Merkel vs. Leterme

Who are these two? The first one is obvious. Angela Merkel is chancellor of the Federal German Republic and one of the most prominent politiciens in today's Europe. The second is perhaps a bit harder. Would you like to guess? No clue? Let me give you a hint; his name is Yves Leterme. Did that help you? No? Well, he is actually the current Prime minister of the Kingdom of Belgium. Yes, Belgium does have a government and a Prime minister at the moment, but he's not much to brag about. Belgium isn't what it used to be, with strong tensions between the two main communities and ever-reoccuring government crises. On top of this the PM knows neither why they celebrate their national holiday noor their national anthem - he thinks its La Marseillaise.

So why do I even bother to compare the wannebe-head of government of a country falling apart with the leader of the economic engine of Europe? As mentioned in earlier posts, Merkel was to hold the opening speech her at the College of Europe some weeks ago, but the financial crisis forced her to cancel. The other day her replacement was announced. The official opening of the academic year will take place on the 18th of November, just a week before the exams start, and the opening speech will be held by no-one but...Yves Leterme.

Fall in Bruges

It hit me the moment I step out on the street this morning, fall has finally arrived in Bruges. The sky was clear-clear blue and the air crisp. A slight morning fog was still hanging on, with the tower on Markt, the main square, being a bit unclear. The canals still hold a decent temperature, with vapour playing over the surface and rising to the sky. It was, in all, a pleasent October morning.

McCain and the hockey mom

A week from now it will all be over. After two years of campaigning, some billion dollars spent and quite a few egoes crushed, the next American president will be chosen. Initially I hoped for Mitt Romney, a good old fashion fiscal conservative. His mormon background was perhaps not perfect, but he had shown pragmatism earlier and seemed like the best of the bunch. When it finally came down to McCain vs Obama, the choice for me was easy. Usually an Ivy league liberal elitist would knock out an ex-fighter pilot, but had I been American I would have voted for the Arizona senator. On the one side was an Illinois junior senator with only a very few years in national politics. He talked about change, but as a cynic I found it hard to believe him. He preaches bipartisanship but has the most left-wing voting track record in the Senate. I simply can't believe him. On the other side was the Republican mavrick. The Straight Talk Express. A long time senator how had demonstrated the need for international cooperation, who from his own experience knew torture and therefor strongly opposed it, who had shown a realistic and responsible view on US foreign policy and who was known for his bipartisanship in the US Senate. Easy choice. Easy choice until either McCain (A) showed a complete lack of judgement or(/and) (B) gave in to the fundamentalist Christian right in his party and chose the novice Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. There's a Facebook group called I have more Foreign Policy Experience than Sarah Palin and it has currently over 250.000 members. Although I have some doubts with regards to all 250.000 being more experienced with foreign policy than Ms Palin, I doubt it would be hard to find 250.000 who actually does.
As I said in the beguinning, the choice was simple at first, but the thought of the Alaskan born-again hockey mom as leader of the Free World has led me to reconsider.

My civic student duty

In a country far away from civilization, between mountains and fjords, cursed with everlasting autumn rain there is a polity, a cité, a town, no, a city, a compressed continental urbanity in the middle of the widerness. This becon of light in the night of barbarity has a name, and its name is Bergen, and in Bergen there's a hill and on the hill there is an ivory tower and the tower has a name and its name is the University of Bergen.
Until only a few months ago I myself spent most of my days in this ivory tower, and among my many activities where also an active participation in the governing of the tower. In other words, I was a conservative student politician.
When I first came to the University three years ago the Student Council was run by a radical left-wing coalition, and so it lasted for my first two years until finally a year ago a pragmatic centre-right coalition won a majority and came to power. Why this history lecture? Today, not long ago, I preformed my civic student duty and once again vote for the conservative Blue List for the Student Council. My hopes are with them and I feel confident that they again will remain in office.

- English is enough!

The Norwegian government, it all its wisdom and understanding of tomorrow's challenges has come to the conclusion that pupils in secondary education only need to learn one foreign language, english. The fact that our economy relies heavily on trade and that our major trading partners are not english speaking countries, but the European mainland is of cource irrelevant in this context. After all, being able to speak the mother tounge of your partner has never been an adventage in business. Further more, as we all know, for Norwegian interest groups going to Brussels speaking mediocre english is all you need to convince an Austrian or Italian or Slovak or Portugese eurocrat. No, I'm truly glad to see that my beloved government has realised the uselessness of learning german, the language of our main trading partner on the Continent and the language of the country from which most of our cultural impulses has come from. I'm glad today's teenagers and tomorrow's leaders, workers, whitecollars, don't have to learn french, the language of international politics, the language of reason and the language of love. It thrills me to learn that twenty years from now the fight for lingual pluralism will be over and all we'll have left are business executives speaking like Thor Heyerdal and only like Thor Heyerdal.

