary. The reason was clear: few people wanted to vote for the parties that opposed membership, which were either rather unpleasant, archaic, inward looking nationalists or unreconstructed communists but there was no great enthusiasm for the actual project either.

The article itself (for those who read Hungarian) is considerably longer but the summary is fair. EU membership is perceived as an elite project, which has given little to the people of Hungary. Ah well, we did warn them but they wouldn’t listen.

Wait a minute, I hear you cry. What happened to the women? We have had the wine and there will be no song but women?

For that we have to go back to Italy’s rows with the world, it sometimes seems, about its alcoholic production. Paris Hilton, the heiress to a somewhat decreasing number of millions if gossip columns are to be believed, has been hired to advertise something called Rich Prosecco.

The tussle with Paris Hilton, meanwhile, is over a drink called Rich Prosecco and its advertising campaign featuring the heiress wearing nothing but a coating of gold paint, in imitation of the actress Shirley Eaton in the James Bond film Goldfinger.

On the whole Italians do not object to seeing Ms Hilton in the nude. What has caused anger is that she has not only used the name “prosecco”, which Italians regard as their copyright, but also — sacrilegiously — put the drink in a can and mixed it with fruit juice.

The defence offered by Ms Hilton’s publicity machine is that Rich Prosecco is not being marketed in Italy. It was launched last year at a typically extravagant “mega-party” in the Austrian Alps. Ms Hilton, who emerged from a helicopter in a glittering dress, declared the drink to be “yummy”.

Günther Aloys, the businessman who created Rich Prosecco, said that she was “pleasant and uncomplicated. Nobody embodies carefree lust for life as convincingly and glamorously as Paris Hilton.”

However, in Treviso, one of the centres of Italian prosecco production, winemakers are not amused. Fulvio Brunetta, head of the Treviso branch of Coldiretti, the farmers’ union, said that Ms Hilton’s drink was an insult. He said Italian producers would meet this month to consider their response, “up to and including legal action”. Mr Brunetta said that he had nothing against Ms Hilton. “But she is . . . creating a generation of consumers who will forever associate the name of prosecco with something similar to an alcoholic fruit drink.”

It seems to me (and I am not a prosecco drinker nor somebody who would buy a disgusting sounding canned drink because Ms Hilton has painted herself gold) that people who “will forever associate the name of prosecco with something similar to an alcoholic fruit drink” are unlikely to buy the real stuff, anyway. It all adds to the gaiety of nations and the bank accounts of lawyers.

Sanitation begins at home

It emerged from nowhere in the British media in May and then disappeared just as quickly. But the problem did not go away even if it has now re-emerged as a newsworthy item.

We write, of course, of the refuse crisis in Naples which has escalated to the point where local residents are rioting, the police have been called in and have fired tear gas to disperse the crowds and the army has been mobilised to clear the rotting garbage heaps.

This is Italy in 2008, a state whose ministers form part of our government, help define the bulk of our laws and sit in judgement on us when we fail to comply with our masters’ diktats. Yet this is also a state which did not come into being until 1861, years after our first major Public Health Act of 1848, which set in train the legislation for waste disposal which survives to this very day.

Thus, while we kow-tow to the European Union, of which Italy is part, we are enjoined with a state which cannot even keep the streets of one of its major cities clear of refuse, a problem which, by all accounts, has been festering for some 11 years since a tip in the suburb of Pianura was closed and not replaced.

So far, it seems, 110,000 tons of rotting garbage has accumulated in the streets of Naples, with despairing residents torching some of the bigger piles. As a result, the civic authorities have decided to re-open the tip at Pianura. This has triggered the current riots, as residents there sought to prevent their suburb being disrupted by the stinking mass which has been allowed to accumulate.

Such is the state of Italian governance and the competence of the civic authorities that prime minister Romano Prodi – taking time out from not deporting Roma immigrants – has had to assume control. He is expected to announce emergency measures, including an expanded role for the army in clean-up operations.

This being Italy, there is inevitably, a criminal element involved, with the Camorra - the Naples version of Sicily's Mafia - is heavily embedded in the waste business, which means – as Reuters observes, "Naples has failed to get to grips with the problem that was first recognised as an emergency 14 years ago."

Illegal waste dumping and burning is blamed for poisoning the soil, water and air of large zones around the base of Mount Vesuvius. And an incinerator which was supposed to open at the end of 2007 is not ready.

Over here, where we so often complain of bad government – and rightly so – it is worth recalling that it was the so-called "winter of discontent" of 1978-9, with rubbish accumulating in the streets after binmen had gone on strike, that was instrumental in bringing down the Callaghan government. Yet, in Italy, despite years of dereliction in its most fundamental duties, governments come and go, untouched by the piles of garbage they leave behind.

Meanwhile, our supreme government in Brussels is already on the case, having issued in June "a first written warning and requesting information about the measures being taken to protect human health and the environment in the region".

It was then that the commission was citing its own Waste Framework Directive, which - it says - requires member states to take the necessary measures to prevent waste from being abandoned, dumped or disposed of in an uncontrolled way. It took the view that Italy had failed to fulfil its obligations under the directive by not putting in place an appropriate network of disposal facilities ensuring a high level of protection for the environment and public health in the Campania region.

Concerned by a then recent study coordinated by the World Health Organisation which showed increased mortality rates among people living near illegal waste dumps in the provinces of Naples and Caserta, environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas - reflecting "the urgency and gravity of the situation" - gave Italy one month to respond to its warning letter instead of the usual two-month deadline.

Seven months down the line, only now is Dimas suggesting that "Italy is languishing in the last chance saloon". Italian commission vice president Franco Frattini – taking time out from not deporting Roma immigrants – went on national television last night to state that a definitive decision on legal action would be taken by the end of January.

The fact that the EU is at least taking some (tardy) action – compared with 14 years of Italian government inaction – accounts for some of the popularity of the EU within Italy. No matter how bad the EU actually is, the Italian government is incomparably worse, in which context the EU – as so often – is seen as the saviour.

But why we, with our long tradition of effective and stable government – which had binmen out on the streets collecting rubbish before Italy was even a nation – should be tied up with this shower is another question altogether. Sanitation – like government – should begin (and end) at home.

COMMENT THREAD

"Give me liberty or give me death" - Part I

These ringing words end the speech made by Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775. He was addressing the House of Burgesses, the legislative House of the Colony of Virginia and calling for military action against British troops. As the Wikipedia article points out, the words of the speech remain problematic as they were not noted down at the time.

After the War of Independence (or the third English Revolution) Patrick Henry was involved in the debates about the Constitution, at first as an Antifederalist but later as a staunch Federalist, being, apparently, one of the moving forces behind the Bill of Rights, which became the first ten Amendments to the Constitution and which we badly need in this country.

