The European Political Newspaper

Spending in Presidential races is breaking one record after another, but money alone does not buy power.

Since July 2010, when a US federal court decision allowed for the creation of “independent” expenditure committees that can raise unlimited amounts of money from corporations, unions, associations, and individuals, spending in US politics has been spiraling out of control. In 2016 alone, according to a lobbying industry monitor, nearly $260 million have been spent. That is a third of what was spent in 2012 for the Presidential campaign as a whole.

Of course, those so called Super-PACs cannot donate money directly to a political candidate and cannot coordinate their spending with campaign manager, but they can spend to support the candidates of their liking independently. However, money alone does not seem to buy public “love.”

The proof is that the most successful in money raising was Jeb Bush, who nonetheless was forced to drop out of the race in February, failing to win even a single primary. One Super Pac standing behind him named “Right to Rise USA” had amassed $118,685,876 for a candidate that did not make it even to the top three of the race. His campaign raised $157,6 million, but only had the time to spend $30,7.

Up to now, donors have spent $200 million on candidates dropping out of the race, with money buying little more than this air, unless seen of course as a long term investment.

Through polarizing, violent, and politically incorrect language, Donald Trump has secured thousands of hours’ worth of media coverage completely free. That was also better quality coverage, since political advertising is thrown into audience with “saturated” attention spans, who may be trained to bounce off political messaging during dense campaigns with a multitude of candidates. As a self-pronounced “anti-establishment” choice, Trump renounced seper PACS and is paying a lot out of his own pocket.

Still, money does talk.

Hillary Clinton’s primary super PAC has raised $51 million, which may not be needed in the primaries. In addition, her campaign has raised $188 million, has spent $97,5 and she has $32 million cash in hand.

That is approximately double the money Bernie Sanders has raised. His campaign boasts 5 million unique contributors, and has raised $96,3 million, but has spent already $81,6. And he has no Super PAC money.

No one can enter a race without serious money. Money is in-itself part of the campaign and is counted as much as endorsements. It is power. But, votes are not a commodity and there are many ways to getting media attention.

(Yahoo Finance, New York Times)

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The Republic of Congo is a country that has undertaken a dramatic and often traumatic journey over a relatively short period of time, and headed to elections this Sunday, 20 March.

The country has been stabilised through a new constitution and a new political settlement between conflicting partners, enabled by President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has been leading the country since 1997, and before that between 1979 and 1993. The Congo now seems to be on the right path on a long journey towards building a viable, stable and democratic future.

Although the legal and institutional framework has progressively improved, the Congo is still a young and maturing democracy. The lack of a deep rooted democratic culture means that there are likely to be isolated incidents from across the political spectrum.

The Congo has seen several successful parliamentary and presidential elections since 2002 which were viewed by international observers as fair and free. The 2012 parliamentary election was particularly well-viewed by observers from the International Organisation of the Francophonie.

Despite the challenges of transitioning towards a mature democracy, very significant progress has been made in recent years. The most recent and significant changes include an increasingly sophisticated electoral law and a Constitution that has increasingly protected human rights, civil liberties and democracy, while also providing greater checks and balances. This is particularly true of the 2015 Constitution and the 2016 Electoral Law.

On a diplomatic mission in Brussels in early March, the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Congo, Jean-Claude Gakosso met with Federica Mogherini, the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy, Didier Reynders, the Belgian foreign minister, and Patrick I. Gomes, the Secretary General of the African, Caribbean Pacific Group of States (ACP).

“We came to Brussels, heart of Europe and EU headquarters to reassure our partners about our sincere wish to continue our longstanding cooperation with the EU and reassure them of the sincerity of our electoral process. In two weeks the Congolese go to the polls. We have provided information on the institutional changes undertaken in our country and I have the feeling that we have received attentive care,” Gakosso told media in Brazzaville.

The European Union will not send an official monitoring to the upcoming Congolese presidential elections, which will take place on 20 March 2016. Instead European member state ambassadors will report on the elections back to the EU institutions. Individual monitors are also being sent, including Michel Kafando, Former Acting President of Burkina Faso on behalf of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).

The Congolese foreign minister added that there was a convergence of opinion with his partners on the fact that Congolese citizens have to decide about their destiny since “sovereignty is an indisputable and non negotiable principle”.

Finally, according to Africa metrics polls, Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has been the President of the Republic of the Congo since 1997, is the favoured Congolese candidate and is most likely to achieve a comfortable victory. One poll showed 67% of voters intend to vote for him.

While a large majority of respondents to the poll believe the economic development and employment are the major challenges of Congo, 76% of respondents think there will be an amelioration of the economic situation of the country in the near future. The poll also shows that what the Congolese population is most dissatisfied about is education and most satisfied with national security.

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Ukrainians have chosen a Crimean Tatar singer and her song recalling how Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the mass deportation of her entire nation to Central Asia in 1944.

Singer Jamala won the national quarterfinal competition with her song 1944, receiving the highest scores both from the judges and from the text-message voting — even though the vast majority of Crimean Tatars were unable to cast ballots because they live in Crimea. (Ukrainian telecom companies were kicked out of the region following the Russian takeover, and now their equipment is being used there by Russian firms.)

Her song “1944” refers to the year in which Stalin uprooted Tatars from their homeland and shipped them in badly overcrowded trains to Central Asia; thousands died during the journey or starved to death on the barren steppes after they arrived. They were not allowed to return to Crimea until the 1980s; Jamaladinova was born in Kyrgyzstan.

The song is a peculiar combination of a mid-tempo pop confection and anguished lyrics. “When strangers are coming, they come to your house, they kill you all and say ‘We’re not guilty’,” the song begins.

“That terrible year changed forever the life of one fragile woman, my great-grandmother Nazylkhan. Her life was never the same,” Jamaladinova told The Associated Press before the Sunday broadcast.

