We have been thinking about the future of the supranational European Union (see also Oxford Scholarship Online).
Let us apply some Madison Avenue thinking along the lines of ("We are the World") to that question.
The European Union is a Political Product for a Multicultural Audience in a Supranational Setting
In many ways, the European Union is a political product which has to be "sold" to its multicultural, supranational consumers of 25 nations. It is a political union which has to be made both understandable and palatable to its constituents, otherwise, as the German proverb states "Was der Bauer nicht kennt, das isst er nicht" (What the farmer doesn't know, he doesn't eat). As noted concerning the French "no" vote on the EU Constitution by the World Socialist Web Site:
"The division between the camps was along social lines. Three-quarters of blue-collar and two-thirds of white-collar workers, as well as the majority of small farmers and rural workers, voted “no.” "
Obviously, the farmers and those of the same mentality were rejecting that which they did not know. In France, one must clearly make the politics as palatable as the food, no easy task.
Although not everyone likes to look at this matter as a non-political issue, all political groupings, even nations, are consumer products to be accepted or rejected by the voters. Pure democracy is politically capitalistic, culminating in the philosophy of "one man, one vote". Each voter in a democracy is in a position to vote for the political product he chooses.
What makes a political product desirable? and why is the European Union having so much trouble keeping their flock of sheep together, or is even failing at achieving such an objective as the ratification of a European Constitution which more or less codifies laws already in force. Obviously, the EU is doing something wrong. What should they be doing right?
Google Worldwide as an Example for Successful Supranational Marketing
Here, as an example, we thought of Google (started by Stanford students), which in the last analysis, is also "a product" to be consumed. After all, there are many alternative search engines. What makes Google so successful?
In many ways, Google's success was highly improbable. Before Google came on the market, there were already some very good search engines available, e.g. AlltheWeb, originally powered by Fast, which we still have installed at InternetLawWeb, and which still gives excellent search results. Prior to that the web had and in some part still has Excite (started by Stanford students), Yahoo (started by Stanford students), WebCrawler, GoTo (later Overture, purchased by Yahoo), Lycos, HotBot, Ask Jeeves, and AltaVista (we still use their translator). And there are also many newbies such as MSN Search, LookSmart, Teoma, Clusty, and IceRocket.
So how did Google, which was only started in 1999, become such a powerhouse in only six years? By Madison Avenue standards, where successful - and always risky - new product placement requires millions of dollars of advertising, this achievement was awesome.
Kim Peterson, Seattle Times technology reporter, has a superb article "How 'search' is redefining the Web — and our lives" in which he writes:
"Clean, simple, inviting
Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., hit the $1 billion quarterly sales mark in 2004, just five years after its official launch. Its search engine won fans immediately upon debut because it served up relevant results in fractions of a second and had the minimalist appeal of white hotel sheets — clean, simple and inviting. Google's vault into the spotlight was perfectly timed to two important events: Mainstream users began discovering search, and competitors, distracted by the dot-com bust, lost their focus on quality.
Other search engines stopped improving their results, and the blinking and sparkling banner ads on their Web sites screamed for too much attention. Google produced answers fast, showing some unobtrusive ads along the way. That wasn't a bad tradeoff for users.
"We were finding things before Google came along, but they definitely raised the bar and raised the expectations of what we could get out of search," said Sullivan at Search Engine Watch. "They made it more manageable."
Google is the most popular engine today, home to 35 percent of Web searches. It receives hundreds of millions of requests every day, and studies them so thoroughly that it puts out a regular update of user patterns...."
Clean, simple, inviting
If we look carefully at Peterson's article, we see his description of Google's success as based on making their product "clean, simple and inviting" to everyone (at last count, 116 different language interfaces).
In contrast, the European Union is not viewed as clean, simple, and inviting but is rather viewed as formidable and complex, precisely the opposite of the image that it needs to have in order to win over its constituents.
This is doable, since the prevailing image of the EU held by the ordinary citizen is absolutely false. The European Union bureaucracy is in fact quite modest in size.
The total employees of the European Commission - the main EU employer - number about 24000.
This is much less than the student body of many college campuses at universities in the United States, e.g. Arizona State University(38117), University of Texas (36473), Ohio State University (36097), University of Florida (33094), Purdue (30391), UCLA (24946), University of Michigan (24677). These are just the number of undergraduate students, not even including the graduate students.
Consider also that the German Pension Insurance Association (Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund) has 53000 employees, more than twice as many as the entire European Commission.
The Department of Work and Pensions in the United Kingdom numbers more than 100000, many of those in the Pension Service, more than four times the number of persons employed by the European Commission.
The French pension authority employs 35900 persons (La Caisse des Dépôts emploie 35 900 personnes), about 10000 more than the European Commission.