All the while Patrick Henry was a slave owner even though he recognized the contradictions in his stand. Possibly he even recognized the contradictions in his stand on liberty and calls for a strong federal government, though one could argue that as long as the government is controlled by well-defined states’ and individual rights, problems are less likely to arise. How wrong that argument would be can be seen in America’s own Civil War or War Between the States.

This is not, our readers will be glad to know, a posting about American history or even the American presidential elections. The latter will have to be discussed some time but, as St Augustine said in a different context, not yet.

Rather, I should like to muse a little on questions of liberty, freedom of speech, censorship and editorial control. Some readers may want to stop here and go no further. They are welcome to absent themselves.

The first part of a long posting is on EU Referendum 2.

COMMENT THREAD

One mad proposal after another

We have been seeing a run of EU-related "environment" stories recently. But we are going to see many more in the next few weeks as the EU commission gears up to produce its much-heralded strategy on "climate change" – expected on 23 January.

The core of this strategy will be the 20 percent reduction in emissions by 2020 and the 10 percent biofuel quota, the combination of which – with the other measures the commission is considering – will have a profound effect on our economy, our own personal lifestyles and global politics in general.

Another of the commission's madcap plans, mentioned briefly last Saturday, has been picked up by The Times. This is Chirac's original idea to levy import taxes on "polluters" – i.e., those countries like the US, China and India which have not bought into the emissions control scam.

Apparently though, this has triggered a "row" in Brussels, with our very own Peter Mandelson, in his role as the EU trade commissioner, leading the charge. He fears that any such scheme would fall foul of World Trade Organisation rules.

However, while unnamed officials in Mandelson's office are saying the plan is "dead", a spokesman for Stavros Dimas, the environment commissioner, is maintaining that several drafts of the proposal are being discussed and debated, claiming that it is "at the beginning of the process."

The problem for the commission, of course, is that even it has realised that its broader strategy for climate change will so handicap EU-based enterprises than they will be even less competitive on the global market than they are already, spelling ruin for us all.

But, instead of admitting their inherent madness in their Gaderene rush to destroy the economies of the member states, they are seeking to "level the playing field" by spreading the misery to our overseas suppliers.

Despite this, Mandelson is probably right, but that will not stop the commissioning continuing to search for mechanisms to mitigate the effects of their own madness. The one thing they cannot do, however is admit that they are mad, and abandon their megalomania.

Brace yourselves, therefore, for one mad proposal after another, which will not even stop when we are sending icebreakers up the Thames as the world hurtles into yet another period of cooling.

COMMENT THREAD

Where power resides

Copied out uncritically by Open Europe in its daily press digest this morning is a Financial Times story headed, "Industry attacks EU green legislation".

Written by Chris Tighe and Andrew Bounds, it records that, "Plans to tighten European anti-pollution legislation could force the closure of swathes of industry in the UK," retailing a warning by business leaders in the form of BusinessEurope. The authors go on to tell us that:

The European Commission tabled proposals just before Christmas to toughen directives dealing with dust, sulphur and nitrogen emissions that cause acid rain and smog, saying national governments were set to miss targets that would save tens of thousands of lives.

We considered writing up that same story last night but something did not ring true and we held back in order to do some background digging. Our concern was that we have no recollection of any new proposals by the commission "just before Christmas" and, while we do not follow every twist and turn of the EU’s activities, something like that, we felt, could hardly escape our attention.

Sure enough, on further investigation, there were no such proposals. The FT writers have got themselves confused. They are in fact referring to a new directive on "ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe" which was approved on 11 December by the EU parliament and then on 20 December by the environment council.

The directive itself was proposed in August 2005 and agreed in principle by the council in October 2006 and has since been working its way through the labyrinthine legislative system, to re-emerge last December in its final form.

All this goes to re-emphasise the difficulty in following EU affairs and the danger of taking media reports at face value.

One also takes industry's complaints about EU legislation with a pinch of salt. We saw all the huffing and puffing about the REACH directive but, in the end, they all rolled over like good little boys, and have taken the hit. In due course, many of the industries affected will relocate in the Far East or wherever, and there will be the ritual wringing of hands, but none of the complainants were going to take the commission head on and fight the legislation.

The substantive part of the FT story, however, was not about general industry complaints but on the fate of "one of the biggest industrial employers in the North East."

This is Alcan, owned by Rio Tinto, which is having problems with the commission over its coal-fired Lynemouth power station and the adjacent aluminium smelter it supplies (pictured right). The business employs 670 workers in an area of Northumberland that has struggled to rebuild its economy since the loss of coal mining, but action by the commission is threatening its closure.

On the part of the commission, it says that Alcan must reduce emissions from its plant by 1 January, as part of the extension of the EU's large combustion plant directive to cover older power plants. The UK, on the other hand, claims Lynemouth is exempt, arguing that there was a "legal difference over interpretation of the directive".

More details are proving extremely difficult to find, with Alcan saying the discussions were an "ongoing matter" between the commission and the UK government, on which it could not comment further. But it comes to a pretty pass when a major employer in the North East is the subject of a dispute between our supreme government and its subordinate in London, with the case eventually decided by our supreme court in Luxembourg.

Here, once again is another graphic illustration of where power actually resides.

COMMENT THREAD

Harnessing the internet

Slipped out just before Christmas when no one was really looking, the EU commission published a report on its use of the internet, under the laborious title, "Communicating about Europe via the Internet: Engaging the citizens".

It, like many others, has begun to appreciate that the internet is a potent and cost-effective means of communication, hosting a "huge range of discussions" on a wide range of topics which are "of interest to the commission". Yet, as it ruefully observes, "while the EU itself is also a frequent topic of discussions, sometimes eurosceptic-driven," the commission itself is "comparatively absent from the online environment".

To improve its profile, says the report, one move has been to "make initial contact with some of the most active websites dealing with EU issues" with a view to "exploring possible Web partnerships" and "developing a network of civil society and public and private websites that promote contact with or between European citizens and stimulate debate on EU policy issues".

It is now planning to launch a study “to pinpoint leading websites with a focus on European affairs and will, with a view to establishing networking arrangements, organise regular stakeholder meetings and add links to the Europa site (which gets 500,000 visitors a day) to other sites that users many be interested in visiting.

Something tells us that EU Referendum will not be appearing as one of those links, but the message is clearly that the commission is planning a major infiltration of the web, in an attempt to dominate and thereby control the web.

We have already seen how it is seeking to control "civil society" and how much money it is throwing at favoured lobby groups and this is a natural extension of the process.