The song lyrics do not touch on Russia’s annexation of Crimea two years ago, but entering the singer in the hugely popular song contest could raise the issue by implication. Crimean Tatars, who are a Turkic and mostly Muslim ethnic group, say oppression against them has increased since Russia annexed the peninsula.

With English lyrics and a chorus in Crimean Tatar, 1944 evokes the Soviet Red Army’s deportation of nearly 250,000 Crimean Tatars in May of that year. The Soviet government had accused the Crimean Tatars of collaborating with the Germans while the Nazis occupied the peninsula, so the nation was forcibly resettled to Central Asia and remote regions of Russia.

“There is no mention there about occupation or other outrages that the occupants are doing in our motherland; nevertheless it touches on the issue of indigenous people who have undergone horrible iniquities,” said Mustafa Jamilev, leader of the Crimean Tatars.

Eurovision rules prohibit songs with lyrics seen as having political content. In 2009, less than a year after Georgia and Russia fought a brief war, the competition disallowed Georgia’s proposed entrant because the group’s song lampooned Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine’s 2005 entrant Green Jolly was told to rework the lyrics of its song “Razom Nas Bahato,” which was an anthem of the previous year’s Orange Revolution protests.

The Eurovision final round with competitors from around the continent takes place in May in Stockholm.

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More brutal terrorists attack took place in war-torn Syria, as members of the so-called Islamic State (IS) hit the capital of Syria, Damascus and the city of Homs.

The British based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which supports the Syrian rebels who fight against the Syrian regime, reported that at least 59 people were killed and 100 others wounded in twin car bomb blasts that hit Homs and at least another 96 people were killed in a triple suicide attack, including a car bombing, near the Shiite shrine of Sayyida Zeinab south of Damascus. Both of Sunday’s attacks targeted Shia-majority areas and unfortunately the death toll may be even higher.

The situation in Syria is extremely complicated and the IS members are taking advantage of the political gap in the oil-rich country.

The Syrian regime, supported by Russia and led by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is on war against the Syrian rebels who are supported by the West and many Sunni-majority Arab States. At the same time both of the opposing sides need to face the IS, a common enemy, which started as an opposition force against the Syrian regime and later on raged a war against the rest of the rebels, demanding the establishment of a fundamentalist state in Syria.

Moreover, Turkey which is a member of the Anti-IS coalition led by the United States, has started a war against the YPG Syrian Kurds, which are accused from the rest of the rebels of holding good ties with the Syrian regime, despite being one of the most successful military groups in the fight against the IS.

Qatar based Al Jazeera, reported that one day before the IS attacks, US and Russia reached a “provisional agreement” on a UN-brokered ceasefire agreement between the Syrian regime forces and the Syria rebels to end the ongoing war and finally deal with the IS.

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, spoke in Amman alongside Nasser Judeh, Jordan’s foreign minister, and said that he had spoken earlier that morning with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, about the agreement.

Washington and Moscow are in negotiations to promote a UN Security Council resolution, which would end the fighting between the two sides, and at the same time recognize the need for military operations against organizations “recognized as terrorist by UN Security Council.”

However, even if UN resolution is issued, Moscow and Washington need to spent a lot of energy to persuade the various sides of the conflict to stop the fighting between them.

According to the independent Syrian Centre for Policy Research (SCPR) close to 470,000 Syrian people lost their live in the catastrophic war started in 2011. The country has been destroyed and the fragmentation of the Syrian society is deep. Now, regardless of who is going to win the war, the experts would surely talk about a pyrrhic victory.

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Croatia’s latest ideological debate is about a black hat with a shiny U sewn onto it. It’s a symbol of the Ustasha regime, which allied with Nazi Germany during World War Two to commit crimes against Serbs, Jews and Roma.

As reported by Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international broadcaster, the controversial cap in question appeared in an old photo on the head of a young Zlatko Hasanbegovic, now Croatia’s culture minister. The picture had originally been published in the 1990s by the right-wing magazine Independent State of Croatia. In several articles for the magazine, Hasanbegovic paid tribute to members of the Ustasha, calling them heroes and martyrs.The picture was republished in the weekly newspaper Novosti, whose editor is on the National Council for the Serb minority in Croatia. High-ranking officials in the government, led by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), have already accused the council of insulting the nation. However, Croatia’s centre-left has always seen Hasanbegovic as a Nazi sympathiser. DW reported that intellectuals see his appointment as culture minister as proof that Croatia’s new right-wing government wants to settle the score with anyone who is less nationalist than the ruling politicians.

“Hasanbegovic is a message,” the left-wing author and historian Dragan Markovina told DW. He believes that the culture minister was appointed for his nationalist ideology. The governing party has been attempting to court Croatia’s far-right, Markovina said: “HDZ is trying to prevent any positive interpretations of the Socialist era. That is why it wants bring culture under governmental control”. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) lost the government to the HDZ in November.

According to DW, the culture minister had initially tried to dismiss the incriminating picture as a malicious collage. But when his youthful hymns of praise for the Ustasha regime became public, Hasanbegovic, now 42, decided to go on attack mode, saying that “using 20-year-old statements from my youth and student days is political manipulation”. He claims that he, his party and the government are true to democracy and anti-fascism.

Crnoja’s idea led to protests. Thousands of citizens voluntarily signed a satirical “traitor list”.

The post Calls for resignation of Croatia’s culture minister over hat controversy appeared first on New Europe.

At least 10 people in India were killed and more than 150 others injured in protests by rural Jat caste calling for greater access to government jobs. The water supply to Delhi was also severed, forcing local schools and factories to close.

As reported by the Guardian, India has deployed thousands of troops to quell protests. Rioting and looting in Haryana, north India, by Jats, a rural caste, is symptomatic of increasingly fierce competition for government jobs and education in India, whose growing population is set to overtake China’s within a decade.

The federal government deployed 4,000 troops and 5,000 paramilitaries on February 21 and ordered an end to the protests by the evening. The home minister, Rajnath Singh, met Jat leaders and offered to meet their demands.

