Category Archives: Europe

Europe, France, Government, Islamic State, Society, Terrorism

Europe and Islamist attacks

TERRORISM IN EUROPE

Intro: President François Hollande of France may think that declaring war on the extremists will shore up his own fragile political position

THE INSTINCTIVE RESPONSE on horrors such as those that have taken place in France and Germany in recent days is to look for a pattern, a narrative that might go some way to explain the inexplicable.

The brutal and bloody murder of an 86-year-old priest in Normandy invites such thinking, since it follows years of attacks on Christians in the Middle East: first by al-Qaeda and then by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Is radical Islam seeking a war with Christianity?

The very suggestion or notion of such a conflict between faiths would delight followers of ISIL, but it is hard to reconcile with that group’s dreadful persecution of fellow Muslims. ISIL has killed many more Muslims than it has Christians or Jews.

Or are the Islamists targeting Western liberal values more broadly, seeking to reinstate the Islamic Caliphate that once existed across the Middle East and parts of Southern Europe?

If so, that end has been poorly served by the enormity and mayhem in Normandy and Bavaria, lands that were never home to Muslims in the middle ages and which have only come to have Muslim residents as a result of those liberal Western values.

Seeking some kind of explanation for the evil that has been perpetrated is perfectly natural, but we should not impute too much calculation or design to those individuals who carry out such heinous crimes.

Whilst we may look for explanations the truth is there is no rationale or logic, nor any coherent argument in explaining away why Europe is suffering such appalling atrocities on its streets. These are the acts of inadequate and disturbed individuals with a nihilistic desire to destroy anything that challenges them and their ill-formed and warped idea of the world.

We must harden our defences against such acts, but we should be wary of the idea that those acts represent a clash of cultures – for that suggests some sort of parity between irrational extremist ideology on the one hand and a civilisation of shared traditions developed over thousands of years on the other.

President François Hollande of France may think that declaring war on the extremists will shore up his own fragile political position. Such a response, however, also risks validating the arguments of Marine Le Pen’s National Front (i.e. that the French establishment has failed to face up to the existential threat of terrorism).

Security and intelligence operations should be reviewed in the face of these latest attacks, particularly as the numerous intelligence agencies that operate in France are highly dysfunctional and disjointed. Great care must be taken not to dignify the attackers or their pathetic dreams of grandeur. They are murderers only deserving of contempt.

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Britain, Defence, Europe, Government, Military, NATO, Politics, United States

UK commits to defence spending of 2 per cent of GDP for next five years…

DEFENCE SPENDING

Britain has committed in meeting the NATO target of spending 2 per cent of national income on defence, the Chancellor announced in the Budget.

Military chiefs applauded the decision although there are fears of ‘creative accounting’ – because intelligence spending could be included in the figures.

The Commons foreign affairs committee chairman, Crispin Blunt, said: ‘The pledge to meet the NATO target of 2 per cent of GDP on defence is not quite as profound as it appears.

‘The Government is apparently changing the way they measure defence spending to meet this important target by including expenditure outside the MoD budget, including £2.5 billion on the secret intelligence agencies.’

The pledge will likely be welcomed both by NATO and the US, who have both voiced concerns about the importance of meeting this target.

Whilst welcoming the announcement Admiral Lord West warned: ‘If this is creative accounting I would be very disappointed.’

George Osborne said the Government would spend 2 per cent of GDP on the military every year of this decade and raise the defence budget by 0.5 per cent a year in real terms. Until now, ministers had not committed to spending at that level beyond the current financial year – prompting pressure from backbench MPs and military chiefs.

Mr Osborne said: ‘The Prime Minister and I are not prepared to see the threats we face to both our country and our values go unchallenged.

‘Britain has always been resolute in defence of liberty and the promotion of stability around the world. And with this government it will always remain so.’

The Chancellor announced a new fund, worth up to £1.5billion a year, which will be spent on intelligence items such as cyber security.

Recent figures released by NATO revealed that Britain is line to spend 2.1 per cent of national income on defence this year. But this includes all of the £1billion cross-departmental fund known as the Conflict Pool, which is used to support fragile and war-torn states rather than military operations.

The UK is just one of four of NATO’s 28 member states who currently meet the 2% target and last month the U.S. called for billions more to be spent citing the situation in the Balkans. ‘I think it’s clearly the view at NATO that the Ukraine situation has been a game-changer,’ said Robert Bell, the U.S. secretary of defence representative in Europe.

NATO announced in June that it would be ‘naming and shaming’ the Western European countries which failed to spend more than 2% of their gross domestic product on defence, at the same time that US President Barack Obama expressed his concerns at the G7 summit that UK spending would fall.

The 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review which is taking place this year will review the threats facing Britain and its ability to tackle them. Writing in a British newspaper last month, defence secretary Michael Fallon said that the review will ‘be positive and assertive about Britain’s place in the world: ready, willing and able to act to defend our values as we always have done.’

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Economic, Europe, European Parliament, European Union, Government, Politics, United States

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is proving controversial…

TTIP

Simmering tensions have surfaced within the European Parliament over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Simmering tensions have surfaced within the European Parliament over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Tensions have surfaced in the European Parliament over what could become the world’s biggest trade deal between Europe and the United States.

Jeering, booing and slow clapping were heard in the Strasbourg chamber after the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) was suspended.

Members of the public have also been protesting against the deal, fearing it will hand more power to large corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is a free trade deal between the United States and Europe that has been under negotiation for almost two years. An agreement would see the dawn of the world’s biggest free trade zone, shaping the rules governing a quarter of all global trade.

It aims to cut red tape, making it easier to import and export goods, as well as to invest and set up new businesses abroad. The European Commission predicts that it would boost the size of the EU economy by €120bn and the US economy by €95bn by 2027. Supporters of the deal say these savings would filter back to individuals, who would also benefit from cheaper goods and greater choice.

Critics fear, however, that it will undermine democracy in Europe and the US by favouring the rights of large corporations and preventing governments from regulating in the public interest. The Corporate Europe Observatory, a research and campaign group, claims that 92 per cent of 560 lobby encounters with the commission have come from private sector companies, while just four per cent have come from public interest groups.

Campaigners in Europe think EU regulations on areas such as food safety, employment rights and the environment could be watered down. ‘TTIP is a huge threat to hard-fought-for standards for the quality and safety of our food, the sources of our energy, workers’ rights and our privacy,’ says a Green Party spokesperson. For example, it fears that by harmonising food standards, the UK would be forced to allow chemically washed poultry, livestock treated with growth hormones, and genetically modified crops – which are all allowed in the US. More than two million people have signed an online petition against the deal, describing it as a ‘threat to democracy, the environment, consumers and labour standards’.

Opponents say the guarantee of market access effectively outlaws state monopolies, which could pose a risk to government-run services such as the NHS. Critics have serious concerns about transparency and a clause called the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), which they claim would allow corporations to sue governments in private. 38 Degrees, an activist group campaigning against the deal, says its details are being ‘worked out in secret’ and will allow big corporations to take governments to court behind closed doors.

EU officials behind the negotiations insist TTIP would uphold current EU standards and leave governments free to run public services as they wish. Negotiators are being ‘as transparent as possible’ and have published fact sheets explaining every chapter of the TTIP, they say. Negotiators also want to tighten up existing ISDS regulation for settling disputes between foreign firms and governments, with public access to hearings. But judging by the ongoing campaigns against TTIP, it appears many don’t entirely trust the EU’s claims.

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