Western European News Digest
France, Japan Propose Joint Project for Iraq Reconstruction
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin discussed a proposed joint plan for Iraq's reconstruction with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Kawaguchi and Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, according to the Arab Times March 2.
A French Foreign Ministry official hinted that the plan "has to do with reconstruction aid, and is related to such things as culture and medicine. A museum is also being discussed. Germany's Der Spiegel said in February that Germany, France, and Japan had agreed to coordinate civilian reconstruction in Iraq in four areas: training Iraqi police, rebuilding the education system, increasing water and energy supplies, and assisting universities and libraries.
France and Japan are also expected to discuss their respective interests in pursuing the $10-bn International Thermonuclear Experimental (Fusion) Reactor (ITER).
SPD Loses Ground in Hamburg Elections; Hangs On for Now
Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) lost votes in Hamburg in recent elections, but not as many as feared. The reshuffle of the ruling SPD leadership, announced along with Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder's resignation as party chairman three weeks ago, has not prevented a further erosion of the SPD's popularity, nor has it remoralized party membership to any noteworthy extent. The SPD lost less than 5.9% in the Feb. 29 vote, but the 30.6% it received is still the worst result in 50 years in Hamburg.
The Christian Democrats (CDU) of Mayor Ole von Beust received 47%, a gain of almost 21%which is not as spectacular as it seems, because it derives mainly from the totally decomposed populist "law and order" Rechtstaatliche Offensive party, which, in the 2001 elections, received more than 19%. The CDU gained some votes from the SPD and the Free Democrats (FDP), but all that combined did not win the CDU more than 50% of votes cast. Under German election law, votes for parties that fail to reach the 5% threshold for entry into the legislature, are redistributed among parties whose vote total was at least the 5% threshold. That regulation gave the CDU an absolute majority of seats in the Hamburg city-state parliament, even though the party has stayed below 48%, in terms of votes cast for it, as such.
A majority, even a thin one, is a majority, however, so Ole von Beust retains the Mayor's office, as does Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder with his thin majority in the federal Bundestag, the lower house of parliament. The Hamburg vote has not changed the balance at the federal upper house, the Bundesrat, nor are SPD's losses in Hamburg dramatic enough to increase pressure on the Schroeder government beyond the existing considerable pressure.
It is, however, not very likely that the SPD will recover between now and the next round of elections in mid-June, nor will it regain votes to a significant extent in any of the 13 other elections this year. Without a real shift in policy, away from the budget-cutting Agenda 2010, the SPD will not be able to recover, and Schroeder will continue to muddle through, somehowunless a stock market crash, a new Parmalat affair, or another big other scandal intervenes to shake things up.
British Chancellor of the Exchequer Mooted for IMF Head
The name of Gordon Brown, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been floated to fill the vacancy created by IMF Managing Director Horst Koehler, who gave a one-day notice that he was leaving, to run for the post of next President of Germany, now held by Johannes Rau, whose term expires in May.
The lead front-page story in the March 5 London Guardian reports, "Gordon Brown was last night being lined up in Washington as a possible new head of the International Monetary Fund.... IMF sources confirmed last night that Mr. Brown was one of the top candidates to succeed Horst Koehler.... The Chancellor is already a powerful force within the Fund, in his position as chairman of its main decision-making body, the international monetary and financial committee, and was the most prominent of the names being touted in Washington last night."
Guardian writers Larry Elliott and Charlotte Denny put two caveats on Brown taking the IMF post. One, that this would mean relinquishing his ambition to replace Tony Blair as British Prime Minister, at a time when Blair is in ever-growing troubles over Iraq. Second, continental Europeans are reluctant to see the British take the position, and there are competing candidacies mooted from France, Spain, and Poland, the latter being Polish head of the Central Bank Leszek Balczerowicz, an IMF "shock therapy" operative of international notoriety.
See the March 5 EIW InDepth for the article, "Trickster Brown Rising to Prominence in U.K.," for the skinny on this wily operative.
Privatization of S&Ls Blocked in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Following strong resistance from the German Savings & Loan associations, the finance ministry of the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was forced to stop the first-ever sale of a German S&L bank. This effort was part of a frontal attack by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Commission bureaucracy and in particular the large commercial banks in Germany to finally break apart the German public banking sector.
While other European countries have largely privatized their banking sectors during the 1980s and 1990s, Germany is now the only European Union member where public and cooperative banks still have a combined market share of more than 50% in terms of clients and deposits. The municipality of Stralsund, bankrupt like thousands of other German municipalities, was singled out to set a precedent which then could be used to privatize the whole German S&L sector, thereby eliminating its crucial role in providing credits for local Mittelstand and regional development. The same Berlin-based legal firm, which helped the commercial banks and the European Commission to formally dismantle the public bail-out clauses for the German Landesbanken and S&Ls by 2005, offered its advice to the Stralsund mayor to find some dirty tricks to circumvent the German S&L law, which rules out any privatization. The notorious synarchist investment bank, Lazard Frères, stepped in to manage the S&L takeover through a commercial bank.