“We are here to die,” said Rajendra Ahlavat, a 59-year-old farmer and protest leader. “We will keep going until the government bows to our pressure. There is no way we will take back our demands.”

As reported by the Financial Times, the destructive spree — in a business-friendly state housing the corporate offices and factories of many multinational companies — is a warning sign of the risks to India’s political and social stability from restive youth, struggling to realise their aspirations for a better life in an economy that is failing to create enough jobs for the estimated 1m people entering the work force each month.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made no direct statement on the unrest.

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Up to 5,000 EU citizens, trained in Syria and Iraq by the Islamic State (IS), have returned in Europe, Europol chief Rob Wainwright said in an interview with Germany’s Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung newspaper.

On 20 February, Wainwright told the German daily that “Europe is currently facing the highest terror threat in more than 10 years.” He said that the EU Member States can expect by the so-called Islamic State (IS) or other religious terror groups to stage an attack somewhere in Europe “with the aim of achieving mass casualties among the civilian population.” Wainwright added that the estimated thousands of returned jihadists “presents EU member states with completely new challenges.”

Many are trying to link the current European refugee crisis with the return of many jihadists, saying that the halt of the refugee influx will result in the better protection of the EU citizen. Wainwright, dismissed the claims and underlined that “there is no concrete evidence terrorists are systematically using the flow of refugees to infiltrate Europe.”

However, Russian website RT, reported that in January, former UK Defense Secretary Liam Fox expressed concern that jihadists could sneak into the EU among asylum-seekers. The national authorities “have no idea whether these people are genuine refugees or asylum seekers, or economic migrants, or terrorists operating under the cover of either,” he had said then.

Moreover, on late January, French Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve also said that the IS acquired blank passports and established a fake passports industry. “Daesh (the Arabic name for the IS) has managed to seize passports in Iraq, Syria and Libya and to set up a true industry of fake passports.”

Then the French Interior Minister advised his European fellow Minister that the EU must establish special task forces and sent them to Greece to assist the identification of fake or stolen passports.

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Important NATO Members are not willing to support Turkey in a possible big war with Russia, according to a report by the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Last week the Turkish government decided to start a war against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Northern Syria, saying that the YPG has ties with the outlawed Kurdistan’s Workers Party (PKK) being a terrorist organization and posing a threat to Turkey.

The international community asked from the Turkish government to stop the operations against the Syrian Kurds, who are one of the most successful groups in the war against the so-called Islamic State (IS), who performed serious war crimes in Syria.

Despite the calls of the EU and the US to stop the operations, Turkish officials say that Turkey has the right to perform military operations on foreign ground, and days ago a Syrian Kurd representative warned that a “big war” between Turkey and Russia is not out of the question in case Turkey violate Syrian sovereignty. Russia supports the Syrian Kurds fighters and the Syria regime, led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Two days ago, Spiegel reported that Ankara’s aggression seems partially based on the assumption that, should conflict erupt between Turkey and Russia, then Turkey will be supported by its NATO allies.

However, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told Der Spiegel: “NATO cannot allow itself to be pulled into a military escalation with Russia as a result of the recent tensions between Russia and Turkey.” Asked about NATO’s article 5, which oblige the Member States to support a fellow Member State under attack, Asselborn stressed that the support “is only valid when a member state is clearly attacked.” However, the Russian government has said that it may defend the Syrian ground and not perform military operations in Turkish soil.

According to Spiegel, a German diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity also supported Asselborn’s comments clarifying that Germany will not “pay the price for a war started by the Turks.”

When the Turkish government decided to fire down a Russian warplane last year, because it entered Turkish airspace for tens of seconds, NATO backed the right of Turkey to defend it sovereignty but later on it asked from both Moscow and Ankara to avoid any further escalation. After the downing of the plane the relations between the two counties worsen, and now Russia says that Ankara has no right to violate Syria’s sovereignty.

Nikolai Kovalyov, a former head of the Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB, said that Russian jets would bomb Turkish troops if they enter Syria. Moreover, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also said that any foreign incursion into Syria would be “illegal” and the Russian response would depend on the situation.

On Friday, French President Francois Hollande stressed the need to prevent conflict between Moscow and Ankara. “There is a risk of war between Turkey and Russia,” he said in an interview with France Inter radio.

Today, Turkish daily, Hurriyet reported that two days ago the US President, Barack Obama spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the dangerous situation in Northern Syria.

After the end of the talks, Erdogan spoke at an UNESCO event and said that Turkey has the right to conduct operations not only in Syria but also any other place in which there are terrorist organizations that target Turkey.

“Turkey has every right to conduct operations in Syria and the places where terror organizations are nested with regards to the struggle against the threats that Turkey faces,” Erdogan said on February 20. Moreover, the Turkish President said that Turkey’s war in Northern Syria has “absolutely nothing to do with the sovereignty rights of the states that cannot take control of their territorial integrity.”

“On the contrary, this has to do with the will Turkey shows to protect its sovereignty rights,” he said. “We except attitudes to prevent our country’s right [to self-defense] directly as an initiative against Turkey’s entity – no matter where it comes from.”

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Balkan states have been invited to a meeting on migration in Vienna by Austrian leaders following the country’s move to limit asylum applicants to 80 per day.

Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner and Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz sent invitations to Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Croatia, FYROM, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia, Mikl-Leiter’s office said in a statement.

The meeting, to include Defence Minister Peter Doskozil, is planned on February 24 in advance of a separate European Union conference of interior ministers, planned for February 25.

As reported by the Agence France-Presse (AFP), Austria announced on February 21 that it is beefing up the army at its borders to deal with the inflow of migrants, with 450 more troops and military police on standby in case of trouble.

The increase to 1,450 soldiers and reservists comes after Austria drew criticism last week for saying it would only accept 80 asylum seekers and let 3,200 migrants pass through the country per day.

Austria last year took in 90,000 asylum seekers, making it one of the highest recipients in Europe on a per-capita basis, while almost 10 times as many passed through, mostly heading to Germany and Sweden, reported AFP.