As written in Newsweek some years ago:
"Brussels's budget is just more than 1 percent of the EU's total GNP. Moravcsik points out that once you exclude translators and clerical workers, the European Commission employs 2,500 officials, "fewer than any moderately sized European city and less than 1 percent of the number employed by the French state alone." Any new law it wishes to pass needs more than 71 percent of weighted national-government votes--"a larger proportion than that required to amend the American Constitution." "
Not only is the budget of the European Union smaller than most persons imagine, but a majority of that budget goes right back into the pockets of European citizens, for example, through agricultural subsidies, which have historically made up about 50% of the EU budget.
As can be seen from the chart at page 34 of European Public Finances: Much Ado About Nothing?, by Lars P. Feld of the University of Marburg, net budget-induced gains or losses, as judged by each EU country, are next to negligible.
In the same vein, it is disturbing to read misleading news reports about, for example, a "massive" translation department which in fact consists only of an overworked 1600 Brussels-based translators, and outside agencies, who, rather than being a burden to Europe, are actually playing a significant role in maintaining the importance of the languages of the countries of Europe. Perhaps those who criticize the translation expense in the EU should be the first to volunteer "their" language to be excluded from EU translation....
How could this exaggeratedly false view of European Union institutions have come about?
Understandably, the institutions of the European Union have worked hard in the past to project themselves as big and powerful. Although this image projection was perhaps necessary in initial years to establish EU institutions, especially since Member States retain a great deal of their sovereignty, perhaps these institutions have been too successful in projecting this big image. What is now perhaps required is the creation of a more positive image in the minds of European citizens that the EU is not going to steamroller them by means of a giant bureaucracy, a giant bureaucracy that simply does not exist.
The reality is that the European Commission, which does the brunt of the work of the European Union, is smaller than the student enrollment at many an American university and smaller than the government pension services in each of France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Lastly, a false image about the European Union is created by a European Constitution which is simply too verbose, inclusive and unnecessarily complex. The original US Constitution was 4 pages of written text including only the most essential elements of government, whereas the EU Constitution runs 485 pages in the official .pdf version, including masses of detail having no place in such a document.
Clean, simple and inviting. These are perhaps the major characteristics which should mark a re-marketing of the European Union to its constituents.
Crossposted to LawPundit.
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Sunday, December 18, 2005
Saturday, December 17, 2005
EU Treaty Links at EUR-Lex and EULegal.Org Link Updates
The URLs of websites of the European Union and its institutions are in a constant state of flux, which has required us to substantially update our European Union links at EULegal.Org, our website on "European Law, Policy and Institutions." These links should now all be operational, but please inform us in the future if you find a dead link at the EULegal.Org website.
We might also note that the EUR-Lex link page for EU treaties is currently unsatisfactory in our view because some references are not to the commonly used names for the treaties. These commonly used names usually include the place at which a treaty was signed, e.g. Maastricht Treaty. The EUR-Lex links give official names of treaties only, i.e. rather than Maastricht Treaty they use Treaty on European Union, a linking practice which makes finding and use of the treaties difficult for anyone not thoroughly familiar with the subject matter, especially since the press generally uses "Maastricht Treaty".
Hence, in addition to linking to the EU treaty link page, we also link at EULegal.Org to the MCE European NAvigator ENA, which lists treaty links both by their official names as well as their place of signing. Hence, ENA lists "Treaty on European Union (Maastricht, 7 February 1992)" whereas EUR-Lex has only "Treaty on European Union (consolidated text) Official Journal C 325 of 24 December 2002".
Moreover, the Official Journal date above applies to the consolidated version of the treaty, which has no force of law because no one has signed these consolidations as treaties. It is the original - unconsolidated and signed - treaty per se, which is the actual "legislation in force". The Official Journal date in the link to the consolidated version of the treaty could thus be misleading to users, since the original Maastricht Treaty was already published earlier in the Official Journal on July 29, 1992, a fact which one discovers at the EU site only by clicking further to the website page on "Founding Treaties". We think it would be advisable for the EU to list all of these treaties on one page and with complete identifying information for each treaty to avoid this kind of potential confusion. The current way of linking presumes knowledge of the treaties on the part of the user, but this knowledge may often be lacking.
Moreover, the operative dates for treaties are not the dates at which they appear in the Official Journal but rather the dates on which they were signed and on which they took effect. When one clicks to a particular treaty in ENA, these dates are then appropriately given at the bottom of the page, for example, in the instant case:
"Caption
The Treaty on European Union is signed on 7 February 1992 in Maastricht and enters into force on 1 November 1993.
Source
"Treaty on European Union", dans Official Journal of the European Communities (OJEC). 29.07.1992, n° C 191, p. 1."
To access the links to these European treaties at ENA, click on "European Union" in the left menu column of the ENA website home page. A list of the treaties then appears under "Synopsis".
Crossposted to LawPundit.
.