One of the facets of the internet revolution is how the political discourse has been dominated by the right wing, with even today the highly successful Conservative Home site looking at how to stay abreast of the game, but here we have the EU planning to take the media by storm.

It will not, of course, succeed. As we know to our cost, EU affairs are so often deadly boring that few are attracted to the issues, no matter how important they are to us, but the commission's idea of infiltrating other sites and corralling users into a vast network of influence means that many more will imbibing the EU message, without even realising it.

One wonders, therefore, whether the "right wing" eurosceptic-inclined internet sites are up to the challenge and will be able to counter the EU's attempts to dominate the net, and define the political agenda.

COMMENT THREAD

Recognising the reality

The Foreign Office is to cut the number of diplomats working in Europe by a third so they can be redeployed to combat radicalism in the Middle East and Asia.

This we were told yesterday by The Sunday Times, with the child Miliband taking out civil servants based in European capitals such as Paris, Rome and Berlin. They are to be retrained in language skills to reinforce diplomatic posts in Kabul, Baghdad and Islamabad.

Furthermore, an extra £79m is to be spent over three years on combating Muslim radicalisation, with dozens of extra political officers deployed to build contacts with local people in the Middle East and Pakistan.

Says Miliband, "We will put more resources into countering terrorism and nuclear proliferation … We will increase the number of diplomats working in the Middle East and south Asia by 32 percent. That means we can deepen our engagement with Pakistan to prevent the growth of extremism there …".

Interestingly, no mention is made of the embassy in Brussels (pictured) – which deals mainly with EU institutions - so the indications are that it is just representation in the major member state countries that is being affected.

There is some logic here, in that a local authorities, for instance, do not have "embassies" in other local authority areas in the same country. Similarly, as a vassal state of the European Union, it seems hardly necessary for the UK to have embassies in other vassal states, when the supreme government increasingly defines the relationships, and the state governments meet in Brussels so often.

Cutting back therefore, seems simply to be recognising the reality of our new status, especially when Miliband says he also wants to strengthen the effectiveness of institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union.

So, Miliband wants to strengthen the effectiveness of our supreme government. Nice of him to say so.

COMMENT THREAD

A timely reminder

Reported in The Sunday Telegraph (not online) is a warning from the charity Age Concern that rising fuel bills could cause the premature deaths of a large number of pensioners, brought about by their inability to keep their homes warm.

The charity says that in excess of 22,000 deaths were directly attributable to the cold last winter and it fears that, as fuel costs spiral, millions of pensioners' lives could be at risk.

This is a timely reminder that cold is a much more potent cause of premature death than high temperatures, which suggests that far from being the great killer, global warming could be a life-saver, if it continues.

Such is the limited vision of the environmental lobby though that, as The Sunday Times remarks, they "find something to celebrate in high energy prices, because the increased costs will change the way we behave." Perhaps they have not fully appreciated that there is no more permanent a way of changing behaviour than dying.

This is, of course, where the EU has totally got it wrong in that, having bought into the global warming miasma, is driving up energy costs directly while adding to the regulatory burden for electricity generators which will further add to costs.

On balance, the EU in its pursuit of the global warming myth may eventually be responsible for more deaths than would have occurred should there have been the wars it so fondly claims to have prevented – especially as Booker reports today, global warming over the last six years has flattening out at 0.2 degrees below their level of 10 years ago.

Even more worrying is a press release from the Space and Science Research Center, (SSRC) in Orlando, Florida, released earlier this month. It reinforces the message from Dr David Whitehouse that we are about to enter a period of unusually quiet sunspot activity.

Since these periods, historically, have coincided with extended periods of deep cold to the planet, SSRC scientists are confidently predicting its own brand of "climate change" - to one of a long-lasting cold era. They say that the change could become apparent within three years giving us only a few years to prepare before 20-30 years of lasting and possibly dangerous cold arrive.

Contrary to the doomsayers' predictions, global warming is largely beneficial. As well as keeping larger numbers of pensioners alive, it brings extended growing seasons and, while not directly related to warming, higher CO2 levels increase agricultural productivity. Thus, the implications of cooling are potentially severe.

During the last "cooling" of 1793 and 1830 - the so-called Dalton Minimum - a period of extreme cold (during which Napoleon made his ill-fated attack on Moscow) that resulted in what historian John D. Post called the "last great subsistence crisis." With that cold came massive crops losses, food riots, famine and disease.

SSRC believes, "this next climate change will be much stronger and has the potential to once more cause widespread crop losses globally with the resultant ill effects." The key difference for this next cycle is that we will have over eight billion mouths to feed in the coldest years, whereas we had only one billion the last time. There is, says SSRC, the real prospect of the "perfect storm of global food shortages".

With possibly only three years to go before the effects begin to become apparent, the up-side is the prospect of demonstrating that the EU has been spectacularly and catastrophically wrong in its focus on global warming. But that will be small compensation as we face freezing temperatures, higher fuel prices and global food shortages – for which our supreme government is singularly ill-prepared.

COMMENT THREAD

The march of the Sefra

One groans inwardly at the report in The Sunday Telegraph today which has Prince Charles enjoining farmers to "make energy from muck".

The Prince of Wales, we are told, has urged Britain's farmers to tackle climate change by producing energy from farmyard waste, claiming that "communities could have their energy supplied from nearby farms". Technology that uses bacteria to break down animal manure and other waste can produce bio-gas which can, in turn, generate heat and electricity.

Yes indeed it can – the process is well established and is known as anaerobic digestion (plant pictured) and they could provide not only a useful source of energy but also a useful residue which can be used as a peat substitute for gardens and horticulture, reducing pressure on this non-renewable resource.

Furthermore, the technology is very popular across Europe, where there are a large number of on-farm digesters in operation – over 2,500 are currently in operation in Germany, for instance.

However, in the UK there are currently only about 30, despite the fact that the average size of farm is higher over here than in the rest of Europe, ostensibly making the economics even more attractive. Why this should be the case is a graphic example of the deadly combination of EU law and British bureaucracy.

At first sight, the problem rests with EU law, specifically Council Directive 96/61/EC of 24 September 1996 "concerning integrated pollution prevention and control" (IPPC) which makes anaerobic digestion a "scheduled process" subject to special controls by the national pollution control authorities.

Bearing in mind that the Directive has not proved to be a drag in other EU member states, though, something more than merely the directive must be responsible for the low uptake of the technology in the UK – and this is the case.

The root of the problem is the extraordinarily expensive bureaucracy in the UK which stems not from this government but from a little-known initiative in the Thatcher years, heralded by the Ibbs Report in 1988 (Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps). This brought into being the Executive Agency, sometimes called "Next Step" Agencies, after the title of the Ibbs Report.

