In this issue:

Belgian Court Dismisses Case Against Sharon

European Labor Challenges Maastricht

Italy Leads the Way to Breaking with Maastricht

More Layoffs in Leading European News Media

Robertson Says NATO's New Mission Is Fighting Terrorism

Montenegro Abolishes Death Penalty

From the Vol.1 No.17 issue of Electronic Intelligence Weekly

WESTERN EUROPEAN NEWS DIGEST

Belgian Court Dismisses Case Against Sharon

According to a Reuters dispatch of June 26, a Belgian appeals court has dismissed the genocide case against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the basis that he is not and was not in Belgium. A court spokesman said, "What the court decided is that the complaint against Sharon ... is not admissible because of the principle of Belgian law, that crimes committed in other countries cannot be prosecuted in Belgium unless the author or presumed author has been found in Belgium." Sharon was the defendant in a case brought under a relatively new Belgian law empowering Belgium to try those accused of committing genocide in other countries. Sharon is accused of genocide for his role in September 1982 in massacres in two Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Sabra and Shatila.

Michael Verhaeghe, one of the lawyers representing the Palestinian plaintiffs who brought the case, said, "We are not satisfied with this. It completely undermines the scope of universal jurisdiction. We are appealing to the Supreme Court. The fight goes on, that's clear."

This ruling is in fact worse than if the court had recognized Sharon as having diplomatic immunity. Verhaeghe now says they might have to prove that Sharon was in Belgium.

Despite the court's finding, moves are being made to change Belgian law so as to ensure that those not in Belgium can be prosecuted under Belgian law. Senator Vincent Van Quickenborne, a Flemish liberal, has already drafted a law to this effect.

"The bill is ready. It is just a matter of days," Quickenborne said. The latter is one of the Flemish lawmakers who were the last to see Elie Hobeika, the Lebanese Falangist who was assassinated earlier this year after he announced that he would testify in the Sharon case.

Some Background

Attorney Verhaeghe was interviewed by EIR reporter Dean Andromidas in January 2002. This excerpt of that interview gives the background of the case, in his words:

"The case started before I got involved. The case stated with an historian, Mrs. Rosemary Sayigh, doing investigative work in Lebanon, already three or four years ago. She interviewed many of the survivors of the massacre ... and she compiled a kind of group testimony, which struck her, in the sense that there were new elements popping up that had not been known before: Such as witnesses referring to an Israeli presence in the camps during the massacres, which is still a contested point. Later, there was also the matter of people who 'disappeared,' people who were abducted—taken away and never seen again. Rosemary Sayigh has made a full study of the issue on the basis of these testimonies, and was in contact with Chibli Mallat, who is now our colleague on the legal team.

"After that, Chibli, in a bit of a coincidence with Sharon's announced visit to Belgium, started to look in the direction of Belgium [to bring the case—ed.]...

"We hesitated a bit in respect to filing the complaint in Belgium, because it would put a lot of pressure on Belgian law. Nonetheless, after reading all the testimony of our clients, and looking at the fact that the massacre at Sabra and Shatila is comparable with Srebrenica [Bosnia] and other dark pages in the history of the last half-century, we decided to go ahead, notwithstanding the fact that one of the accused was Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel....

"We first had the intervention of Mrs. Hirsch as a lawyer for the State of Israel, ... whereas, of course, the complaint was not at all directed against the State of Israel. So, it was still a political reflex, and not the legal debate we wanted. But this political reflex was eventually taken away with the intervention of the lawyers for Sharon and the withdrawal of Mrs. Hirsch, for the State of Israel has no longer intervened. So we eventually got down to where we wanted to have this case, basically: a legal debate on the basis of legal principles, where every argument is valid and can be advanced in a legal debate. Now we will see what the Court of Appeals will do, following the complete examination of all the arguments developed for and against Mr. Sharon."

European Labor Challenges Maastricht

The economic-financial policy of the European Union governments has arrived at a crossroad: Either they continue to cut social and labor market budgets, and risk really big conflicts with the labor movement in the autumn, or they begin to think seriously about changes in the Maastricht "budget-balancing" policy. (The anti-national-sovereighty Maastricht Treaty is the foundation of the integrated, single-currency, European Union.)