We might also note that the EUR-Lex link page for EU treaties is currently unsatisfactory in our view because some references are not to the commonly used names for the treaties. These commonly used names usually include the place at which a treaty was signed, e.g. Maastricht Treaty. The EUR-Lex links give official names of treaties only, i.e. rather than Maastricht Treaty they use Treaty on European Union, a linking practice which makes finding and use of the treaties difficult for anyone not thoroughly familiar with the subject matter, especially since the press generally uses "Maastricht Treaty".
Hence, in addition to linking to the EU treaty link page, we also link at EULegal.Org to the MCE European NAvigator ENA, which lists treaty links both by their official names as well as their place of signing. Hence, ENA lists "Treaty on European Union (Maastricht, 7 February 1992)" whereas EUR-Lex has only "Treaty on European Union (consolidated text) Official Journal C 325 of 24 December 2002".
Moreover, the Official Journal date above applies to the consolidated version of the treaty, which has no force of law because no one has signed these consolidations as treaties. It is the original - unconsolidated and signed - treaty per se, which is the actual "legislation in force". The Official Journal date in the link to the consolidated version of the treaty could thus be misleading to users, since the original Maastricht Treaty was already published earlier in the Official Journal on July 29, 1992, a fact which one discovers at the EU site only by clicking further to the website page on "Founding Treaties". We think it would be advisable for the EU to list all of these treaties on one page and with complete identifying information for each treaty to avoid this kind of potential confusion. The current way of linking presumes knowledge of the treaties on the part of the user, but this knowledge may often be lacking.
Moreover, the operative dates for treaties are not the dates at which they appear in the Official Journal but rather the dates on which they were signed and on which they took effect. When one clicks to a particular treaty in ENA, these dates are then appropriately given at the bottom of the page, for example, in the instant case:
"Caption
The Treaty on European Union is signed on 7 February 1992 in Maastricht and enters into force on 1 November 1993.
Source
"Treaty on European Union", dans Official Journal of the European Communities (OJEC). 29.07.1992, n° C 191, p. 1."
To access the links to these European treaties at ENA, click on "European Union" in the left menu column of the ENA website home page. A list of the treaties then appears under "Synopsis".
Crossposted to LawPundit.
.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
.eu Domain Launches and Raises Questions
The European Union's new .eu domain launched on December 7, 2005. As reported by Lucia Kubosova at EUobserver, EURid reported that 40,500 applications were received in the first 15 minutes of launch and over 100,000 had been received by evening of the first day.
Business applications were highest for internet names such as hotels.eu, tickets.eu and job.eu although over 200 applicants also filed for the domain sex.eu.
The assignment of these types of generically named domains is tantamount to a license to print money and we think it would actually be more sensible for the EU to retain these domains for use by non-profits or for EU government use.
Generic names such as hotel.eu, hotels.eu or travel.eu, which cover an entire business field and to which no private business should actually have any priority of access, should be awarded to the major non-profit associations or consumer protection organizations dealing with these subjects in Europe.
sex.eu should be used as a site for sex education or should be awarded to a consumer protection organization dealing with sex sites on the internet, rather than to give it to some private sex website who will make millions just because of having this domain name.
Indeed, the EU has the power to set some new sensible precedents here in the assignment of domain names, especially for those generic "business" domains which are claimed by multiple parties.
We would adopt an internal rule at EURid that generically named sites which are claimed in the "sunrise periods" by more than one party and to which no unique EU trademark priority exists would automatically be reserved for official EU or non-profit use.
Of course, once the "sunrise periods" are over, domains should be assigned on a first come, first served basis, as long as trademarks are not violated, but that is a different question.
Cross-posted to LawPundit.
Business applications were highest for internet names such as hotels.eu, tickets.eu and job.eu although over 200 applicants also filed for the domain sex.eu.
The assignment of these types of generically named domains is tantamount to a license to print money and we think it would actually be more sensible for the EU to retain these domains for use by non-profits or for EU government use.
Generic names such as hotel.eu, hotels.eu or travel.eu, which cover an entire business field and to which no private business should actually have any priority of access, should be awarded to the major non-profit associations or consumer protection organizations dealing with these subjects in Europe.
sex.eu should be used as a site for sex education or should be awarded to a consumer protection organization dealing with sex sites on the internet, rather than to give it to some private sex website who will make millions just because of having this domain name.
Indeed, the EU has the power to set some new sensible precedents here in the assignment of domain names, especially for those generic "business" domains which are claimed by multiple parties.
We would adopt an internal rule at EURid that generically named sites which are claimed in the "sunrise periods" by more than one party and to which no unique EU trademark priority exists would automatically be reserved for official EU or non-profit use.
Of course, once the "sunrise periods" are over, domains should be assigned on a first come, first served basis, as long as trademarks are not violated, but that is a different question.
Cross-posted to LawPundit.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
European Voice EV50 Europeans of the Year Awards 2005
EV50, the Annual Awards of the European Voice (a publication of the Economist Group) were announced on November 29, 2005 at a gala dinner in Brussels.
