Western European News Digest
Germany Overhauls Emergency Economic Laws
Unnoticed by the public, the German government in November 2003 revised the 1968 "Notstandsgesetze" (emergency laws), which changes were approved by the Parliament in mid-August, again without any substantial public debate. What has been changed are several clauses in the emergency laws dealing with economic security. This "Wirtschaftsicherstellungsverordnung" specifies how, in times of extreme emergency, market laws may be overruled by regulation of the flow of economic resources in order to secure supplies for defense forces and key economic sectors.
The changes raise the question, why did the German government feel the need to update the emergency laws at this time? Chat groups, such as the one belonging to the German primetime TV news Tagesschau, are debating whether the revisions are being made in anticipation of war, a financial collapse, or mass rioting, including general strikes.
Desperation Over Rising Unemployment in Eastern Europe
A recent conference in southern Germany on the prospects for youth in Eastern Europe gave a dramatic picture of the situation for youth seeking work, with rates of unemployment in eastern Germany of 30%; 40% in Poland; and up to 65% in Romania, where the search for employment leads many to seek the "golden" West, which is now becoming increasingly tarnished.
In Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Slovenia, those who sought and failed to find work are reportedly withdrawing into an "individual" lifestyle, contributing to growing indifference to homosexuality, prostitution, general depoliticization, and "mistrust" of politics. The deepening economic crisis is also converging on a real demographic time bomb looming in the East.
Cologne Cardinal Addresses Plight of Youth in the East
Cardinal Meisner, who, along with Pope John Paul II will host the million-strong world youth conference in August 2005, spoke at a conference in southern Germany devoted to the situation of the youth in Eastern Europe.
Meisner stressed that he and Pope John Paul II are of the opinion that the world will only be changed by the young people who are willing to take risks, and who have hope and enthusiasmand by the very old. The Pope told Meisner two weeks ago that he expects that, from the Cologne world youth gathering, a very powerful impulse will be sent to Europe and the world.
Saxon Mayors Protest Shutdown of Schools
Saxony State Governor Georg Milbradt has announced plans to shut down 101 public schools in the eastern German state, for demographic and fiscal reasons, and has cut funds for structural work at another 100 schools. Mayors of the affected cities called a protest rally in the state capital Dresden for Sept. 9, involving numerous Christian Democratic Mayors protesting against their own CDU state government.
Euro Parliament Approves Liberalization of Cargo Rail Traffic
This summer, the European Parliament has given the green light for a complete "liberalization" of cargo rail traffic in Europe. Countries will be forced to implement the necessary measures for "free transport of goods." This is a further push to destroy national responsibility for public infrastructure, which is in a bad shape already due to massive cost-cutting. Private transport firms are particularly interested in taking over cross-European lines. The risk is that such measures could lead to placing the strategic transport arteries of Europe under the control of private interests, which is totally contrary to Lyndon LaRouche's concept of the Productive Triangle and European Land-Bridge, and even the Delors Plan for big European-wide investment programs for Eurasian transport corridors.
At the same time, there is a big push in the power sector by private companies, to demand complete "fair competition," i.e., free access (without pay) to the state-owned tracks, and coherent standards. They also attack the fact that in Germany, vans are still using the streets without paying tolls.
Humboldt University in May of this year published a "liberalization index" for all the EU countries, which shows how far deregulation is destroying state responsibility for public infrastructure. Germany, Great Britain, and Italy are said to be "very dynamic," while Spain, Greece, and Ireland are said to lag behind.
Germany Losing Control of Rail Service to British Firms
The British private rail company Arriva has just bought the regional, Bavarian state-owned Regentalbahn, which covers more than 1,000 km of track in East Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia, and the Czech Republic. In April, Arriva took over, for 10 million euros, the "Prignitzer Eisenbahn," which covers regional tracks in the eastern states of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and in North Rhine Westphalia.
This company is one of the biggest British transport companies, with 30,000 employees, and is mostly interested in regional rail lines. In Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden, it owns private bus lines. In Denmark, in 2003, they bought a seven-year license for the regional trains in Jutland, only to turn around and replace those trains with cheaper bus routes.
Meanwhile, Germany's state-run train systems, such as the Bundesbahn, are preparing further harsh cuts in investments and personnel.
Moonie Times Takes Aim at France
The first of three excerpts from the new book Treachery, by Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz, focusses on claims that the French continued to sell parts for Mirage fighter jets and Aerospatiale helicopters to Iraq up through the winter of 2002. Sales were to Iraqi front companies, and French weapons were used in attacks on U.S. troops. Half the missiles fired at Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz's Baghdad hotel earlier this year were French-made rockets, the book claims. It further claims that U.S. intelligence is soft on France because they are trained to "get along," and the Paris diplomatic posting is the most coveted!
Provocations from Germany and Poland Stir Up Old War Grievances
The national parliament of Poland, the Sejm, unanimously passed a resolution calling on Germany to pay compensation for the "enormous material and immaterial damages" owed to the Poles from more than five years of wartime Nazi occupation (and genocide) 60 years ago. The proposal calls on the government of Poland to "launch appropriate initiatives to achieve that objective," of compensation.
The Sejm move is nominally in response to provocations by leading members associated with the German Refugees Association, specifically, present chairwoman Erika Steinbach, and by a "Prussian Treuhand" organization, which want to force the German government to enter talks with the Polish government on compensation for Germans who fled, were expelled, and/or suffered expropriation of property in the closing months of the war, as the Russian Army moved west through territories that subsequently were declared part of Poland (this having been done to compensate Poland for the loss of its entire eastern territories to Belarus and Ukraine).
Although the Sejm vote is a reaction to these provocations from the German side, sentiments against Germany have been whipped up by neocon networks associated with Michael Novak (an American of Polish extraction) inside Poland and its media.
The governments of Germany and Poland have declared they will not do anything that could aggravate mutual relations between their countries, and Chancellor Schroeder also spoke out in public, during his Aug. 1, Warsaw visit, against the activities of the "Prussian Treuhand" group. Since former eastern German nobility is involved in this group, it cannot be ruled out that elements of the British aristocracy, with links to German feudal houses, may well be stirring this pot.
|