The ongoing pattern of labor protests and strike actions throughout Europe, gives a foretaste of what the political-social situation may look like, when jobless figures begin increasing again, after the summer recess. Not for many years has there been such an intensity of labor protests in numerous European countries at the same time, as in the last week:

In Germany, the first nationwide strike of construction workers in 50 years extended into its third week, and strikers escalated by setting up temporary road blockades in several cities. Warning strikes occurred by banking and retail sector employees. France saw a pattern of local and regional public transport workers. In Italy, employees of the judicical sector went on a one-day strike, June 20, followed by municipal public transport workers.

Spain had its first general labor strike in 10 years, with several million workers of all labor unions taking part, on June 20. In Greece, seamen were on strike for most of the week, paralyzing the vital ferry system. Lastly, flight controllers went on strike on June 20 in several EU countries, forcing airlines to cancel a large part of their flights, right at the start of the summer tourism season.

It is worth noting that in all cases, labor unions no longer signal the kind of "understanding" they have shown in recent years for "moderate wage agreements" and "fiscal discipline" pressures on public employers. The stagnation and decline of average living standards, while unemployment remains at historically high levels, is simply too obvious.

Italy Leads the Way to Breaking with Maastricht

Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti is recommending that state programs for defense and infrastructure be exempted from Maastricht rules. In remarks made from Rome June 24, Tremonti said that he welcomes the European Union Seville Summit's decision to permit Italy a budget deficit of 0.5% GDP in 2003, in order to fund programs that can create jobs, as a crucial support for the Italian economy.

Tremonti added that "we must now look at how we can make a more substantial change for the European economy as a whole," which he said would be possible if there were a special regulation governing state expenditures for infrastructure, defense, developing sector aid and structural economic reform programs.

Tremonti said that in his view, the Maastricht criteria were useful as long as the EU was preparing for the final stage of the euro introduction, but now, after what he called the "successful launch of the euro," it was time to "move to another phase, one which maintains stability but also puts the emphasis on growth and flexibility."

More Layoffs in Leading European News Media

Following anouncements of layoffs by the British wire service Reuters and the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung a week ago, now Switzerland's Neue Zuercher Zeitung news daily and Germany's leading business daily, Handelsblatt, are also preparing job cuts—according to insiders, in the range of 10% or more.

One of the aspects behind this trend is the drastic recent drop in business advertisements, caused by the worsening corporate income situation. Ads contribute significantly to the income of news and newspaper companies.

Meantime, strikes are spreading in several European countries. As of June 25, Greek seamen were entering their second strike week, and of June 26, flight control personnel staged strike actions in Italy, paralyzing a large part of Alitalia flights. Some 106 flights were called off altogether, and 200 others delayed by hours, at Italian airports.

In Germany, the construction sector negotiated an agreement, but between 4,000 and 8,000 telecom workers were on strike towards the end of the week in the three German states of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saarland, causing considerable problems at telephone services.

Robertson Says NATO's New Mission Is Fighting Terrorism

Since Sept. 11, NATO has been transformed, so that its primary mission is now fighting terrorism, said NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington on June 20. Saying that "the old NATO will not be enough to meet today's risks and challenges," Robertson said that NATO "is therefore mirroring the profound change being wrought by the Bush Administration in its [NATO's] most fundamental process of transformation since the end of the Cold War."

Robertson's definition of NATO's new mission also seems to mirror the Bush Administration's doctrine of "preventive" or preemptive attack, in that Robertson stated that NATO forces "must be able to deter, defend, disrupt and protect against terrorist attack, or threats of attack directed from abroad, and to act against such terrorists and those who harbor them."

"So much for the sterile 'out of area' debate," Robertson declared, a debate which had, he said "hamstrung NATO throughout much of the early 1990s."

Montenegro Abolishes Death Penalty

The Parliament of Montenegro has abolished the death penalty, clearing the way for Yugoslavia's admission into the Council of Europe, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Yugoslavia, made up of Montenegro and Serbia, had previously applied for admission to the Council, but abolition of capital punishment is a condition for acceptance. Both the Yugoslav Federal Parliament and the Serbian Parliament had already banned the death penalty.

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