Comment & Opinion / Komentáře a názory

Hungary (again) threatened with being deprived of its EU voting rights

To paraphrase the classic: two things fill my mind with ever new and increasing awe, the starry heavens above me and the bottomless capacity of liberal establishment to undermine its own moral and political cause.

Go on then, go and threaten Hungary just before the EU elections with a ‘nuclear option’, depriving it of voting rights only because it exercises its prerogative for a different political opinion. Entirely according to the EU’s founding treaties, which provides member states with a blocking minority in a limited aspect of sovereign matters (foreign policy and exercise of control over all our taxation money including). This is, by the way, what the article below joyfully and poetically welcomes as Orbán finding himself ‘under the frog’s ass’, thus continuing in Politico’s well set line of bashing the Hungarian government at every opportunity. (While never questioning when the EU’s democratic principles are being thrashed by Macron, Scholz and the like in the name of a ‘good liberal cause’, just as they plan for now).

One can only hope that these unprincipled and authoritarian hypocrites will be punished by voters in the most severe manner.

Čtenářský výběr: ústupkář Kissinger, ekologie a zastarávání technologií

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Přinášíme vám výběr zajímavých zpráv a publikací, které nás v posledních týdnech zaujaly – od mezinárodní politiky až po ekologii a technologie. Anglická verze článku je dostupná zde.

Starý ústupkář Kissinger

Henry Kissinger zhřešil: navzdory své reputaci tvrdého bojovníka let dob studené války si tento 99 letý geostratég vysloužil mnoho zklamaných komentářů od účastníků Světového ekonomického fóra, a to když vyzval k rychlému diplomatickému urovnání konfliktu na Ukrajině. Jak? Tím, že Ukrajina uzná situaci na bojišti a postoupí některá území: jmenovitě Krym, nad nímž už od roku 2014 nemá tak či tak žádnou kontrolu, a okupované oblasti Donbasu. I když se taková rada může vzhledem k narůstající eskalaci konfliktu jevit jako poměrně rozumný přístup – a čím dříve by byla přijata, tím lépe pro Ukrajinu i Evropu – v Davosu si těmito slovy mnoho pochopení nezískal. Jeden ukrajinský poslanec odpověděl, že Kissinger zřejmě “stále žije ve 20. století”, kdežto nizozemský premiér Mark Rutte pocítil nutkání vyjádřit svůj “oficiální nesouhlas”. Mychajlo Podoljak, poradce prezidenta Zelenského, byl poněkud méně diplomatický a na svém Twitteru napsal, že Ukrajina na panikáře z Davosu nemá čas a Kissinger by navíc klidně obětoval i Polsko a Litvu, pokud by to zastavilo válku.

Ti, kdo dnes Kissingera obviňují z “appeasementu”, zapomínají, že podobné kritice čelil již dříve, když ještě v letech 1969-1977 hrál klíčovou roli v americké zahraniční politice. Tehdy by pro jedny ze svých kritiků válečným štváčem, zatímco washingtonské jestřáby zklamala jeho politika détente (mírového soužití) se Sovětským svazem a navázání vztahů s “komunistickou Čínou”. Kissingerovým trumfem bylo, že dokázal hrát s kartami války i diplomacie: v tom samém roce 1973 podepsal Pařížské mírové dohody, které vedly ke stažení amerických vojsk z Vietnamu, aby o pár měsíců zapojil USA do vojenského převratu v Chile, který vynesl k moci později nechvalně proslulého diktátora Augusta Pinocheta. Jinými slovy, Kissinger byl v prvé řadě zastánce Realpolitik s vytříbeným citem pro to, který ze dvou nástrojů zahraniční politiky si daný okamžik právě žádá. Už to by mělo být dostatečným důvodem k tomu, abychom jeho rady dostatečně ocenili. (V nedávném rozhovoru pro Financial Times ke svému postoji připojil i další argument: nevehnat Rusko do náručí Číny.)

Šlo válce zabránit?