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The razor wire fence built by Hungary to stop migrants and refugees from crossing the border from neighbouring Serbia is not impenetrable. Police arrested 550 people getting through in January and more than 1,200 were caught in the first three weeks of February.

As reported by the BBC, Hungary caused controversy with the barrier, completed in September. While the number of people crossing from Serbia dropped after Hungary built the fence along the 175km border, police say migrants are cutting through or climbing over the barrier.

Many are from Pakistan, Iran and Morocco, who are no longer admitted through other routes, reported the BBC. But the majority of migrants and refugees have headed for countries like Germany and Sweden via Hungary and Austria after crossing from Turkey to Greece. Many are fleeing the conflict in Syria.

Meanwhile, Hungary is planning a second fence. Janos Lazar, the Hungarian prime minister’s chief of staff, was quoted as saying: “Migration will restart in the spring, possibly putting pressure on our borders. We have to prepare for that and for the building of a fence on the border with Romania”.

EU leaders have announced a summit in early March in Turkey to try to seek a fresh solution to the brewing crisis.

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The first ever document mentioning Bran Castle, a national monument and landmark in Romania, is an act issued by King Lajos I of Hungary on 19 November 1377. The act gave the German Saxons of Kronstadt (Brasov) the right to build the stone citadel at their own expense and labour. The settlement of Bran began to develop nearby. Between 1438 and 1442, the castle was used as a fort to defend against the Ottoman Empire and later became a customs post on the mountain pass between Transylvania and Wallachia.

The Wallachian ruler Vlad III Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), 1448-1476, did not seem to have had any significant role in the history of the fortress, although he did pass several times through the Bran Gorge. Bran Castle belonged to the Hungarian monarchs, but due to some failure to repay loans, the city of Brasov gained possession of the fortress in 1533.

New Europe spoke with Archduke Sándor von Habsburg about the famous castle of Bran, which is now owned by his family. Archduke Sándor was in Brussels for an award ceremony organised by Baron Henri Estramant in order to bestow upon President Herman Van Rompuy the prestigious “Flame of Peace Award” from the Association of the Furtherance of Peace to which he serves as the vice president.

Can you tell us how your family came into possession of the castle?

The castle belongs to the town of Bran, but the administration searched for a suitable person who would bring an economic added value to the community. So the decision was to give it to Queen Marie of Romania (née Princess of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha), my great-grandmother. She then invested a lot to completely restore the building and make it her permanent summer residence. It became her favourite place in Romania. She was also known in Romania as the “Queen of Hearts” because she wrote a lot of very nice children’s tales when she was in Bran. My father, Archduke Dominic, was there until he was 10 years old in 1947. Then with the abdication of King Mihai I and the introduction of the communist regime, they had to leave the country.

But your family owned the castle from before?

To be precise, before it became property of Queen Marie, the city of Brasov offered it in 1916 as a present to the last king of Hungary Károly IV from the House Habsburg yet from a different line of the dynasty. The problem was that the King asked the city not to register the castle under his name because of the war he didn‘t want to receive such an ostentatious present during a period in which people were suffering. Hence he “officially” accepted the castle as a gift and his personal property, however, it was never registered as such in the property books. In 1919, Transylvania was annexed by Romania, and the last King of Hungary was exiled.

How did the story of Dracula make the castle such a big tourist attraction?

Historically, Bran was brought in conjunction with Dracula and the story of Bram Stoker. As far as we know, Prince Vlad (Princely House Drăculești) who is the inspiration for Count Dracula never lived in the castle. It is believed he was there a couple of nights, but this has made the castle the most famous tourist attraction in Romania, being the only still surviving abode where he allegedly resided.

Today, as in the communist era, it is a museum open 365 days a year. We also open it four times a year free of charge to school children and we organise a children’s festival so they can learn about its history. Most of the famous movie productions were made during the communist era, so this was before our time. But the story of Dracula created a lot of publicity and visitors. According to state officials, today approximately 40% of tax revenues are generated in conjunction to the castle – restaurants, hotels and tourism-related activities – because there are between 3,000 and 5,000 people visiting the area each day.

Which parts of the castle are the most interesting?

The castle has a very homely atmosphere and it holds four apartments in its structure. It has small rooms, small winding staircases and secret staircases in the walls like the one going directly from the second to the fourth floor. You will see a home and a palace, but also I would say it is a sanctuary, a very spiritual place where you can come to reflect. The castle is full of small places where you can contemplate and be alone. In this place, it is possible to see and experience how a royal family really lived in private. The castle which has a very nice garden and a tea house sits up high on top of a [hill], so you can also have a nice view of the Romania-Transylvania border.

The post Bran Castle, a Romanian gem in mystic Transylvania appeared first on New Europe.

Hillary won Nevada

Hillary Clinton defeated Bernie Sanders in the Nevada on Saturday by 52,7% to 47,2%.

This was a convincing 5,5% lead, that is, a victory much needed by both campaigns and secured by Clinton. The former Secretary of State is again in the lead after losing New Hampshire and just about winning Iowa.

Clinton congratulated Sanders but said that these elections were not and could not be about big banks alone.

Mr. Sanders said not enough people showed up to vote, reminded everyone he covered some ground since only weeks ago he was 25% behind, talked about the Super PACs he is taking on  and reminded everyone he was taking home 15 electors, versus Mrs Clinton’s 19. But, Mr. Sanders can’t run a campaign as an underdog for too long and Mrs. Clinton is now retaking the lead as the favorite.

The underdog psychology can motivate crowdfunding and secure young votes, but many are skeptical about his ability to move across party lines to pursue policies. This matters to interest groups that care about issues, including immigration, healthcare, and unions.

Bottom line: at this point, neither of them is going anywhere.

Mr. Sanders was right on lower turnout, but the fact that he did not inspire more people to vote for him is his own liability, because it is his campaign that takes pride in leading among the young and over 65s; these demographic strongholds are often unreliable.