The 2005 Winners as EV50 Europeans of the Year are:
Commissioner of the Year: Dalia Grybauskaite
[Lithuanian Head of the EU Budget]
For her unrelenting efforts to shift EU spending towards areas that would enhance competitiveness such as research and development
MEP of the Year: Michel Rocard
[French Socialist MEP]
For turning the software patent directive into a fascinating debate about the future of technological innovation
Statesman of the Year: Aleksander Kwasniewski
[President of Poland]
For his role in ensuring that Ukraine’s Orange revolution remained peaceful
Diplomat of the Year: Martti Ahtisaari
[Former President of Finland]
For mediating talks between the government and rebels in Indonesia, which brought about a ceasefire after 30 years of conflict
Campaigner of the Year: Florian Müller
[Nosoftwarepatents.com]
For leading a campaign against the software patents directive, killing off the proposal
(Mueller afterwards declined the award)
He said: "My greatest concern was that by declining the EU Campaigner of the the Year award, I would disappoint the many who have supported our tremendously impactful Internet campaign for votes."
I supported Mueller and I think that this was not the right thing for him to do. If he intended not to accept his reward, he should have stated so in advance, not after the fact. You have to work within the system as much as possible to make desired changes. Perhaps he was disappointed at not being voted "European of the Year". Sometimes victories are not complete, but they are better than losses. And when you win, you act like a winner, not as a loser. Still, we thank Mueller for his campaigning efforts.
Business Leader of the Year: Carlos Ghosn
[CEO of Renault]
For his success at Nissan which has brought him the top job at Renault
Journalist of the Year: Anna Marszalek
[Rzeczpospolita]
For her persistent investigations, which have exposed huge corruption scandals in Poland
Achiever of the Year: Ian Tomlinson
[Cancer Research UK]
For the Cancergenes project to identify genes that reveal a predisposition to types of cancer
Non-EU citizen of the Year: Viktor Yushchenko
[President of the Ukraine]
For turning Ukraine towards the West and fighting to stem out corruption to stay faithful to the country’s Orange revolution
see also Ukraine
European of the Year: Jean-Claude Juncker
[Prime Minister of Luxembourg]
For securing a 'yes' vote from his citizens after voters in France and the Netherlands had rejected the EU constitution
The 2005 Winners as EV50 Europeans of the Year are:
Commissioner of the Year: Dalia Grybauskaite
[Lithuanian Head of the EU Budget]
For her unrelenting efforts to shift EU spending towards areas that would enhance competitiveness such as research and development
MEP of the Year: Michel Rocard
[French Socialist MEP]
For turning the software patent directive into a fascinating debate about the future of technological innovation
Statesman of the Year: Aleksander Kwasniewski
[President of Poland]
For his role in ensuring that Ukraine’s Orange revolution remained peaceful
Diplomat of the Year: Martti Ahtisaari
[Former President of Finland]
For mediating talks between the government and rebels in Indonesia, which brought about a ceasefire after 30 years of conflict
Campaigner of the Year: Florian Müller
[Nosoftwarepatents.com]
For leading a campaign against the software patents directive, killing off the proposal
(Mueller afterwards declined the award)
He said: "My greatest concern was that by declining the EU Campaigner of the the Year award, I would disappoint the many who have supported our tremendously impactful Internet campaign for votes."
I supported Mueller and I think that this was not the right thing for him to do. If he intended not to accept his reward, he should have stated so in advance, not after the fact. You have to work within the system as much as possible to make desired changes. Perhaps he was disappointed at not being voted "European of the Year". Sometimes victories are not complete, but they are better than losses. And when you win, you act like a winner, not as a loser. Still, we thank Mueller for his campaigning efforts.
Business Leader of the Year: Carlos Ghosn
[CEO of Renault]
For his success at Nissan which has brought him the top job at Renault
Journalist of the Year: Anna Marszalek
[Rzeczpospolita]
For her persistent investigations, which have exposed huge corruption scandals in Poland
Achiever of the Year: Ian Tomlinson
[Cancer Research UK]
For the Cancergenes project to identify genes that reveal a predisposition to types of cancer
Non-EU citizen of the Year: Viktor Yushchenko
[President of the Ukraine]
For turning Ukraine towards the West and fighting to stem out corruption to stay faithful to the country’s Orange revolution
see also Ukraine
European of the Year: Jean-Claude Juncker
[Prime Minister of Luxembourg]
For securing a 'yes' vote from his citizens after voters in France and the Netherlands had rejected the EU constitution
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Angela Merkel - The New German Chancellor
Germany suffered tremendously under past German Chancellor Schröder's inept administration. Schröder's anti-capitalist and anti-Anglo-Saxon foreign policy led not only to a greatly diminished significance of Germany on the international scene but also severely damaged the German economy. Schröder's relationship to the European Commission was also icy.