The general aim of the initiative looked sound, in that it aimed to take some of the sclerotic backwaters of the Civil Service, like Companies House and the DVLA, and turn them into semi-independent agencies, with their own cost centres and lines of responsibility, making them more akin to private sector businesses.

Considering the continued lamentable performance of the DVLA, there is some considerable debate as to whether the whole initiative has been successful but, where it really went off the rails was in including not only trading and service providers in government but also some of the enforcement agencies.

By this means, law enforcement was turned into a business, and the agencies thus formed were charged with recovering their costs from the businesses over which they had power. Thus was born what Booker and I dubbed the Self-financing Regulatory Agency (Sefra), a term that has never really taken off, despite the importance of these agencies and the dire effects they are having on the business community.

One such Sefra was the Environment Agency. It was charged with implementing the IPPC Directive, which it approached (with considerable enthusiasm) on a total cost recovery basis. Thus, those businesses which operated the "scheduled processes" had to pay for the full costs of the Environment Agency when it came to authorising their use and their subsequent monitoring.

Here we come back to the anaerobic digesters. The plant and ancillary works are expensive and the economics are highly marginal although the balance sheet did fall the right way – until the Environment Agency fees were factored in.

Currently, just for authorising a standard, off-the-shelf plant the fees run to £1,470 and, for every year thereafter, a "subsistence fee" of £921 must be paid – just for the privilege of an Environment Agency official coming along to inspect the plant.

It is these fees which tilt the balance and make the whole process of on-farm anaerobic digestion uneconomic, which is why there are so few plants in the UK compared with the continent.

Partly, we can blame the EU but, in the main, this is due to the march of the Sefra – and the genius of our officials for stultifying and increasingly expensive bureaucracy. Even the hide-bound Germans do not hold a candle to the creative genius of our officials, which perhaps explains why British civil servants are so popular in Brussels.

COMMENT THREAD

We are moving into a dark time

When we started this blog, way back in 2004, there was definitely a point to it. On the back of Tony Blair’s announcement, we were looking to fight the referendum on the EU constitution, with every expectation of winning a "no" vote.

With the EU constitution back, under the disguise of the Lisbon Treaty and with no referendum in sight – and no expectation of one, things look very different. The battle is not finished, of course – it never is and never will be until we've won. And we only have to win once. But that does not dissipate the gloom.

Booker, in today’s column, sums up our mood. He writes:

Before Christmas, almost entirely unreported here in Britain, the proceedings of the European Parliament were brought to a halt by an unprecedented uproar. Just after the EU's leaders had flown back from signing their new treaty in Lisbon, the Portuguese prime minister Jose Socrates, as the EU's acting "president", was in Strasbourg for a ceremony to celebrate the signing of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, part of the Constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

During his speech, some 50 MEPs of both Left and Right and from several countries, following a plan made by the Nordic Green Left group and supported by several British Conservative and UK Independence Party MEPs, unfurled banners emblazoned with the word "Referendum". The protest was intended to bear dignified, silent witness on behalf of all those countries, including Britain, that are now to be denied referendums on the treaty. But when ushers were ordered to remove the placards and other MEPs began shouting abuse, some of the demonstrators began shouting back.

The scene became so unedifying that the television coverage of the proceedings was cut off. Several group leaders made pompous speeches deploring the "football hooligan" behaviour of those MEPs who, as one put it, "had shown contempt for the dignity of Parliament". The ceremony concluded with the majority of MEPs standing reverentially to attention for the "European anthem" - which is one of the very few items dropped from the rejected Constitution to justify the pretence that the virtually identical new treaty is somehow a completely different document.

Nothing like this had ever happened in the Parliament, but never before has the EU's ruling elite shown such contempt for those they govern - all those voters who were promised referendums and have been denied them. Beginning with the decision of the European Council last June that there could be no further debate on the wording of the treaty which it alone had decided - itself an unprecedented flouting of the rules - it has been an astonishing coup d'etat.

All we have now is the prospect of one national parliament after another meekly rubber-stamping the treaty on the orders of their governments, and the Constitution-by-any-other-name, another mighty step towards imposing on us all a new supranational government, will be in force. In effect, since we will not be able to dismiss our new government or call it to account, we will be living in a one-party state.

The most humiliating charade of all is unfolding here in Britain, where Gordon Brown has promised no less than three months of parliamentary debate on the treaty he signed so shamefacedly in Lisbon. This will be an entirely futile exercise, since MPs will not even officially be given a comprehensible copy of the treaty they are discussing.

It has deliberately been made as hard to follow as possible, by redrafting the constitution into a bewildering mass of amendments to previous treaties, which are virtually meaningless out of context. And nothing our MPs say can change a word of the treaty, since it is already signed and set in stone. In this pitiful fashion what is known as the Mother of Parliaments will sign its own death warrant.

David Miliband, the child who has become our Foreign Secretary, sententiously lectures Pakistan and Kenya on how they must restore democracy, and at the same time he is happy to say goodbye to the last vestiges of it here at home.

Mr Brown grandiloquently promises to "consult" on drawing up a "constitution" for the National Health Service, while he aims to conceal from the British people the fact that they are being railroaded into a genuine and infinitely more important constitution on which he is not consulting them at all.

Then, when a handful of MEPs resort to the only means they can find to protest that we are being denied our right to consultation - as promised to us by Mr Brown himself - they are condemned as a mindless rabble, showing "contempt for the dignity of Parliament".

How strangely, as we enter 2008, has truth become inverted. Truly we are moving into a dark time.

Perhaps it is just the gloom of winter and things will look better in the Spring. But somehow I doubt it.

COMMENT THREAD

Free speech?

We are enjoined by a number of our readers to comment on the British blogger, who goes under the name of Lionheart. He faces arrest by Bedfordshire police when he returns to this country, on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.

The particular cause celebre it seems, is inter-racial grooming of young girls, featured last year in The Sunday Times, about which Lionheart has waxed volubly. Tim Worstall has some useful comments on the issue, not least observing that that the one blog post he has read, "tells me that he's not really my kind of guy".

As it stands – from what we can make out – the man is not at this stage to be charged for any offence and the arrest is an "administrative" device which the police are using to secure a formal interview on the record. For this, we must blame the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, as much as anything, which requires such laborious procedures, ostensibly to protect the rights of the accused – who are entitled to have legal representation during these interviews.

When and if Lionheart is charged will be another matter altogether. Tim rightly observes, "free speech is free speech" and there are matters rehearsed on Lionheart's blog which should indeed be getting coverage without the intervention of Mr Plod, who seems keener to investigate some "crimes" more than others. That is something of a bigger problem than merely this issue.