To je pochopitelně jedna z klíčových otázek současných debat, které obvykle dospějí k rozuzlení až po mnoha letech, kdy historici získají přístup ke státním archivům. Přesto se k tématu vyjádřil kanadský profesor politologie Ivan Katchanovski (odborník na Rusko a Ukrajinu na univerzitě v Ottawě), který se opírá o analýzu situace před začátkem ruské invaze. Tvrdí, že dohoda o neutrálním statusu Ukrajiny a plnění minských dohod by mír skutečně zachovaly. Reagoval tím na výroky kanadské velvyslankyně v Ukrajině Larisy Galadzové, která v rozhovoru Putina vylíčila jako iracionálního blázna a konflikt zhodnotila tak, že mu nikdo nemohl zabránit v tom, “že udělal co udělal”. Podle Katchanovského k takovému závěru nejsou dostatečné důkazy, zvláště s přihlédnutím k tomu, že snahy ukončit boje na Donbase diplomatickou cestu probíhaly od roku 2014.

Spíše chodcem nežli vůdcem

Sylvain Tesson, francouzský spisovatel a cestovatel (zkrátka dobrodruh), je možná až příliš skromný, pokud jde o moudrost, které si přiučil při putování po světě. Tento autor v České republice málo známý autor (v překladu vyšly dvě z jeho knížek) v nedávném rozhovoru pro Figaro Vox ukazuje, že tišší tao života má svou vlastní sílu, což je zřejmé zvlášť v porovnání s poněkud samolibým a vychloubačným vystupováním druhého z dotazovaných, levicového filosofa a novináře Régise Debraye. Tesson medituje o dvou cestách, které se nám nabízejí k tomu, abychom čelili času: buď “stavění katedrál” v titánském vzdoru vůči jeho toku, nebo rozjímání nad jeho třpytem ve snaze plně prožít okamžiky štěstí a nádhery, které nabízí. Epikurejský hédonista a další francouzský myslitel Michel Onfray by s ním nepochybně souhlasil… Poutníkova prozíravost totiž spočívá v tom, že sklízí zkušenosti, spíše než odměny a vavříny. Nebo jak to také Tesson podává v jedné znělé větě, je to o tom “být spíše chodcem nežli vůdcem, a nežli pletichářem spíše hraničářem.” I když se tyto webové stránky jmenují “Evropský stratég”, přiznávám, že bych mnohem raději kráčel v Tessonových svižných stopách, než po digitalizovaných dálnicích vedoucích do výšin v Davosu… Naši čtenáři si mohou udělat vlastní úsudek v případě, že ovládají francouzštinu a budou mít přístup k tomuto velmi zajímavému rozhovoru (který je bohužel přístupný pouze pro předplatitele novin Figaro).

Zastarávání technologií snižuje růst produktivity

To je přinejmenším závěr výzkumné práce, jejíž autorkou je Seda Basihos (“Blue Screen of Death? Obsolescence and Structural Change in the Computer Age”, momentálně v rámci recenzního řízení). Seda Basihos tvrdí, že rychlé zastarávání zejména výpočetní techniky ohrožuje hospodářský růst. Každé digitální řešení se sebou přináší nové problémy, což vede ke zvyšující se míře zastarávání počítačových systémů – s každou novou aktualizací softwaru, změnou hardwaru nebo zrušením dlouhodobé OEM podpory. Jak se tempo výměny technologií zrychluje, zaměstnanci musí opakovaně měnit své pracovní postupy. V důsledku toho se výroba stává relativně kapitálově náročnější, ale tento nárůst kapitálu v poměru k počtu pracovních míst nevede ke zvýšení produktivity. Zajímavé čtení, se kterým se ztotožní každý, kdo denně v kanceláři bojuje s desítkami a stovkami e-mailů.

