Gulf Stream Blues

Here we go again. Last night the Belgian government collapsed, just four months after it was formed in March. Before then, the nation had been without a government for nine months while the French- and Dutch-speaking parties were unable to form a unity government.

Belgium’s King Albert II is considering the resignation, but he doesn’t really have much leeway to block it. The prime minister of the four-month-old coalition government, Yves Leterme, had set a deadline of July 15 for getting an agreement on devolving more power to the regions. Belgium is made up of Dutch-speaking Flanders in the North, French-speaking Wallonia in the South and Brussels, which is French-speaking but located within Flanders. The Flemish, who are wealthier, want more local power, but the Walloons are resisting this because it would marginalize their influence.

Along with the pomp of the Bastille Day celebrations this weekend in Paris, the city will see another grand occastion: the first meeting of the “Mediterranean Union,” Nicolas Sarkozy’s pet project that he has made the centrepiece of France’s EU presidency. But the way Sunday’s meeting is being discussed, you’d think it was nothing more than a Camp David-style retreat. So is it the inaugural meeting of a new international body, or lip service to an idea that has failed to take flight?

Sarkozy’s vision of an alternative union has been watered down so much it is now almost unrecognizable from what he proposed during the French election campaign. What was originally intended to be a full-blown union offered as an alternative to the EU has now become a loose association that will be managed by the EU itself. It’s not surprising then that the union is now being labelled ‘Club Med,’ suggesting it is just a diplomatic association which will exchange pleasantries. Press reports looking ahead to Sunday’s meeting have focused almost entirely on the diplomatic aspect, noting that some of the world’s most bitter enemies will be sitting at the same table for the first time, including the leaders of Israel and Syria. Little is being said of what the union is supposed to accomplish because no one is quite sure at this point – the projects it has announced so far are little more than feel-good cooperation initiatives on things like cleaning up pollution and sharing solar panel technology.

The difference between the Labour and Conservative parties in the UK has become increasingly blurred over the last 15 years. But yesterday David Cameron, the Conservative leader who is leading the charge to bring the party further to the centre, unleashed some of the old class divisions that have historically defined the parties by saying that poor people have themselves to blame for their poverty. The comments were part of a wider speech about society's increased permissiveness and a lack of personal responsibility.

It's of course an old familiar refrain by the right, but it seems to run contrary to Cameron's attempts to redefine the party. It may be, however, that with Labour doing so poorly in the polls and with an election still likely a year off, Cameron is feeling confident enough to throw the older, more conservative members of the party a bone.

The reaction to the dramatic rescue of Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt and 14 others this week has received some unusual coverage in the European press, quite different from that in the US. If one didn’t know the back story behind this situation they might think the coverage downright bizarre.

Betancourt is due to arrive in Paris at any moment to greet French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The meeting is largely required by political necessity, as Sarkozy and his predecessors had made the release of Betancourt one of France’s top diplomatic priorities, and Sarkozy has been working tirelessly for a diplomatic solution between the Colombian government and FARC, the leftist guerilla militia that took her hostage. Betancourt is a dual French and Colombian citizen.But the pleasantries that will be exchanged at the Elysee Palace tonight mask an embarrassing reality for France: in the end it was not France’s tireless diplomatic efforts that rescued Betancourt but a US-backed military operation in which France had no involvement whatsoever. That has to be a tough pill for the country to swallow.

Quite a conundrum now affects the United Kingdgdom, ten years after devolution first gave constituent countries their own parliaments. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all now have their own seperate governments, legislating on matters that affect only their territory. But England, the constituent country where the vast majority of British people live, doesn't have such a local legislative body.

Of all the explanations for the Ireland referendum vote I’ve heard, this is perhaps the wackiest. On Saturday the French Europe minister Jean–Pierre Jouyet gave a speech in Lyons blaming Ireland’s ‘no’ vote on the Lisbon reform treaty on none other than American neo-conservatives, saying Europe has “powerful enemies with deep pockets,” adding that “the role of the American neo-conservatives in the Irish referendum was very important.” His comments were greeted with applause from the audience, according to the AFP. His comments have been picked up by the major papers on the continent such as Le Monde in France and Der Spiegel in Germany.

But the allegation isn’t just being made on the continent. In Ireland, Irish member of parliament Lucinda Creighton made the allegation shortly after the vote. She is arguing that two Irish businessmen, Declan Ganley and Ulick McEvaddy, who spent a huge amount of money on funding the ‘no’ campaign, did so because of their extensive business contacts with the American military. Her implication seems to be that US government interests were funding the Irish ‘no’ campaign, because it is in US’s interest to maintain a divided Europe dependant on America both militarily and economically.

It’s official: the turkey has defeated the treaty. I heard the news right before I boarded a plane to Zurich to attend my brother’s high school graduation tomorrow. I’m currently flying above the English channel, and as we cross over the French coastline and enter airspace over the continent, I can’t help but stare down at the land and think: what is to become of Europe?

Already this morning when it was revealed that turnout had been low, people in Brussels were fearing the worst. The conventional logic went that if there was a high turnout there would be a yes result, and a low turnout would mean a no. By tea time it was clear: Ireland has rejected the Lisbon Treaty. The news has thrown Brussels into a virtual panic. The RSS feeds on my google desktop toolbar, which are set to monitor various Euroblogs and feeds, started going nuts. The Euro came crashing down as soon as the news broke, falling to its lowest level in a month against the dollar almost instantly upon the news. Various government heads throughout Europe were rushing out with statements about what this means. Of course at the moment, nobody seems to know for sure. All that is known now, as Reuters’ Peter Graff writes, is that it looks like “a country with fewer than one percent of the EU’s 490 million population has destroyed a treaty painstakingly negotiated over years by leaders of all 27 member states.”

By decree of a law passed last week, Portugal will no longer use Portuguese.

Well, not the same kind of Portuguese anyway. In a highly controversial vote that’s been debated for many years, the Portuguese Parliament has effectively changing the language of Portugal to the type of Portuguese used in Brazil. This new standardization requires a change in spelling for hundreds of words and adds three new letters to the alphabet. All books will have to be republished in Brazilian Portuguese, and school curriculums will now be taught using the new language standardization.

Tony Blair made some interesting comments at a fundraising dinner in Toronto last night. Coming on the eve of the launch of his new Faith Foundation, which was unveiled to the world today in New York, it offered a stark and blunt assessment of the century we are entering. While probably true, his comments will no doubt be quite troubling to secular Europe.

As yet another Eurovision comes and goes, the next day analysis here in the UK is as predictable as the sequins, feathers and glitter that accompany the song contest each year. Once again there is collective hand wringing over what the contest has become, and questioning over whether the UK should continue funding it. But as standard as all of the British complaining over the contest has become, there was a new starkness to the exasperation of perennial British host Terry Wogan this year when Russia emerged the winner, as he muttered at the end of the program, "Western participants have to decide whether they want to do this again.”