At this stage, therefore, one can only counsel a watching brief. Lurid declamations seem hardly warranted, and nor is the general accusation that we are descending into a police state - those who have actually lived in a police state will readily attest to the difference. More to the point, we have morally corrupt, venal and thoroughly inefficient police forces which are manifestly incapable of dealing with "normal" crime.

Unsurprisingly, they thus seem to spend a disproportionate amount of their time on what could best be described as "displacement activity", giving the impression of activity rather than producing anything of substance. That, possibly, is the greater concern.

COMMENT THREAD

We need Hyman Kaplan

One of the funniest and most moving works in American literature is “The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N” by Leo Rosten (real name Leonard Q. Ross). For those readers who are unacquainted with this delightful personality, Hyman Kaplan is “a plump, red-faced gentleman in his forties, with wavy blond hair, two fountain pens in his outer pocket, and a perpetual smile”. By day he is a cutter in a dress factory (or Cotter In Dress Faktory) in New York. In the evenings he attends the beginners’ grade of the American Night Preparatory School for Adults (‘English – Americanization – Civics – Preparation for Naturalization).

Mr Kaplan, who always writes his name in multicoloured capitals with asterisks between the letters, is something of a problem for the tutor. This is not because he does not want to learn. On the contrary, Mr Kaplan and the rest of the class are very eager to learn to speak, read and write English correctly and be as American as they possibly can be as soon as it is possible. To this end they spend their precious free time at the Night Preparatory School and doing homework. It’s just that Mr Kaplan gets things wrong with the best possible will in the world and with the greatest desire to learn as well as “dip thinking”.

It is not really possible to quote with advantage from the book – like all great comic masterpieces the whole is far better than the sum of its parts. I do, however, feel that Mr John Denham might benefit from reading this great work of literature.

Who, you might ask, is John Denham. He is a far less interesting personage than Hyman Kaplan. He is, in fact, the Skills Secretary. Ha! I bet you didn’t even know we had a Skills Secretary in Britain. Well, I didn’t until this individual swam into my ken. I wonder which came first the Skills Secretary or the endemic shortage of skills in the country.

The reason Mr Denham has been gracing various media outlets is that there has been another plan to deal with the problem of long-term British residents (make that several generations in some cases) who cannot speak English.

Mr Denham thinks this is terrible (and one must agree with him that it is not good but for different reasons from the ones he advances):

There are still too many long-term residents committed to making a contribution to Britain who cannot engage with other people in their neighbourhoods - let alone play an active role in their communities - simply because their lack of English prevents it.This is having a negative impact on their life chances and limiting their ability to integrate. It is this group we wish to prioritise.

Had Mr Denham attended that Night Preparatory School for Adults, he might have realized that he was using the wrong aspect viz. passive rather than active. The way he puts it makes one think that there is some kind of a blight on people who are desperate to be part of British society and make a contribution to Britain but cannot do so because they do not speak the language.

Learning or not learning a language is a matter of choice and many people (including many tens of thousands of British ex-pats abroad) choose not to do so. This is not something that is inflicted on them and one cannot help feeling that anyone who really is committed to contributing to the country will start by learning the language.

This is not a particularly new problem. There have always been immigrants – more to the United States but plenty to Britain – and many of them, particularly of the older generation, never managed to learn the language of the new country. The assumption has always been that the younger generations will learn and will help out those who cannot do so. Hence those night schools that Leo Rosten writes about so amusingly.

The problem, as ever, is money. In the first place, many millions of pounds are spent on public sector information being produced in many different languages. This, naturally enough, lifts the necessity to learn English. Why bother if everything is provided in your language with an interpreter if you really want it?

When I did jury service, interpreters were being provided for the accused because they allegedly spoke only Jamaican patois, whatever that may be.

Secondly, there is the problem of the English as Second Language (or, as it is known now, English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes. These have existed inside and outside schools and colleges for some time. There are those you can pay for, those you can pay for a great deal of money and those you can get free.

Last year, it was decided to cap spending on ESOL:

The government capped spending on Esol (English for speakers of other languages) last summer after it trebled over the previous five years to £300m a year, amid protests from teaching unions, colleges and other teaching organisations.

One must admit that there is some difficulty there. If the spending has been shooting up like that why are there still so many long-term residents in this country who cannot fulfill their burning ambition to make a contribution to Britain.

What seems to have happened is that the places have been taken up with short-term economic migrants or, in other, non-jargon, words, East Europeans who come here to get jobs, earn some money and learn English. It is a little unclear from the accounts which places they had taken up.

The free ones are for those on benefit, whereas we are talking about people who come here to get jobs. Could it be that these people, who are supposed to be undercutting English workers by accepting lower wages are actually spending part of their money on English lessons?

People who do not speak English now have to pay a contribution to the course fees - 37.5%, rising to 50% in 2010. A typical Esol course costs around £900.

This is not what the government wants to see as those places are supposed to be for the long-term settlers, even if these do not take jobs or earn money. The government and Mr Denham in particular want to see some changes:

Denham said that the government's national priorities for Esol funding include legal immigrants expected to stay in the country for the foreseeable future; women who had been excluded, for some reason, from classes, particularly those with children under the age of 16; parents or carers within families at risk of multiple or complex problems; people with no or minimal literacy in their own language; people without secondary education; and refugees and asylum seekers still in the country beyond six months, awaiting a decision on their status or who cannot return home.

A goodly proportion of those people are not going to take up the free classes, no matter how available they are and, when it comes to the women, they will not be allowed to do so by their menfolk, which will continue to cause problems.

We are, in other words, going round in circles. The only thing that the government might introduce is compulsory payment for ESOL classes to be made by the East Europeans and there we may run into difficulties with the EU, since it is clear discrimination.

The idea, however, that the government can solve problems of social cohesion as the latest modish expression has it by “targeting” certain groups that have had every opportunity to learn English but have not done so, is the purest moonshine.

Oh, and while we are on the subject, could we have all children learning English at school?

Another cost of EU membership

Consumers of electricity – i.e., all of us – who are now having to dig deeper to pay their electricity bills will mostly be unaware that, in addition to the swingeing increases announced yesterday, they are paying an increasing premium through their bills for the global warming fantasy.

The base line is the so-called Renewables Obligation, which is set to add at least £1 billion a year to our collective bills by 2010, simply to fund the scourge of industrial windmills that is blighting our countryside.

But, from the school of, "there is nothing so bad that the EU cannot make it worse", we are set to pay another £6 billion through our energy bills for the equivalent of snake oil, otherwise known as the European Trading Scheme (ETS).

The utterly bizarre aspect of this scheme, as reported by The Independent is that the UK's biggest "polluters" will reap this windfall. These include our electricity generators and they can make their money because the EU in its wisdom has given them 104 million tons of "carbon credits" and, despite having paid nothing for them, they are then allowed to charge their customers for the notional cost of these credits.