K nahrazení jedné jaderné elektrárny je třeba 50 až 150 tisíc větrných

Jean-Marc Jancovici je inženýr, konzultant a odborník na klima a energetiku. Podobně jako v případě Sylvaina Tessona není příliš známý za hranicemi Francie. Zastává poměrně nekonformí přístup k ekologii a na mainstreamové návrhy boje proti klimatickým změnám se dívá skepticky. Na jedné straně je zastáncem šetrnějšího využívání přírodních zdrojů, neboť se domnívá, že přechod od fosilních paliv k jiným surovinám (například těch potřebných k výrobě elektromobilů) nemá velkou cenu bez řešení celkové spotřeby naší společnosti. Na druhou stranu považuje za jeden z nejlepších zdrojů jadernou energii, která podle jeho názoru méně nevýhod než jiné možnosti. Čtenáři se mohou s jeho názory blíže seznámit v nedávném rozhovoru, kde například uvádí, že k výrobě 1 kWh elektřiny je v jaderné energetice zapotřebí 10 až 50krát méně surovin než v případě solární nebo větrné energie. Podle jeho odhadu to znamená, že k nahrazení jedné jaderné elektrárny je třeba postavit 50 až 150 tisíc větrných elektráren.

Reader’s Digest: Kissinger the Terrible, technology obsolescence and productivity…

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The European Strategist bring you a selection of interesting news and publications that captured our attention in the last weeks – from international politics, to ecology and technology. The Czech version of this article can be found here.

Kissinger the Terrible

Henry Kissinger committed a sin: despite his credentials as a Cold War hardliner, the 99-year old American geostrategist disappointed quite a few attendees of the World Economic Forum by calling for a quick diplomatic settlement in Ukraine. How? By Ukraine acknowledging the reality on the ground and ceding territories to Russia: Crimea, over which they have no control since the 2014 coup d’état in Kiev, as well as occupied areas of Donbas. While such advice, given the escalatory trajectory of the conflict, would seem as a rather sensible one– and the sooner taken, the better perhaps for both Ukraine and Europe – at Davos it did not earn him much comprehension. One Ukrainian MP suggested Kissinger ‘still lives in the 20th century’, while Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte felt the need to declare his ‘official disagreement’. Mykhailo Podolyak, Adviser to President Zelensky, was even less diplomatic, tweeting that Ukraine has no time to listen to such panickers, while simultaneously accussing Kissinger that he would also give up Poland and Lithuania if it stopped the war.

Those who accuse Kissinger of ‘appeasement’ forget that he faced such criticism before when he still played a key role in the US foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. For one side of his opponents, he was a warmonger, while for the others his détente with the Soviet Union and opening of relations with the ‘communist China’, felt well below the expectations of the Washington hawks. In fact, a key factor of Kissinger’s success was that could play with both the cards of war and diplomacy, simultaneously involving the US in the 1973 Chilean military coup that brought the dictator Pinochet to power, and signing within the same year the Paris Peace Accords that led to the withdrawal from Vietnam. In other words, Kissinger has been foremost an adherent to Realpolitik, with a keen sense for which of the two instruments of foreign policy a given moment calls for. This should be a sufficient reason to give sufficient credit to his advice. (Along with the bigger picture of not driving Russia towards China, which he had pointed out in a recent interview for Financial Times.)

Could the war have been prevented?

This is of course one of the subjects of on-going debate, which is usually resolved only many years later as historians gain access to relevant archives. However, looking at the situation prior to the start of the Russian invasion, Canadian political science professor Ivan Katchanovski (expert on Russia and Ukraine at the University of Ottawa) argues that an agreement on neutrality and fulfilment of the Minsk accords would have preserved peace. He thus reacted to comments made by Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine, Larisa Galadza, who had depicted Putin as irrational and claimed no one could stop him ‘doing what [he] did’. Katchanovski argues this is not supported by the evidence we have, including that since 2014, there was an effort to end fighting in the Donbas region diplomatically.