Eyes are now on a dozen states that will vote on March 1st and could make or break the momentum of either campaign.

Super Tuesday

Mr. Sanders blamed his defeat in Nevada to low turnout and both candidates are preparing for “Super Tuesday,” when a dozen states in Western and South United States pick their candidates.

In Nevada Mr. Sanders did better with the Latino, but “better” alone does not win campaigns.

Bernie Sanders will need to make inroads to Hillary Clinton’s demographic turf to stand a chance. Mrs. Clinton leads the way among women, Latinos, and African Americans. She is losing badly against Senator Sanders among whites and young. But, she did regain some of the ground lost to Mr. Sanders among whites in Nevada, especially among unionized blue collar workers. Unlike Mr. Sanders, she gained enough to win the state.

Who will win each other’s turf

In places like South Carolina race will matter, because minorities are the Democratic turf and that is more important in places with a sizable African-American or Latino community, in South and Western states.

Both campaigns have enough fuel to stay on the course. Mrs. Clinton has a lot more cash-in-hand, but Mr. Sanders has enough to stay on. Mrs. Clinton is indeed doing better with individual donors and Mr. Sanders is doing a good crowdfunding effort.

Mr Sanders is going to Colorado, Mrs. Clinton is going to Texas. When more than one state votes, candidates have to spent their time strategically, campaigning where they think they might win. The choice speaks of their strengths and weaknesses, fight they will take, and fights they won’t.

(CNN, NBC, CNN, Reuters, Guardian, Fortune)

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The French government has suspended plans to evict thousands of refugees living in the ramshackle “Jungle” camp on the outskirts of Calais. This is the vicinity of Calais, France, where migrants live while they attempt to enter the United Kingdom.

As reported by The Independent, the eviction was postponed by French courts after a census carried out by the charity Help Refugees discovered many more refugees were living in the area than authorities had initially calculated.

The charity said there were 3,455 people living in the southern stretch of the Jungle scheduled to be demolished. It is more than three times France’s estimates of between 800 and 1,000. That figure includes 445 children, of whom 315 were living without their parents – that is not to say they are orphans. The youngest child found was a 10-year-old boy from Afghanistan.

An open letter asking David Cameron to “protect the children of Calais” has garnered more than 100,000 signatures at the time of writing. Among the signatories are Idris Elba, Helena Bonham Carter, Benedict Cumberbatch and a number of other high-profile figures, according to The Independent.

The letter states: “This is a humanitarian crisis that needs to be acknowledged as such and it is imperative that we do everything we can to help these innocent and highly vulnerable refugees, especially the minors, as swiftly as is humanly possible”.

Last month, a British judge ordered that three Syrian children and an accompanying adult should be allowed to escape the “living hell” of the Calais refugee camp and enter the UK to join their relatives.

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Last week on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference US State Secretary John Kerry blamed Russian for its actions in Ukraine and continued support of separatists in the Eastern part of the country. Senior European diplomats supported him saying that Russia would continue to be subject to sanctions until it and the rebels it supports come into full compliance with Minsk agreement. New Europe has met with Serghei Taruta, an Independent MP of Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) and former Governor of Donetsk Oblast, the region at present controlled by the rebels, to discuss his view on the perspectives of the end of the conflict and Ukraine’s membership in the EU and NATO.

NE: How is Ukraine managing with the ongoing problem of internally displaced people – and refugees who are currently in Russia?  Are there any obstacles for their return?

Taruta: The problem of displaced people who have fled their homes because of the war in Eastern Ukraine is a very big challenge indeed for our government. At present there are about 1.5 million displaced people in Ukraine alone, from the territories of Donetsk, the Donbas, Lugansk and in part from Crimea. We know that about 300,000 Ukrainians currently reside in Russia but some of them have already come back.

NE: But Russian state reporting suggests there are about 1 million people who at present temporarily reside in Russia and the Ukrainian government does not provide any humanitarian help for them.

Taruta: This figure is detached from reality. We know the statistics, we know exactly how many people are in our own territory, we know how many lived there before and according to these figures we can understand how many have left.

NE: Is there any process for the reintegration of these citizens?

Taruta: Unfortunately, this is not an easy process. The Ministry of Emergencies developed a special programme under which it set up a number of transit points and provided people with necessary help. Subsequently they were allocated to different regions across the country.

However, the Ukrainian government made some mistakes. For instance, it did not take steps to set up state institutions, which could track all displaced people in the country, as well as assist in organizing the process of their further integration.

NE: The IMF recently said that the next tranche of its proposed loan to Ukraine depends on the implementation of certain reforms. How would you evaluate the likelihood of Ukraine to get the loan?

Taruta: I have no doubts that Ukraine will receive the money but it does not mean that we should not continue implementing our reforms. Personally I think that we should do more for the macro-social situation than the macroeconomic because the IMF’s goal is primarily the macro-financial stability and that is not what Ukraine needs now. Ukraine will receive money from the IMF but the demand of the reforms from its side will be tougher to implement.

The remedies suggested by the IMF for Ukraine form part of a compromise offered by the government and the initial demands of the IMF. These transformations in my opinion should be more substantial than the IMF wants. Crucially, governmental power needs to be decentralized.  We need a transparent administrative system, and regulation that will build an attractive investment climate. The business community in cooperation with the civil society, experts and our western friends, who have experience in this field have already created Declaration of Business, a programme of economic reforms needed in Ukraine. I would like to underline that this programme is not simply prepared in the West, but is in fact created in Ukraine and tailored according to our needs. In a nutshell it is equivalent to a Marshall Plan for  Ukraine, which can substantially change our country for the better.

NE: You mentioned decentralization, which is a very sensitive question now in Ukraine. But the parliament is divided between those who want to keep the present system with strong central government and those who believe that decentralization will bring peace to Ukraine.

Taruta: I think that decentralization is the solution. Unfortunately, the present system as it is in our Constitution is not appropriate. For instance, the executive power of the central institutions is controlled by the government, while the regional power belongs to the President.  This contradiction should be removed and all executive power both central and regional should be in the hands of the Prime Minister and the government.