Although the term "you could not make it up" is really overused, that has to apply to this utterly mad scheme, which "gives" energy producers a free "product" and then allows them to charge their customers for it.

Furthermore, the calculations on how many "credits" should have been allocated are so wide of the mark that most generators have surplus which they can then sell on a totally artificial market to those enterprises which do not have enough carbon to cover their emissions.

In theory, this is supposed to fund the additional investments needed for clean generation technologies, but there is absolutely no obligation for the generators to spend their windfall. Thus, the EU's scheme does absolutely nothing to reduce national carbon emissions, even if that was actually worth doing.

When it comes to costing our membership of the EU, therefore, we have to add another £6 billion to the bill, all for its insane scheme that does nothing more than add totally unnecessary costs to our electricity bills.

And even then, the madness does not stop there. We are told that the EU commission is debating whether to push for a carbon tariff on imports from countries that "do not tackle their greenhouse gas emissions", such as China, India and the United States.

New rules, if passed, would be part of a raft of post-2012 proposals covering issues including national emissions targets and clean energy subsidies.

Needless to say, the idea of imposing some kind of tariff on goods imported from countries with less strict controls on greenhouse gases was first put forward by Jacques Chirac as president of the EU. L'Esroc lives!

COMMENT THREAD

Funny money

For intelligent laymen, rather than experts, the state of the economy – both local and global – remains perplexing and thus disturbing. And what is particularly disturbing is that one gets a sense that all the traditional measures of the economy no longer seem to have any real meaning, with performance indicators having become completely detached from reality.

Thus one reads in The Daily Telegraph that there is no reason why, according to normal economic rules, that oil prices should be so high. Against an unpromising economic backdrop, with America heading towards recession, you to expect the oil price to fall.

Perplexingly, one sees financial journalist, Tom Stevenson write, "the relationship between oil and the wider economy has been out of whack for some time," with him adding that, "One of the curiosities of the tenfold increase in the oil price in recent years has been its lack of broader impact."

He then goes on to write that, "When oil was last at this level in inflation-adjusted terms a generation ago, it caused a global slump. This time round the economy has barely missed a beat," asking, "How high does the oil price have to go before the pips start to squeak?"

Well, this is the perspective from the high ground, but talk to small business owners and fixed-income householders and the pips are already squeaking. Business is harder to get, margins are lower and competition is fiercer, and while the oil price is maintaining its headline highs, one is getting used to taking out mortgages not so much to buy a house but to fill the car with petrol at the garage. And there is no solace in public transport as providers continue with inflation-busting fare increases.

The paper warns us that the average household energy bill is about to hit £1000 a year and, waiting in the wings are record Council Tax bills, on top of previously record levels which are hitting harder and harder each year.

Yet, as we "enjoy" fewer services, delivered even less efficiently for our money, campaigners on the energy front are arguing that that expected gas price rises are unjustified, claiming that families are paying the price for market inefficiency. Yet still the prices go up.

Then, of course, we see the electricity price increases, driven in part by the increasing burden imposed by the Renewables Obligation, to fund the cretinous stupidity of polluting the countryside with industrial windmills, while food inflation – also driven in part by the rush for renewable fuels - is also adding to the weekly housekeeping bill.

On the other hand, we are also told that the economy is at risk from a "debt famine" as both households and businesses find it more difficult to borrow money – that against a record level of personal indebtedness.

Some evidence of this is already filtering through with reports that mortgage approvals have slumped to a three-year low and "look set to slide further as fears mount for Britain's cooling property market". Meanwhile, perhaps more worrying, the number of homeowners approved for remortgaging jumped by 7,000, to 95,000 in November.

The Telegraph interprets this as indicating that people "may have been standing back from the market, choosing to stay in their homes rather than sell up and move on", but the other possibility is that people are consolidating debt, trying to reduce the crippling burden of credit card interest.

Here, we have a further element of unreality in that the Bank's monetary policy committee is considering cutting interest rates to 5.25pc as soon as next week "in an effort to prevent economic growth sliding into negative territory". By conventional measures, however – with real inflation taking a decisive tilt upwards – the Bank should be looking to increase interest rates, to dampen down credit-fuelled spending.

All of this invokes vague presentiments of gloom and there are plenty of bears ready to sustain fears that we are on the brink of economic meltdown. Small wonder we are agape as Gordon Brown continues to parade his "economic competence". We seem to living on "funny money" and no one seems to want to take responsibility.

COMMENT THREAD

We need the freedom

Xinhuanet and other agencies are reporting unease in the EU at the $100/barrel price of oil, with Amelia Torres, EU spokeswoman for economic and monetary affairs, warning that, "If this high level of (oil) prices maintain its way, it will have an impact on the (European) economy."

This comes on the back of the prediction by EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia that growth in the eurozone may slow more than forecast by the EU commission and drop below two percent in 2008 for the first time in three years, due "to new developments in the oil markets and persistent financial turbulence."

"We are facing downside risks for our growth scenario," Almunia said at that time. "With the present information our forecast would have lower figures for growth."

He also added that weaker private consumption could reduce the momentum of European economic growth – something which seems to be becoming a reality as The Financial Times reports that the retail sector's festive reporting season "began with a dramatic profits warning" after DSG International, the electricals group, said consumers stayed away from its PC World stores in the run-up to Christmas.

Interestingly, it was not only British stores that contributed to a profit level £40m-£50m lower than expected but Italy, where sales were down 11 percent. Sales in Ireland were also flat and, on the Nordic countries, electrical sales were down by one percent on a like-for-like basis.

Against oil and food-driven inflation, financial authorities are now in a dilemma as to whether to raise interest rates to maintain price stability, or to reduce them to encourage the housing market, stricken by the sub-prime mortgage market crisis, and thus boost consumer spending.

But, if the problem is especially acute for M. Trichet and his ECB pals in the eurozone, The Daily Telegraph is commenting on our good fortune in remaining out of the euro. The paper says Britain has again become, albeit marginally, the EU's only oil exporter, and, the price rise is having the opposite impact on us from that which it has on the eurozone states – "a useful reminder of why we have been wise to keep the pound".

The paper adds that the Bank of England's desire to cut interest rates may be frustrated by the inflationary pressures of rising oil and a falling pound. This is not exactly stagflation - not yet, at any rate - but it is a distinctly chillier climate. "Now, more than ever," it concludes, "we need the freedom to run our own economy."

This newspaper could have added that we need the freedom to run our own government as well.

COMMENT THREAD

The limits of power

Even with the best will in the world, it would be difficult to send in foreign troops to Kenya, to help the authorities to quell the violence. But as John O'Shea - the chief executive of the Irish aid agency Goal – prepares to evacuate all staff from the Kenyan capital city due to the worsening security crisis, he is calling for direct EU intervention.