Schroeder made many enemies, and few allies. German-American relations are at an all time low and German unemployment is at an all time high. Schröder's flawed policies are contributorily responsible for these - closely related - developments. We can think of nothing that is better in Germany due to the Red/Green Schroeder era - quite the contrary, everything is worse. "Goodbye Schröder" is great news.
His replacement is new German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the first female Chancellor in German history, who takes office supported by an emergency "grand coalition" of Germany's two largest political parties, the conservative CDU/CSU and the socialist SPD.
Whereas Schroeder was a man who possessed many of the talents necessary to be elected Chancellor and almost none of the talents required to actually be Chancellor effectively, Merkel is nearly the exact opposite. Schröder was what the Germans call a "Blender" (all show but no go, i.e. someone who "blinds" to the realities), whereas Merkel is definitely more understatement. However, she probably possesses the leadership qualities necessary to exercise her office with great competence, which Schröder did not. That at least is our assessment of her qualifications. But she is not and can not be a German Maggie Thatcher (read Clay Risen at Slate for a superb background article). Her impact will be strong, but different.
Wolfgang Munchau of the Free Republic, November 21, 2005, has perspicaciously analyzed recent developments under the title "Schröder's legacy will haunt Merkel".
We are not as pessimistic as Munchau, who writes that Merkel may not make a big difference. Rather, we see signs of dynamic change in the offing for Germany.
As reported by Dan Bilefsky and Judy Dempsey in the November 24, 2005, International Herald Tribune, Merkel made two initial visits in her first 24 hours as Chancellor, to Paris and to Brussels. Her visit to Paris was made to emphasize the necessity of pragmatic German-French relations in Europe. On her visit to Brussels, her first stop was NATO headquarters, where Merkel assured NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer that German foreign policy would again be based on a firm transatlantic relationship, a transatlantic relationship nearly destroyed by Schröder.
Merkel then visited the European Parliament to be greeted by hundreds shouting "Angie". Thereafter she went to the offices of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium and afterwards talked with José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, surely attempting to mend fences. As Munchau writes:
"Domestic [German] politicians such as Mr Schröder have often portrayed the European Commission as an institution infested with Anglo-Saxon libertarian zealots who are out to destroy German industry."
Under Merkel, it is quite clear that German relations to the powerful European Commission will be normalized. The IHT quotes Merkel as reaffirming her position that Europe must focus on economic reform:
"so that in a globalized world we can keep up and be competitive."
Merkel also called on the EU to revive the EU Constitution.
As for French-German relations, Chirac is quoted as saying that "Europe is a bit like a car with a broken part".
The IHT writes on the Franco-German relationship:
"Merkel's advisers said the relationship between Berlin and Paris was no longer serving the interests of European integration and instead was becoming a relic of historical reminiscences and symbols."
In this regard, Karl-Heinz Kamp of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation is quoted as saying that:
"Merkel is not into symbols for the sake of symbols that characterized the Franco-German relationship. She wants it to be based on the issues."
A Chancellor who bases her policy on the issues is going to be successful. That is what successful leadership is all about - because leaders set the direction of movement. If the direction is correct, success will inevitably follow.
Clay Risen at Slate quotes Götz Aly at the online Opinion Journal of the Wall Street Journal:
"If Angela Merkel succeeds … the Federal Republic should see changes more radical than any since 1949."
Germany must change significantly to meet the demands of the modern age and that change can only be initiated at the top.
As Aly writes:
"A state that spends 48% of its budget on social-welfare entitlements and 14% on interest payments on a growing mountain of debt, and can only invest 11% in modernizing infrastructure, has long since lost its ability to act. It is bankrupt. Any company that behaved this way would rightly be liable for fraudulent avoidance of bankruptcy under German law. An economy that requires at least half the hourly wage to be paid over to the government in the form of taxes and entitlements, and on top of that significant consumer and corporate taxes, is no longer competitive."
Now we can put the previous quoted sentence into perspective as Aly writes further:
"If Angela Merkel succeeds in winning office at the September elections and, against great resistance in her own party, in remaining true to herself, the Federal Republic should see changes more radical than any since 1949. As a physicist, she knows that the relationship between cause and effect cannot be simply wished away. Her most formative experiences came during communist East Germany's collapse. She has seen what happens when a country uses up its material basis, when it sinks into social and national stagnation while a regime of lies plays on, like the band on the Titanic. Most influential German politicians spent their youth, student years and early careers in the fat boom years of the old republic on the Rhine. Ms. Merkel likes to tell them, even those in her own [very conservative] party, "You have no idea how socialist you are.""
In the end, the most socialistic position is still "survival for everyone". To achieve that end, Germany will have to change and we think it will change significantly, even though Merkel must function in a coalition government with the normally opposition socialists. The fact that the socialists have entered into this coalition at all clearly evidences their "will for survival". If that same will for survival is applied to the Germany which they lead, then their policies must also change.
That is why we think that significant reforms will now be made under the Merkel administration, coalition government notwithstanding.
.