NE: What do you see as the fate for Crimea within Ukraine?

Taruta: No one in Ukraine has forgotten about Crimea, least of all me. I have lost a lot of money there as I invested a lot in Crimea. Everything was nationalized by the Crimean authorities in a very ugly way, without observing any legislation.

NE: Did you get any money back when your assets were nationalized in Crimea?

Taruta: Of course not. It was entirely a raider attack organized by the Crimean authorities assisted by Russia. It does not even meet the requirements of Russian legislation, not to mention international law. Everything was done in a 1990s style. Investors were divided into categories: those who could be cleaned out without punishment and those who got something because of their relationship with the Russians. It was a very bad signal for the future of Crimea. Again, no one has forgotten Crimea and every politician in Ukraine will fight until Crimea comes back to Ukraine. It was very sad to hear from Russian PM Medvedev at the Security Conference in Munich that the question with Crimea is closed. But we want to say thank you to our western partners, who clearly said that until Crimea comes back to Ukraine part of the sanctions imposed on Russia will remain in place.

NE: How do you see the future of Ukraine?

Taruta: In 2015 Ukraine signed the Association Agreement with the EU and we have to follow its terms. We should implement all necessary reforms and as a reliable partner we will do it. As regards membership, I am pretty lucid and see no opportunities at least at this stage to enter the EU. However, we continue adapting our system according to the European standards.

As regards security issues, Ukraine will remain a neutral country. Despite our desire to be a NATO member we understand that again at this stage it is not possible due to the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. However, we, Ukrainians, have to find a way to live with all our neighbors, as unfortunately it is not a matter of choice. They are given to us by history and we should learn from Finland or Austria not merely how to survive but how to develop the country considering the given de-facto circumstances. Radicalism is not an option for Ukraine.

The post A European Ukraine has to live with its neighbors appeared first on New Europe.

We live in a different world. A global world of complexity, uncertainty, stronger competition and high standards of quality and innovation demanding. The economy is confronted with new challenges and the art of the economy is the right answer to the different questions that society define. The art of the economy is the new state of the art of a more creative matrix of concrete proposals to the challenges that are brought every day to society by people and organizations.

The Thinking Economy  must be supported  by the most modern standards of innovation, creativity and competitiveness. This is the reason to believe that a new standard of global economy, more than a possibility, is an individual and collective necessity for all of us, effective global citizens. The difference of this new economy in this new world will be in the exercise of the capacity of the individual participation as the central contribution to the reinvention of the collective society. 

The Thinking Economy  is not determined by law. It is effectively constructed by all the actors in a free and collaborative strategic interaction. The acceleration of the economy depends largely on its people and institutions. An active commitment, in which the focus in the participation and development of new competences, on a collaborative basis, must be the key of the difference. This is purpose of the Diplomacy of the Economy.

The Thinking Economy  must also be developed by a permanent flow of ideas. Ideas demand a permanent colaboration between the different actors, with the strategic challenge of reinforcing the central competences of society and qualifying them as the unique ways of creation of value and modernity. The markets are facing also a unique opportunity. The ideas must be the difference of a proposal we must be aware that is the best key for our ambition of excellence.  The Thinking Economy  demands also a commitment of partnership  in order to build a real Strategy of Confidence in the implementation of the different policies. The focus on Innovation and Knowledge as the drivers of creating added value with international dissemination is a unique challenge that may be the answer to a new way of interaction between those who have the responsibility of thinking and those that have the responsibility of producing goods and services.

The Thinking Economy demands also a new competitive attitude.  We need people to have a new challenge. Society must be able to be the real Platform of a more entrepreneurial attitude, centered in new areas of knowledge and new sectors of value. In a Modern and Active Society, the key word is Co-creation. To promote a dynamic and active creation process involving each citizen is the big challenge for the next years in the future. The future is the right place to say we are in, we want to be in, we want to be the right solution to the global problems we face. The Thinking Economy  must be a confidence in Excellence. Excelence must be the new competitive advantage of a new society of the Ideas pushed by the “enablers” of  Modernity, Added Value and Excellence. A very clear idea that suits the big challenge that our society really faces and that requires new answers for different questions. The act of global  participation in such a demanding society is an exercise of commitment between the individual creativity and the collective cooperation. This is the challenge of the Thinking Economy.

The post The Thinking Economy appeared first on New Europe.

COPENHAGEN – Some $1 trillion was lost to corruption last year. This is money that was not available for expanding health care, broadening access to education, improving nutrition, or cleaning up the environment. According to Transparency International, 68% of the world’s countries have a serious corruption problem, and no country is completely immune.

Corruption is one facet of poor governance; indeed, it correlates with ineffective public administration, weak accountability, low transparency, and inconsistent implementation of the rule of law. So it is little wonder that the United Nations’ brand-new Sustainable Development Goals, coming into force this year, aim to fight it. Nonetheless, the SDGs represent a departure from the previous development framework, the Millennium Development Goals, which contained no explicit targets relating to corruption.

Success would have myriad benefits: better public service, higher economic growth, greater faith in democracy. In an ongoing global poll that has so far attracted 9.7 million responses, “an honest and responsive government” is the fourth most popular policy priority, with only education, health care, and better jobs rated higher.

The problem is that the SDGs have so many targets – 169 in total – that they promise virtually everything to everyone. Without enough time or resources to focus on everything, countries will prioritize. My think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus Center, has worked with more than 60 teams of experts to analyze the promised targets to identify what each would cost and achieve, so that prioritization can be better informed.

Nobel laureate economists examined this new research and identified 19 super-targets that would do the most good for the world for each dollar spent. These include achieving universal access to contraception, stepping up the fight against tuberculosis, and expanding preschool access in Sub-Saharan Africa. The economists recommended that the world’s donors and governments focus first on these investments.