Considering how long it has taken the EU not to put troops into Chad, however, John O'Shea is being a tad optimistic if he believes that the EU could put a force in this side of Easter – next year.

But an indication of how difficult that would be politically comes from the Irish foreign affairs minister Dermot Ahern, who has dismissed O'Shea's calls outright. He points out that any Irish army involvement as part of an EU peace-enforcement group would require "triple-lock approval" of the Oireachtas (the president of Ireland and the two houses of parliament), the Government and the UN.

Meanwhile, the EU's putative foreign minister, Javier Solana, is going to the source of real power, the United States, suggesting a joint mission to Kenya "to assess the unrest" after the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki. But, such is Solana's grip on reality that he is not able to define the exact "mandate" of any mission. It seems he has in mind a joint envoy or team of envoys, to carry out a fact-finding mission.

Whatever else, possibly the last thing on this earth the Kenyan authorities need at this time is a group of self-important "envoys", with all the security complications that that implies. But, short of a rapid reaction force with real teeth, there is not a great deal more the EU can do. Once again, the limits of power are only too apparent.

COMMENT THREAD

Two more join the sinking ship

We cannot go without placing it on the record that both Malta and Cyprus (the Greek bit of it) joined the sinking ship, aka the euro at the beginning of this year.

The event in Malta was not without drama as the citizens of Malta immediately stormed the holes in the wall and withdrew some €2.4 million by the late afternoon of the first day of the introduction – ten times the typical usage for the same period in previous years, the banks said.

Much to the embarrassment of officials, however, when prime minister Lawrence Gonzi tried to withdraw the first euro notes at midnight on Monday night from a hole in the walls at Valletta Waterfront, the machine twice failed to dispense cash. However, sources said the machine had worked well when tested just moments earlier.

The joke was that Mrs Gonzi had used the card before and had exceeded the limit for the day or that Dr Gonzi had used Malta's debit card, which also was overdrawn. Unfortunately, for an island nation with a proud history, the joke is on Malta.

COMMENT THREAD

Not another common policy!

With crude oil prices breaking through the psychological $100/barrel level today for the first time ever, we see an intriguing report of an interview with Dirk Beeuwsaert, chief executive of Franco-Belgian utility group Suez.

He has told the Belgian financial daily De Tijd that EU countries will have to accept higher energy prices unless the Union develops a common energy policy. "China and India," he says, "are establishing themselves in all the countries which are important for the delivery of raw materials and energy," hinting that individual European countries will not be able to compete unless they get together under the wing of the EU.

But, what is especially significant is his view which strongly reflects the food supply situation, Beeuwsaert declaring that, "Europe has so far focused on a simplistic liberalisation model," adding that this model had been developed for a time of overcapacity. It provides no incentives to increase production, and is no longer suited to the future, which will be increasingly characterised by energy shortfalls.

Thus is a second, vital sector we have an experienced player pointing up a common flaw – historical policies based on surplus, which are now having to be attuned to dealing with global shortages.

Beeuwsaert is perhaps being over-optimistic is he believes the EU commission is either flexible enough or has sufficient expertise to manage the energy market on behalf of the 27 member states, or even that there is the political will in the member states to support cooperation at anything other than a very superficial level.

But, while there may be sense in some of the smaller EU countries – especially those with contiguous land borders – working closely together with their neighbours, perhaps even under the aegis of the commission, this does not apply to the UK, which has a largely separate and distinct energy market.

Nevertheless, the writing is on the wall as, indeed, we are seeing both China and India forging ahead with comprehensive long-term energy policies. It is quite remarkable that a supposedly sophisticated, developed country like the UK has not been able to get its act together on this score.

More seriously, we have a nation that is in thrall to the Greens who, bessotted with the idea of anthropogenic global warming, are at one demanding absurdly expensive measure – such as wind farms – to reduce CO2 emissions, yet are standing in the way of the most obvious and effective long-term solution to both energy security and emissions reductions – nuclear power.

We await this month a statement from Gordon Brown his government’s intentions on nuclear power, but any decisions cannot come a moment too soon. African nations are already experiencing a uranium boom, with uranium prices having increased from less than $10 per pound at the start of the decade to a current price of about $92 per pound.

This is making previously marginal deposits of uranium ore quite economical to mine, but also indicates that nuclear power is becoming a highly competitive field, which means that the UK will be in the tail end of the queue when it comes to developing new power stations.

Still, however, the debate is centred on whether the UK should replace its ageing nuclear power stations, but there is next to no discussion on what type of power stations we should have. Yet, the pebble bed reactor continues to look highly attractive and, tied in with high temperature electrolysis plants, we could be making significant moves towards a hydrogen economy as well.

With such current developments, we could be moving away from the model which relies on nuclear providing the base load, with other more responsive generators making up the variable peaks, to a nuclear capability to provide even our peak load. Then, instead of shedding load when demand drops, the surplus electricity could simply be diverted to hydrogen production.

It is this type of thinking which could transform the energy economy of this country, and liberate us from the tyranny of the Greens – giving scope for a forward-looking opposition party to score against the government. One would like to think that the Conservatives could fulfil that function and it is, as always, a constant source of disappointment that we are not seeing anything imaginative from this source.

Energy, like food, is one of our most fundamental needs and we need a British government able to look after this need, rather than let the Beeuwsaerts of this world get their way. This is yet another area where European intervention can do nothing but harm.

COMMENT THREAD

Not enough "Europe"

"Why speak about Europe? Because the history of the nations is finished, and the history of Europe has hardly started. National, economic, commercial sovereignty like financial and, even if it is defended by some, military sovereignty are finished. Their rejection is final, irreversible, and it is so much better."

This is from Philippe Cayla, CEO of the television channel EuroNews, "Europe's news channel covering world news from a European perspective in a choice of seven languages," writing in Le Monde (pictured recently with the fragrant one).

He is complaining that the European Union does not get enough news coverage, declaring that "Brussels is a ghetto, assailed from all sides by nations, by national political classes and above all by national media".

"National media don't want anything to do with Europe," he adds. "Europe poses a threat their intellectual comfort and their status. It bothers the way they consider their daily task which, according to them, is to confirm each country's impression that they are the greatest, the most beautiful, the strongest, the most pleasant…".

Continuing with his theme, he asks (rhetorically, of course), "How can the EU's leaders be given a media profile by Europe's different communities if they remain invisible and unheard? Such a profile, whether we like it or not, is indispensable not only for public recognition, but also for European citizens to be able to identify with their leaders."