The efforts failed as the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Finance Ministry pushed through new legislation which makes it even harder to touch the legal status of the state's S&Ls. However, this certainly doesn't mean that the attack on the public German banking sector, which is explicitly obliged to the "Gemeinwohl" (common good) principle, will end. The sharks will just look for new flanks.
Youth Propose New Common French-German History Text
In the context of the European election campaign, discussion is underway among some history scholars about addressing the common historical roots of France and Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported March 2. An initiative by the German-French youth parliament has proposed to their respective governments, the writing of a common German/French history book for the gymnasiums, said Saarland Minister President and CDU member Peter Mueller, who is responsible for bilateral relations between the two countries.
In June 2003, an agreement was received from 16 Minister Presidents for promoting such a history project. On Jan. 22, invited experts came from Germany and France to discuss the history project, whose aim is to discuss the history of the two countries, from the standpoint of common identity, and to study the causes of divergences. Proposals include writing a bilingual history book for the second-class level of the gymnasium, giving emphasis, for example, to "antiquity as the basis for European history," the "Karolingian Empire in the 8/9th Century," the Bismarck era and the French Third Republic," and "the Second World War and its Consequences."
In Fall 2004, the final outline should be finished, so that the text writing cam begin. Of note, is the difference of approach among French and German historians. French historians tend to emphasize the actions of "great historical figures and individuals," whereas German historians tend to explain history from the standpoint of "structures," The book is supposed to be published in May 2005.
Bush Administration Tells Britain: Find Pro-War Lawyer
The U.S. government told the British government to "get yourself some different lawyers," when its was informed that Foreign Office legal advice, in the run-up to the Iraq war, was that a new war would not be legal without an explicit UN resolution authorizing it.
Baroness Helena Kennedy, a prominent lawyer, writes in her book Just Law, due for release in early March: "In the weeks before the war, the British government conveyed to Washington its concerns about the war, explaining that the preponderance of its legal opinion was that war would be unlawful without a second resolution of the [UN] Security Council."
In an interview with Britain's GMTV on Feb. 29, Baroness Kennedy questioned the way in which Attorney General Lord Goldsmith came up with his advice that the war would be legal. She told GMTV, based on information from a Whitehall source, that, after receiving Washington's view, Lord Goldsmith turned to a lawyer of "hawkish" views, Prof. Christopher Greenwood of the London School of Economics, basing his opinion on Greenwood's advice. She noted, "It was interesting, that out of probably only two lawyers who would have argued for the legality of going to war, one of them was the person the attorney general turned to."
Dalyell: Fundamental Issue Is 'Illegal, Preemptive War'
Bush, Blair Iraq war is an illegal, pre-emptive war Tom Dalyell, the longest-serving member of the House of Commons, told EIR March 1. "The fundamental issue, is that this is an illegal pre-emptive war," Dalyell said. He was commenting on the enormous implications of the British government's sudden decision, last week, to drop the case against Katharine Gun, the employee at the GCHQ/Cheltenham surveillance center charged with violating the Official Secrets Act, for having passed confidential information to the Observer in March 2003, about American and British espionage operations at the United Nations.
Dalyell said: "The focus being given to [former Blair Cabinet Minister] Clare Short's spats with 10 Downing Street have been a diversion. There is one central issue: What happened, and why, between the decision to go ahead with the Gun case, and the decision to drop it? Everything else is secondary.... The defense in the case was prepared to call Elisabeth Wilmshurst, former deputy legal adviser of the Foreign Office, who resigned on the eve of the [Iraq] war, as a matter of principle, at the age of 55.... The fundamental issue underlying all this, is that the Iraq war is an illegal pre-emptive war."
Dalyell called for the release of the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith's full decision in March 2003, declaring the war to be legal, be published.
Is Tony Blair Follow the Path of Thatcher, Heath?
British Prime Minister "Tony Blair won't last long," and would be well-advised to find an amenable exit, rather than be brought down ruthlessly and terribly," a well-connected continental European source told EIR March 1. "He will be out, within the next few months. He will likely follow the path of Conservative Prime Ministers Ted Heath and Maggie Thatcher. He has become a liability to his own parliamentary Labour Party, and is dead, in political terms. The downfalls of Heath and Thatcher were ruthless and terrible; Blair is headed in the same direction."
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