The UN’s 12 corruption and governance-related targets weren’t among these phenomenal investments. One reason is that several of the UN’s “targets” in these areas are so broad as to be meaningless. Indeed, it is all very well to say that we want to “develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels,” and to “substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms,” but where do we start?

Despite many years of effort, no simple path to achieving good governance or corruption-free institutions has been cleared. One challenge is that experts do not agree on whether good governance or development should come first. Historically, good institutions such as secure property rights and the rule of law were seen as the single most important factor driving variation in the wealth of countries, and more corruption was associated with lower growth. But more recent analyses have shown that it could just as easily be that higher wealth and economic growth lead to better governance.

A study of 80 countries where the World Bank tried to reduce corruption revealed improvement in 39%, but deterioration in 25%. More disturbing is that all of the countries the World Bank didn’t help had similar success and failure rates – suggesting that the Bank’s programs made no difference.

But the experts enlisted by the Copenhagen Consensus Center found one governance-related target that actually would do some good for each dollar spent: “By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.” That may seem like a very unambitious target compared to eliminating all corruption or creating transparent institutions everywhere. But in many developing countries, achieving the measurable target of universal legal identity would make a real difference.

Achieving this target requires functioning public services to provide registration facilities and maintain records. Establishing such institutional capacity would create a clear model for how other services could be provided effectively. In practice, a functioning registration service would almost certainly not exist in a vacuum, and thus would be a sign of emerging administrative competence.

But this is not just about bureaucracy; there are real benefits for citizens. They can claim legal rights, including property rights, which are vital to allow individuals to prosper and the economy to grow. Likewise, elections become less vulnerable to corruption and fraud when voters are properly registered.

If we want to place a high priority on fighting corruption, we should not settle for overly broad, well-meaning slogans. We should work on specific, proven, and effective approaches such as providing legal identity for all.

But we also have to confront the possibility that when it comes to helping the world’s poor, anti-corruption policies may not be the best place to spend our money first. This is partly because there are much more effective ways to tackle problems like tuberculosis or access to contraception, and partly because current anti-corruption policies are expensive and do little or no good.

This is not to deny that corruption hits the world’s poor hard. But there are many challenges, from lack of healthcare to starvation and pollution, that also hurt the poor but that we can address more effectively.

Focusing on what we can do well seems less impressive than promising everything to everyone – until it’s time to deliver. Those who prioritize properly will end up helping many more people.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2016.

www.project-syndicate.org

The post When is fighting corruption worth it? appeared first on New Europe.

He survived, on Tuesday last week, a no-confidence vote in parliament, but then two junior parties left his government coalition, leaving it hanging in the limbos of incertitude.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk once said that taking the job of Ukrainian prime minister was an act of “political suicide” and on Tuesday he was almost proven right. Facing charges that he has been unable to deliver on a pledge to tackle corruption and fix the economy, the bespectacled pro-Western premier was asked to step down by the president, Petro Poroshenko, “in order to restore trust in the government”.

When he was made premier, Yatsenyuk was one of Europe’s youngest government chiefs, a post made more powerful since parliament voted to return to a 2004 constitution that handed a raft of powers from the president to lawmakers. He was born on May 22, 1974, into a family of professors. After having studied law and economics, he worked in a Kiev bank, went to Ukraine’s central bank, and in 2001 he became minister of economy for Crimea, which enjoyed limited autonomy as part of Ukraine. The then president Yushchenko had him in the government as economy minister (2005-2006), then made him briefly foreign minister in 2007. He was chief negotiator for Ukraine’s entry into the World Trade Organisation.  Following the so-called Orange Revolution in 2004, Yatsenyuk began pushing a more pro-Western agenda and became a close ally of Yuliya Tymoshenko, the prime minister from 2007 to 2010 who was jailed under Yanukovych for abuse of power. Being the protege of Tymoshenko, Yatsenyuk rose to prominence as one of the main protest leaders on Kiev’s Independence Square, shedding his intellectual image with stormy speeches from the podium. For all his talking tough to the crowds, he is also a skilled behind-the-scenes political operator who had held top posts under previous governments. A former speaker of parliament, he came fourth in the 2010 presidential election won by pro-Kremlin Viktor Yanukovych, winning just 7 % of the vote.

Yatsenyuk served as foreign minister under another president, Viktor Yushchenko, in 2007 and became a compromise figure when a personal conflict between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko began to spiral out of control. Yatsenyuk was always good at preparing his coups quietly and manoeuvring by surprise. He entered Yuliya Tymoshenko’s party Batkivshchyna on time, and he left it on time. He ran against Tymoshenko in the 2010 presidential elections, then accepted to lead her party while she was in jail. In last year’s elections he had his own platform, on which he narrowly beat out Poroshenko’s Bloc.

Only two weeks after he took the oath, Russia annexed Crimea and a bloody pro-Moscow insurgency soon raged in the industrial east.

The war-torn country was also in dire economic straits and Yatsenyuk openly admitted that dragging the former Communist republic from the brink of collapse would mean pushing through wrenching austerity measures. Yatsenyuk’s considerable economic experience proved a boon as he took on the task of negotiating a massive multi-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, European Union, World Bank and allied countries to keep Ukraine afloat.

Although he did not have an image as a tough politician, he became known for his vitriolic condemnations of Moscow and he won plaudits for standing up to Russia as it cut off vital gas supplies to Ukraine over a bitter price dispute. But that image has faded in recent months, with two top reformist officials resigning in protest against alleged state graft, and Yatsenyuk’s closest allies becoming embroiled in corruption charges.

He had come to power pledging to root out Ukraine’s endemic corruption but ended up facing allegations that he was backing the interests of the very billionaires he had vowed to sideline.

After the parliament failed to garner the votes required to oust Yatsenyuk’s team, this left Ukraine in the peculiar position of its two top leaders at seeming odds over how to proceed further.

The post Arseniy Yatsenyuk: the eternal survivor appeared first on New Europe.