Negociating, or the art of insulting politely

In these days norwegian negociators sit in Brussels face to face with their EU counterparts to renegociate the EEA-treaty that gives Norway (and other major EFTA-countries such as Iceland and Lichtenstein) access to the European inner market. Also today here in Bruges is a workshop in negociation skills organised by the College. Apart from the obvious one, what do these two events have in common? Allow me to put it like this: All english-native speakers or at native level were told they didn't have to participate. The workshop wasn't about negociation techniques, but about language, or in other words who to insult without being insulting, which is pretty much what goes on between the norwegian and EU negociators in Brussels. There the EU wants Norway to pay some extra billion euros a year into the EU financial chest, knowing very well that no matter what sum they may propose, even in these days, the money exists and Norway won't suffer, whilst the norwegians have to make it sound plausable that Norway pays enough already and that there are limits for a what is reasonable to ask for. To summerize, the EU negociators have to tell the norwegians that they're not showing solidarity with the poor eastern-european countries and that they're nothing but a bunch of over-wealthy hillbillies that where soo lucky that they happened to find oil, whilst the norwegians have to explain that the people on the Continent have themselves to thank and that eastern Europe's poverty is non of our responsibility. And whilst doing this, both parties have to remain polite. Hence, the art of negociating.

Norwegian cabinet minister threatens to veto Bolkestein

Ms Liv Signe Navarsete, leader of the Norwegian agrarian Centre Party and cabinet minister in Norway's centre-left government, threatens to use Norway's veto power against the Bolkestein directive. Apparently meassures that would make it easier for businesses to survive and for workers to find jobs are not what we need at this point in the middle of the financial crisis. The fear of so-called social dumping and the threat of the Polish plumber are too big. However, Mr Jonas Gahr Store (Labour), the Minister of foreign affairs, is a fairly wise man who understands the implications of Norway refusing to implement the aqui communautaire, so it'll probably be with the big words from Ms Navarsete. Nevertheless, why not veto and see what happenes? If the EU is clever they'll severly sanction Norway and the Norwegian population will finally understand the implications of being on the outside.

Friday night blues

It's Friday night and the we the poor students of the College are about to switch over to week-end mode. For most others that means sleeping until mid-day, having looooong breakfasts and generally relaxing before a new week beguins on monday. For us, however, it just means a bit fewer classes, partying, essay writing and researching for whatever presentation or debate we might have in one of the following days. It's 7.30 pm and I've just come from dinner. Some will spend their night working while others having slightly more time, myself included, will actually relax tonight. It's Friday night and tomorrow's a day like every other day in the week.

Bodies moving in harmony

There's nothing as beautiful as two bodies moving in harmony. However, when some 40 twentysomethings from all over Europe, some of them from unrythmic countries like Germany, Belgium or Norway, try to learn how to dance salsa, bodies moving in harmony isn't the first things that would strike your mind. You take a look at the southerners and you see that the rythm comes to them automatically. They don't care that much about having the right posture or doing the right steps. After all, it looks good anyway. Then you look at the northeners. They have no rythm at all, they suffer from permanent body stiffness and they do their absolute best to follow the steps of the instructor, but quite frankly a cow moving sideways is more gracious.
It's tempting to draw lines to behaviour in general, with germanics obsessed with doing things correctly whilst the romanics care more about appearens and thus slides through. However, such generalisations are not very polite, and thus I will not.
On the other hand, as we supposedly are destined to govern Brussels in twenty years time, hopefully having seen oneanother trip in our own legs will make us more sympathetic when we make gaffes in real life. If our bodies can't move in harmony, let's hope the same won't be the case for our minds and hearts.

The financal crises as we experience it in Bruges

We read about the financial crisis here, we discuss it, we laugh about it, and between us the Norvegians we joke about buying Iceland, but all in all it doesn't have much of an inpact on our lifes. That is, it didn't until last week. Last week we were supposed to have the grand opening here at the college, with prominent guests including ambassadors, ministers and not at least the German chancelor Angela Merkel as our opening speaker. Those who have an acceptable amount of understanding of international politics know that Germany is a fairly important country, especially when it comes to European economics, and that the German chancellor has a bit of a saying in Germany. With this as our foundations, we all looked forward to listen to Ms Merkel holding the opening speech. Alas, our optimism was ruined. On Tuesday morning, as we enjoyed a cup of coffee between our readings, the message came that the opening the same night was cancelled. Reason: Ms Merkel had to attend an extra-ordinary session in the Bundestag because of the crisis. Jean Monnet, François Mitterand, Juan Carlos, Jaque Delors, Margeret Thatcher, they are but a few of the prominent personalities who have held the opening speech, but Angela Merkel, because the Dow Jones, the CAC 40 and the DAX all fell a few points, decided to prioritize German domestic politicians over the future leaders in Brussels. I guess that's the price we pay for being otherwise untouched. However, Ms Merkel, 20 years from now, it's payback time, and it's your country who'll pay.