Schroeder made many enemies, and few allies. German-American relations are at an all time low and German unemployment is at an all time high. Schröder's flawed policies are contributorily responsible for these - closely related - developments. We can think of nothing that is better in Germany due to the Red/Green Schroeder era - quite the contrary, everything is worse. "Goodbye Schröder" is great news.
His replacement is new German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the first female Chancellor in German history, who takes office supported by an emergency "grand coalition" of Germany's two largest political parties, the conservative CDU/CSU and the socialist SPD.
Whereas Schroeder was a man who possessed many of the talents necessary to be elected Chancellor and almost none of the talents required to actually be Chancellor effectively, Merkel is nearly the exact opposite. Schröder was what the Germans call a "Blender" (all show but no go, i.e. someone who "blinds" to the realities), whereas Merkel is definitely more understatement. However, she probably possesses the leadership qualities necessary to exercise her office with great competence, which Schröder did not. That at least is our assessment of her qualifications. But she is not and can not be a German Maggie Thatcher (read Clay Risen at Slate for a superb background article). Her impact will be strong, but different.
Wolfgang Munchau of the Free Republic, November 21, 2005, has perspicaciously analyzed recent developments under the title "Schröder's legacy will haunt Merkel".
We are not as pessimistic as Munchau, who writes that Merkel may not make a big difference. Rather, we see signs of dynamic change in the offing for Germany.
As reported by Dan Bilefsky and Judy Dempsey in the November 24, 2005, International Herald Tribune, Merkel made two initial visits in her first 24 hours as Chancellor, to Paris and to Brussels. Her visit to Paris was made to emphasize the necessity of pragmatic German-French relations in Europe. On her visit to Brussels, her first stop was NATO headquarters, where Merkel assured NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer that German foreign policy would again be based on a firm transatlantic relationship, a transatlantic relationship nearly destroyed by Schröder.
Merkel then visited the European Parliament to be greeted by hundreds shouting "Angie". Thereafter she went to the offices of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium and afterwards talked with José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, surely attempting to mend fences. As Munchau writes:
"Domestic [German] politicians such as Mr Schröder have often portrayed the European Commission as an institution infested with Anglo-Saxon libertarian zealots who are out to destroy German industry."
Under Merkel, it is quite clear that German relations to the powerful European Commission will be normalized. The IHT quotes Merkel as reaffirming her position that Europe must focus on economic reform:
"so that in a globalized world we can keep up and be competitive."
Merkel also called on the EU to revive the EU Constitution.
As for French-German relations, Chirac is quoted as saying that "Europe is a bit like a car with a broken part".
The IHT writes on the Franco-German relationship:
"Merkel's advisers said the relationship between Berlin and Paris was no longer serving the interests of European integration and instead was becoming a relic of historical reminiscences and symbols."
In this regard, Karl-Heinz Kamp of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation is quoted as saying that:
"Merkel is not into symbols for the sake of symbols that characterized the Franco-German relationship. She wants it to be based on the issues."
A Chancellor who bases her policy on the issues is going to be successful. That is what successful leadership is all about - because leaders set the direction of movement. If the direction is correct, success will inevitably follow.
Clay Risen at Slate quotes Götz Aly at the online Opinion Journal of the Wall Street Journal:
"If Angela Merkel succeeds … the Federal Republic should see changes more radical than any since 1949."
Germany must change significantly to meet the demands of the modern age and that change can only be initiated at the top.
As Aly writes:
"A state that spends 48% of its budget on social-welfare entitlements and 14% on interest payments on a growing mountain of debt, and can only invest 11% in modernizing infrastructure, has long since lost its ability to act. It is bankrupt. Any company that behaved this way would rightly be liable for fraudulent avoidance of bankruptcy under German law. An economy that requires at least half the hourly wage to be paid over to the government in the form of taxes and entitlements, and on top of that significant consumer and corporate taxes, is no longer competitive."
Now we can put the previous quoted sentence into perspective as Aly writes further:
"If Angela Merkel succeeds in winning office at the September elections and, against great resistance in her own party, in remaining true to herself, the Federal Republic should see changes more radical than any since 1949. As a physicist, she knows that the relationship between cause and effect cannot be simply wished away. Her most formative experiences came during communist East Germany's collapse. She has seen what happens when a country uses up its material basis, when it sinks into social and national stagnation while a regime of lies plays on, like the band on the Titanic. Most influential German politicians spent their youth, student years and early careers in the fat boom years of the old republic on the Rhine. Ms. Merkel likes to tell them, even those in her own [very conservative] party, "You have no idea how socialist you are.""
In the end, the most socialistic position is still "survival for everyone". To achieve that end, Germany will have to change and we think it will change significantly, even though Merkel must function in a coalition government with the normally opposition socialists. The fact that the socialists have entered into this coalition at all clearly evidences their "will for survival". If that same will for survival is applied to the Germany which they lead, then their policies must also change.