When the euro – the common currency in 19 out of the 28 European Union countries – was created, there was a sense that we had already taken a big step toward economic and ultimately political integration.

After all, European economies had to continue a rapprochement and the gap between the rich and the not-so-rich countries was being diminished.

But today, we can conclude that we were wrong. The reality is a completely different situation and it is one that has been tormenting the European Union during these last couple of months.

Unfortunately, there are many places inside the Union where no one cares about integration. But that’s not all. There is also growing hostility toward the European idea and the European Union itself. It is growing dramatically.

On the economic level, when the euro was introduced, every national government continued to act as though the common currency were a national currency. No institution controlling financial policies was active in reality. As a result, some of the countries in the euro zone – and not just the bloc’s southern members – fell deep in economic crisis.

The reaction of the richest countries was not the creation of a controlling mechanism, but a campaign against the “lazy and corrupt” members. It should not come as a surprise now to see a considerable proportion of Europeans asking for the financially weak countries to be placed under irrational rescue programmes. It is no surprise either that there is a growing tendency among some member states to want severe punishment against the weaker members like Greece today.

But, as we can see, every country, according to its power, can impose conditions on the Union, as we are experiencing now with the United Kingdom. Can we talk today about economic integration to the citizens of Europe? Probably not.

On the political level, the situation seems to be a lot worse.

After the latest EU enlargements during which countries that had experienced a long period of communist totalitarianism joined our European home, we thought that political integration was on the right track. It meant the creation of a huge union – one based on democratic and liberal values in which every citizen would live equally with his or her religious, cultural, national or sexual particularities.

Again, we were wrong.  From the onset of the economic crisis, Europe was divided. Some EU members verbally attacked other members. This resulted in a breeding ground for populist politics.

Mainstream newspapers discovered lucrative merchandise in nationalist and populist news by rousing the lowest level of sentiments among their readers. Attacking the poorest countries and especially the European idea became a top-selling daily headline. 

As a result, a considerable portion of EU citizens in many member countries tend to think that less Europe is the best medicine for any ailment.

There’s more. Every state, guided by public opinion polls, presented its own planning and schedule – not taking in consideration what the European Union, as a body, had decided.

One example is how some EU countries reacted when Brussels imposed sanctions against Russia after the annexation of Crimea.

The constitution in some countries also became the target of ultraconservative leaders. The freedom of the media came under threat. Some citizens, especially the Roma minority, were condemned to a life in the margins of society. But it was the massive waves of refugees and migrants starting to arrive to Europe in 2014 (first through Italy and then through Greece) that proved just how deep the divisions are in Europe.

Xenophobia, nationalism, Islamophobia and racism, as well as Europhobia and homophobia, violently entered our daily life, despite the fact that all of these are alien to our post-war European culture.

So can we talk about integration today? Should we remain hopeful we will reach the goal in the end? Many of the actions taken, such as that of the summit of the Visegrad Group, have left us wondering. Still, let’s hope the EU will know what to do and manage to isolate these negative examples before they spread.

The post Should we just forget about integration? appeared first on New Europe.

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We have two open issues with the Directorate General for Research and Innovation (RTD) of the European Commission. A cancelled audit which resulted to € 5,5 mo. loss for the Community budget and the reduction of a recovery from € 70 mo. by € 61 mo.

Politically, RTD comes under Commissioner Carlos Moedas, a young yet dynamic and sharp Portuguese politician. Director General is Robert-Jan Smits. The two cases above, were powered during the previous Barroso II Commission and were both staged by Director General Robert-Jan Smits. Commissioner Carlos Moedas at the time was in Portugal and had nothing to do with the wheeling-dealings. Therefore we presume that Carlos Moedas will not attempt to cover-up any possible investigations on the matter as will take personally, and will certainly affect the present Commission, “sins” of his predecessors.

The cancellation of the audits to a European scientific foundation was illegitimate. Full stop. There was not College or other decision for that and was direct responsibility of the Director General. The why, in known only to the God and to the Director General. It would be most interesting to share this information with us but we doubt. Certainly he will have to explain that to OLAF which to the best of our knowledge received a fully substantiated complaint for the case.

The case of the reduction of the €70 mo. recovery from the French Research organization CNRS by € 61 mo. is the second problem. The reduction was made on the grounds of a Commission Decision of December 17, 2012 which authorized RTD to come to a deal with CNRS. How, the good Director General managed within the same day to conclude the deal and get CNRS to sign the “protocole transactionnel” while he signed the next day, shows efficiency! The fact that CNRS announced the deal two months before, specifically on October 26, 2012, goes besides the efficiency of the good Director General and enters the field of  sphere metaphysics.

However, in good faith we accept also metaphysics. What we cannot “digest” is that the protocole transactionnel signed by the Commission includes a confidentiality clause which does not allow other organizations, possibly in the same situation of CNRS versus the Commission, to have knowledge of the deal and on the basis of that, receive equal treatment. This is unfair and serious misconduct on the part of the European Commission. For this reason, we release in our website (http://neurope.eu/protocole-transactionnel-cnrs-ce/)

the entire confidential “protocole transactionnel” as signed by CNRS and the Commission. In reality, we are doing what the Commission should have done in the first instance.

We are waiting to see what Carlos Moedas and the Juncker Commission will do for those two cases as they are far from being over, as yet. We have noticed with interest that the Deputy Director General W Burtscher in Charge of Budget and Legal Maters (the most crucial of the three verticals of RTD) was moved to the vertical Science and Innovation. It is most interesting that W Burtscher was temporarily replaced by the Director in this department  F. Biscontin. But this seems to be a temporary arrangement. It remains to be seen who will replace F. Biscontin as he cannot stay there forever. If will be somebody of the entourage of RJ Smits, it will mean that for sometime the problems will be hidden under the rug and the present Commission will become responsible for the “sins” of its predecessors. Otherwise, if the new Deputy Director General is appointed by the Cabinet of  Juncker, it will imply that for as long as R-J Smits remains at the post of Director General, he will be under probation.

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