The problem, as Cayla sees it is that coverage by the national media of Europe is insufficient. It hardly represents more than five or ten percent of television news, sometimes less than the coverage given to American affairs, and even less that the coverage of European affairs by certain non European media.

This "skimped information", he says, does not make it possible to understand what is happening to our immediate neighbours, while the public are not able to keep abreast of what is decided in Brussels. And, if they do not see the EU leaders, if they do not hear them, how do they identify with these leaders? "Without European persons in charge clearly known and recognised" there is no possibility of creating a European identity.

There you have the authentic Europhiliac speaking, but he does have a point. The coverage of EU affairs is dismal, and we share his complaint – most recently here and here. But, while Cayla thinks that better coverage would lead to the development of a European identity, we believe otherwise. Only once our population realises the extent to which our supreme government runs our affairs will opposition to the Union really take root.

But, as long as the media lives in its twilight world, ignoring the reality of where our government really lies, "Europe" will always remain a marginal concern.

Photo: EU Commission 2007.

COMMENT THREAD

A matter of perspective

Given all the breast-beating about street violence in the UK, it is interesting to see that the French authorities are congratulating themselves that the national sport of car burning seems to be under control.

This year, as part of the New Year "celebrations", only 372 cars were torched in the French banlieues, compared with 397 last year, with a mere 259 people arrested.

The "normal" marker is about 50 cars burned each and every weekend, although when there is something very special to celebrate, the tally goes up. On the night of the presidential elections in May, for instance, Muslim rioters set fire to 367 cars – slightly less than the New Year tally. To compensate, arrests were slightly higher at 270.

However, while the French tally seems to get special media attention, it is worth noting that, in the UK, "malicious car fires" seem to be as much of a problem. From about 40,000 in the year in 1996, the last available figures (2002) show a near doubling, to about 70,000 in the year, or close to 200 a day.

Considering how popular this sport has become, one wonders whether it should be included in the Olympics for 2012 - but there is absolutely no truth in the rumour that Renault are looking to sponsor the event.

COMMENT THREAD

Democracy ... but not for us

Several African commentators on last night's BBC Radio 4 World Tonight programme saw in the violent public response to Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki's theft of the election some cause for optimism.

With corruption in the electoral process so common in Africa, one noted that it had been just as prevalent in the recent elections in Nigeria, but the public reaction had been muted there. In Kenya, however, with the public and the opposition parties protesting volubly and openly, this was a good sign.

Much reliance, of course, has been placed on the EU election observers who have been quick to complain that the polls were doctored and that the electoral process lacked "transparency".

As with Pakistan, therefore, we have EU actors championing democracy for the people, against corrupt politicians. When it comes to the EU constitution Lisbon treaty, however, it seems that EU politicians are quite prepared to ignore the people and are going out of their way to avoid a popular vote.

One of our forum members makes the obvious comparison, which is hard to better. The only material difference between Kenya and the EU member states, it would seem, is that we are not rising up and slaughtering the ruling classes - yet.

COMMENT THREAD

The battle continues

My colleague has already wished our readers a happy new year but I thought I would add my own wishes and assurances that nothing much is going to change in one respect: neither of us intends to soften in approach either towards our enemies or, even more importantly, towards our self-appointed allies.

A happy and prosperous 2008 to all our readers. La lutta continua.

Slovenia rules OK!

Although it may not have fully registered in the claustrophobic bubble that represents our national politics, today and for the next six months we have a new head of government.

No, there has not been a coup in No. 10 – Gordon Brown is still the tenant - but he is only in charge of our provincial government. The titular head of our supreme government is now Janez Janša, prime minister of Slovenia (seen below with Hans-Gert Pöttering last month), the man who will chair the European Council and whose ministers and officials will guide the EU's business for the first half of the year, until France takes over.

To celebrate Slovenia's elevation, its government – as is the custom – has commissioned a presidency logo (above) which, it proudly tells us, "resembles an oak leaf, which reflects the solid, persistent, dependable character of Slovenes, a people who are cool under pressure and thoughtful in their decisions." The oak wood, we are informed, "represents high quality, as for example when used in wine barrels" and, on the other hand, "the logo is a combination of five classical elements – Fire, Earth, Air, Water and Ether."

Fire, so the blurb tells us, "is represented by the yellow shooting star in the middle that recalls the stars in the flag of the European Union. It represents the dynamism and energy of a young, modern country looking to the future and eager to face challenges. The fact that the star is 'in the arms' of Mt Triglav (the mountain outline at the top – the real thing is pictured below left) means that the EU is in safe hands under Slovenian leadership.

That the logo looks more like a headless (and armless), extremely jaundiced dead frog surrounded by squiggles, perhaps reflects our own jaundice, but there you go. One man's symbolism is another man's squiggle. Overall, says the Slovenian government, the logo conveys openness, movement, ambition and a sense of natural harmony – so it is not a dead frog after all.

Anyhow, this year – in case you didn't know - is also the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. Prime Minister Janez Janša warmly invites you to take part in events throughout Europe, to acknowledge Europe's cultural wealth, to listen to the message and to reflect on it. "If 2007 went down in history as the year of consensus," he says, "2008 should be remembered as the year of new impetus, new energy and synergy – si.nergy for Europe!"

If this is what "Europe" does to the brains of otherwise sensible (we assume) politicians, then the sooner the European Union is wrapped up for good the better – if for no other reason than to restore the mental health of its leaders.

However, in his debilitated mental state, Mr Janša heads the first former communist country to take charge of the EU, and his primary aim, according to The Times and others is the ending the "Yugoslav crisis" that led to its creation 16 years ago. This is the vexed question of the Kosovan declaration of independence and its putative application to join the EU. It will also have to deal with applications from Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina – and progress the tortured talks with Turkey over its membership.

The Times tells us that this country of two million people admits that it lacks the experience and personnel of bigger EU countries. It thus has been receiving advice and diplomatic support from France, the next in line for the presidency, leading to accusations that Sarkozy will control Europe's agenda for a full year. Others might ask, "what's new about that?"

Under Sarkozy's guidance, Slovenia will also be encouraging the other member states to ratify the EU constitution Lisbon treaty, to which effect it will "strive for this treaty to enter into force as soon as possible."

Conscious of the huge burden this imposes on such a small nation, Slovenia's bishops have sought divine intervention. They have composed a prayer for the presidency, asking the Virgin Mary to "inspire our politicians ... to make wise and honest decisions and care for the good of all."

There is a first time for everything, I suppose.

COMMENT THREAD

A statement of ...

I am now convinced that politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.

Groucho Marx

If that wasn't a statement of the bleedin' obvious, it would be our quote of the year.

Happy New Year!

Click the pic to make your wish come true! Happy New Year!

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