That is why we think that significant reforms will now be made under the Merkel administration, coalition government notwithstanding.
.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Who Should Get an .EU ( .eu ) Domain ?
We posted previously on the fact that launch dates for .eu domains have been announced and that EURid will be the domain registry (see the EURid site here). As a technical matter for IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority of ICANN), the .eu domain is listed there as the equivalent of a country-code TLD (ccTLD).
As written by the EU Commission:
"Why have a .eu Top Level Domain?
The .eu TLD will be a new Top level Domain, introduced for use by individuals, organisations and companies in the European Union. It will not replace the existing national ccTLDs in the EU, but will complement them and give users the additional option of having a pan-European Internet identity for their web sites and e-mail addresses.
"The EU is one of the biggest users of the Internet in the world and the introduction of a .eu TLD will create even more opportunities to exploit this exciting technology."
Struan Robertson, Editor of OUT-LAW.COM, has an insightful article on "Why you should register a .eu domain name" even if your organization already has the domain it wants as a generic TLD (.com, .net, .org) or as a country-coded top level domain in Europe. The country codes for the current 25 EU Member States are:
.at - Austria
.be - Belgium
.cy - Cyprus
.cz - Czech Republic
.de - Germany (.de is for Deutschland)
.dk - Denmark
.ee - Estonia (.ee because .es was already assigned to Spain)
.es - Spain ( .es because of Spanish España = Spain)
.fi - Finland
.fr - France
.gr - Greece
.hu - Hungary
.ie - Ireland
.it - Italy
.lt - Lithuania
.lu - Luxembourg
.lv - Latvia
.mt - Malta
.nl - The Netherlands
.pl - Poland
.pt - Portugal
.se - Sweden
.si - Slovenia (this is .SI and not .SL, because .sl was assigned to Sierra Leone)
.sk - Slovak Republic
.uk - United Kingdom (.gb is also reserved by IANA but not used)
Commission Regulation (EC) No 874/2004 provides:
"Candidate countries that are not due to join the European Union in May 2004 and member countries of the European Economic Area that are not Member States may request that their official name and the name under which they are commonly known in their own language and in any of the official languages as from May 2004 shall not be registered directly under the .eu TLD. To that end, those countries may send the Commission, within two months following entry into force of this Regulation, a list of those names which are not to be registered."
The EEA countries and their country codes are:
.is - Iceland
.no - Norway
.li - Liechtenstein
The EU Candidate Countries are:
Acceding Countries
.bg - Bulgaria
.ro - Romania
Candidate Countries
.tr - Turkey
.hr - Croatia (Hrvatska)
Potential Candidate Countries
.al - Albania
.ba - Bosnia and Herzegovina
.mk - The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
.cs - Serbia and Montenegro
?? - Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244
Applicable to all registrations by all countries is the following provision regarding the country codes:
"Alpha-2 codes representing countries shall not be used to register domain names directly under the .eu TLD."
There is no question that the introduction of the .eu top level domain will diminish the importance of the European country codes in the long term, although the short-term impact may be less pronounced, because many of the country coded websites are tied to language differences. However, multilingual sites now resident at the country-coded pages will most certainly ultimately migrate to the .eu domain, leaving the country-code pages in only the language of origin of the website. A good example here would be the many travel sites. Someone looking for city information in English concerning a European city will almost certainly gravitate toward .eu domains rather than to the country-code websites. One country that is bound to suffer under this system in the long term is Switzerland, which is neither an EU Member State nor a member of EEA, nor is it an EU candidate. (Switzerland [Confoederatio Helvetica, whence the "ch"] has .ch as its ccTLD).
Robertson states clearly that the main reason to register .eu domains now is to save money and avoid trouble down the road.
Organizations which do not get .eu domains now may find that someone else will take the respective .eu domain names. Later, this may involve legal squabbles and arbitration, events which are guaranteed to be extremely expensive.
It would thus seem to be much simpler and cheaper to just register the appropriate .eu domains.
As written by the EU Commission:
"How much will it cost?
The basic fee for the registration of a domain name during the first year will be of €10. However, applications have to be filed through registrars that will add their own costs to that fee. Different registrars may offer different services. Prices thus vary."
This assumes of course that one is entitled to register an .eu domain in the first place, which is explained here. Essentially, if your organization does not have a business in the European Union, then you are not entitled to register an .eu domain unless you are an EU resident.
Some useful Links are:
The EU Regulations for the .eu top level domain
and also Public Policy Rules (PPR) for .eu
Technorati Tags:EURID, EURid, eurid,EU domain, EU domains, EU, Europe, European Union, eu, .eu, .EU, eu domain, eu domains, sunrise period, trade marks, prior rights, trade names, company names, business identifiers, PWC, European Commission.
.
As written by the EU Commission:
"Why have a .eu Top Level Domain?
