Europe

My son-in-law forwarded “Germany Is Tired of Footing the European Bill” (from On-Line English edition of Der Spiegel). It discusses preparations for June 16-17 when

Europe’s heads of state will come together for their next summit and to ratify the European budgetary framework for the coming years. What may sound like a routine yawner is really a meeting at which nothing less than the future of Europe will be decided — and especially Germany’s role in that future. On those two days in June, the assembled heads of states will decide how much each member state should pay to Brussels and how much it should receive in payments from Brussels, if anything.

The potential pitfalls are huge; the European Commission’s proposals in this regard are completely unacceptable to the German government. According to the current draft of the legislation, which bears the relatively innocuous-sounding title “Financial Forecast for 2007 to 2013,” the EU’s budget will increase from about €100 billion this year to €158 billion in 2013. This increase would have serious consequences for Germany, which, as Europe’s largest economy, pays by far the most into the common budget. Between now and 2013, Germany’s contribution to the EU would almost double, to about €40 billion. Instead of the current 8 percent of its federal budget, Berlin would then be required to send more than 10 percent of its budget to Brussels.

The authors observe that

the Germans send significantly more money to Brussels than they receive back. In 2003, the difference amounted to €7.7 billion, making Germany the biggest net contributor by a long shot. Only the Netherlands and Sweden pay more on a per capita basis.

This article in the Scotsman from last January made the EU look very bad, and it was widely quoted in the blogospehre:

TSUNAMI-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry.

While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines, its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft.

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A new report was recently released that has very few surprises for people who read the blogs. According to a study conducted by a European Union small business organization named Eurochambres, the United States economy is about 20 years ahead of the EU in just about every category. (You can read the report yourself, in PDF format, here.)

The study is surprisingly frank in its assessment of the EU’s chances to catch up with the US. Even with the best possible conditions it will take decades or even more than a century for the EU to achieve parity. And this will only happen if hard decisions are made right now.

One thing I also found to be very refreshing is that the report makes no bones as to which country the EU is trying to best. Claims that Europe is merely trying to find a more efficient system of internal governing without looking to become a rival of the US are becoming less credible with every year.

It appears to me that the biggest problem the EU faces is the drain on the economy due to its cradle-to-grave Socialist-style welfare system. For some reason, I don’t see the report even mentioning this directly. This is probably because the retirement and government subsidized benefit system is a big sore point in the EU. Proposed cuts in these benefits, even changes that we in the US would have characterized as being mild to middling, have been met with a great deal of protest by the voters.

Right now the US has a greater degree of political influence, military power, cultural dominance and economic might than any other society in the history of the world. It’s obvious that this state of affairs can’t continue forever. But it’s also obvious that the EU isn’t going to move to the head of the line if they can’t get a handle on the situation created by their own internal policies.

(Big slobbery hat tip to Ace.)

My post below mentions a Code of Conduct that needs to be implemented to make a lifting of the EU’s arms embargo somewhat more palatable for the United States. The EU will have to work very hard at creating and enforcing a Code that is worth more than the paper it is written on, though, for the existing Code simply doesn’t work:

Although officially the European Parliament’s hands are tied regarding armaments questions, parliamentarians increasingly see it as their duty to comment on controversial developments. This criticism has now been made into a 26-page report by Spanish Parliamentarian Raul Romeva Rueda.

Rueda’s report took issue with the EU’s code of conduct for weapons sales, which is supposed to provide a set of ethical guidelines for countries to follow. However, the document, which was created in 1998, is not legally binding. The European Parliament is overwhelmingly in favor of changing that.

“The main problem with the code of conduct is that it is a very weak instrument,” Rueda said.

The code of conduct sets a series of minimum standards for arms exports. Those include stipulations that no weapons should be sold to countries that might use them to abuse human rights. Weapons are also not to go to countries where regional conflicts are taking place, or where weapons purchases will further poverty in the population.

“Some of the equipment being sent to countries is torture equipment, or equipment that is being used to apply the death penalty,” he said. “You have electric sticks, for instance, that is sometimes used by some police to force confessions.”

(Emphasis mine)

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In September of last year, I posted on the efforts of Germany, Japan and Brazil to gain a seat on the UNSC. I wasn’t impressed. Neither, apparently, is David Frum. In his piece, The End of the Transatlantic Affair, he writes:

Over lunch at a Washington think-tank some time ago, a high-ranking German official told the room about his country’s determination to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council. The reaction? From the Americans present, indifference verging on boredom. For the Europeans, though, it was as if the official had dropped a concrete block on their toes.

It was a fascinating moment of culture clash that demonstrates some ominous truths about American-European relations. The first truth is the traditionalism of American policy elites. Even when the evidence is thrust into American faces, it is hard for them to accept that things have changed in the old alliance. From 1947 until 1991, US-European relations were guided by the rule that America would provide the protection and Europe the deference.

With the collapse of Soviet military power, the deal became obsolete. Yet this large geopolitical change has made little impression on American policy elites. Indeed, John Kerry won the backing of almost all of this elite by running a presidential campaign that promised that the alliance could be restored with just a few sweet words.

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