The .eu TLD will be a new Top level Domain, introduced for use by individuals, organisations and companies in the European Union. It will not replace the existing national ccTLDs in the EU, but will complement them and give users the additional option of having a pan-European Internet identity for their web sites and e-mail addresses.
"The EU is one of the biggest users of the Internet in the world and the introduction of a .eu TLD will create even more opportunities to exploit this exciting technology."
Struan Robertson, Editor of OUT-LAW.COM, has an insightful article on "Why you should register a .eu domain name" even if your organization already has the domain it wants as a generic TLD (.com, .net, .org) or as a country-coded top level domain in Europe. The country codes for the current 25 EU Member States are:
.at - Austria
.be - Belgium
.cy - Cyprus
.cz - Czech Republic
.de - Germany (.de is for Deutschland)
.dk - Denmark
.ee - Estonia (.ee because .es was already assigned to Spain)
.es - Spain ( .es because of Spanish España = Spain)
.fi - Finland
.fr - France
.gr - Greece
.hu - Hungary
.ie - Ireland
.it - Italy
.lt - Lithuania
.lu - Luxembourg
.lv - Latvia
.mt - Malta
.nl - The Netherlands
.pl - Poland
.pt - Portugal
.se - Sweden
.si - Slovenia (this is .SI and not .SL, because .sl was assigned to Sierra Leone)
.sk - Slovak Republic
.uk - United Kingdom (.gb is also reserved by IANA but not used)
Commission Regulation (EC) No 874/2004 provides:
"Candidate countries that are not due to join the European Union in May 2004 and member countries of the European Economic Area that are not Member States may request that their official name and the name under which they are commonly known in their own language and in any of the official languages as from May 2004 shall not be registered directly under the .eu TLD. To that end, those countries may send the Commission, within two months following entry into force of this Regulation, a list of those names which are not to be registered."
The EEA countries and their country codes are:
.is - Iceland
.no - Norway
.li - Liechtenstein
The EU Candidate Countries are:
Acceding Countries
.bg - Bulgaria
.ro - Romania
Candidate Countries
.tr - Turkey
.hr - Croatia (Hrvatska)
Potential Candidate Countries
.al - Albania
.ba - Bosnia and Herzegovina
.mk - The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
.cs - Serbia and Montenegro
?? - Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244
Applicable to all registrations by all countries is the following provision regarding the country codes:
"Alpha-2 codes representing countries shall not be used to register domain names directly under the .eu TLD."
There is no question that the introduction of the .eu top level domain will diminish the importance of the European country codes in the long term, although the short-term impact may be less pronounced, because many of the country coded websites are tied to language differences. However, multilingual sites now resident at the country-coded pages will most certainly ultimately migrate to the .eu domain, leaving the country-code pages in only the language of origin of the website. A good example here would be the many travel sites. Someone looking for city information in English concerning a European city will almost certainly gravitate toward .eu domains rather than to the country-code websites. One country that is bound to suffer under this system in the long term is Switzerland, which is neither an EU Member State nor a member of EEA, nor is it an EU candidate. (Switzerland [Confoederatio Helvetica, whence the "ch"] has .ch as its ccTLD).
Robertson states clearly that the main reason to register .eu domains now is to save money and avoid trouble down the road.
Organizations which do not get .eu domains now may find that someone else will take the respective .eu domain names. Later, this may involve legal squabbles and arbitration, events which are guaranteed to be extremely expensive.
It would thus seem to be much simpler and cheaper to just register the appropriate .eu domains.
As written by the EU Commission:
"How much will it cost?
The basic fee for the registration of a domain name during the first year will be of €10. However, applications have to be filed through registrars that will add their own costs to that fee. Different registrars may offer different services. Prices thus vary."
This assumes of course that one is entitled to register an .eu domain in the first place, which is explained here. Essentially, if your organization does not have a business in the European Union, then you are not entitled to register an .eu domain unless you are an EU resident.
Some useful Links are:
The EU Regulations for the .eu top level domain
and also Public Policy Rules (PPR) for .eu
Technorati Tags:EURID, EURid, eurid,EU domain, EU domains, EU, Europe, European Union, eu, .eu, .EU, eu domain, eu domains, sunrise period, trade marks, prior rights, trade names, company names, business identifiers, PWC, European Commission.
.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
HyperThinker Workshop on Disruptive Innovators - Today in Brussels
If you are in the Brussels area and have the time, ZN.be (Zeitgest Net) has a workshop from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. (16:00-19:00) today, November 24, 2005 titled the "Mental Toolkit for Disruptive Innovators". Location @ ING, Avenue Marnix 24, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.
The workshop intends that the participants:
- Be exposed to beyond the box approaches which inspire
- Receive practical tools to affect innovational change which motivates
- See how the experts have applied HyperThinking with results – case studies – which provides context
- Experience the confidence hands-on exercise provides to put theory into practice during the workshop – which energizes action
Although apparently intended only for business people, this looks like the kind of workshop that decisionmakers from all quarters could profit by.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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