To be a walker rather than a leader

Sylvain Tesson, French writer and traveller (or ‘travelling writer’?) is far too modest about the wisdom that he acquired along his multiple adventures around the world. Little known outside of his native France, in a recent interview at Figaro Vox, his quiet tao shows its force against somewhat boastful and self-congratulory remarks of the second interlocutor, philosopher and journalist Régis Debray. Tesson meditates on two paths that are given to us to face time: either ‘building cathedrals’ in a titanesque defiance of its current, or contemplating its shine in an effort to fully live through its moments of happiness and splendour. No doubt, the epicurean hedonist Michel Onfray would agree… The pilgrim’s sagacity is to grasp and harvest what one can, in experience rather than in laurels or rewards. In one beautiful phrase, ‘to be a walker rather than a leader, a prowler of the edges rather than a schemer.’ Despite that this website bears the title ‘European Strategist’, I would much more happilly follow in Tesson’s brisk footstep, on a country path, rather than on a hyper-connected asphalt road leading up to the fortress in Davos… Our readers can judge for their own and even more so if they have access to this fascinating interview (which is unfortunately for subscribers only.)

Technology obsolescence reduces productivity growth

This is the conclusion of a research paper by Seda Basihos (“Blue Screen of Death? Obsolescence and Structural Change in the Computer Age”, pending peer review). The author argues that rapid obsolescence, particularly in computing, is not going well with economic growth. Every digital solution creates new problems, leading to increasing rates of obsolescence of computer systems – and this comes with every software update, hardware change, or withdrawal of OEM support. As the replacement rate of technology accelerates, also workers have to continually re-learn their jobs. In consequence, also production becomes relatively more capital-intensive, but this increase in capital per workes does not lead to greater productivity. An interesting reading that corresponds to the day-to-day experience of any office employee having to battle through dozens or hundreds of e-mails a day!

To replace one nuclear power plant, you need 50 – 150,000 wind turbines

Jean-Marc Jancovici is an engineering consultant, energy and climate expert, who is well-known – in France. He is also one of the non-conformist supporters of greening our societies, who regards the mainstream proposals to fight climate change with quite some scepticism. On one hand, he is an advocate of greater resource-sobriety, since he believes that shifting from using fossil fuels to depending on other raw materials (for example, to build battery electric vehicles) without addressing the overall level of consumption is not a solution. On the other, he sees nuclear power as a good source of energy, which has comparably less downsides than other options. Readers can see more of his views in a recent interview, where he stipulates that 10 to 50 times less materials are required to produce 1 kWh of electricity with the nuclear than with solar or wind powerplants. In his estimate, this entails that replacing one nuclear power plant necessitates constructing between 50 to 150 thousand wind turbines.

Reading tip of the day: “The plastic backlash”

Stephen Buranyi, “The plastic backlash: what’s behind our sudden rage – and will it make a difference?”, The Guardian (13 November 2018).

Let’s start the new year on an ecological note. Many readers likely noticed that in the recent months in Europe but also elsewhere in the world, there has been a growing momentum against the use of plastics. The dangers of plastics for environment received a high-profile publicity for instance thanks to the BBC series Blue Planet II, which dedicated six minutes of its last episode to animals who died because they were stuck in netting or with guts full of plastics.

Both individuals, groups and authorities such as the EU have been recently taking steps to reduce the use of plastics. However, getting rid of them is not as straightforward as one may think – they are everywhere, for instance, in the form of microplastics in clothes, or in tyres, from which they are being shed in a large quantity.

The article linked below was published in The Guardian in November 2018 is a very helpful overview of the history of use and manufacturing of plastics, as well as of the recent momentum that has been building against their use. Recommended reading for anybody with an interest in this worthy cause.

For inspiration, there are two quotations worth underlining in particular:

Plastic is everywhere not because it was always better than the natural materials it replaced, but because it was lighter and cheaper – so much cheaper, in fact, that it was easier to justify throwing away. Customers found this convenient, and businesses were happy to sell them a new plastic container for every soda or sandwich they bought. In the same way steel enabled new frontiers in building, plastic made possible the cheap and disposable consumer culture that we have come to take for granted. To take on plastic is in some way to take on consumerism itself. It requires us to recognise just how radically our way of life has reshaped the planet in the span of a single lifetime, and ask whether it is too much.

And

But plastic no longer seems like this. It is still immediate – it’s in our household products, coffee cups, teabags and clothing – but it seems to have escaped our ability to catch it. It slips through our fingers and our water filters and sloshes into rivers and oceans like effluent from a sinister industrial factory. It is no longer embodied by a Big Mac container on the side of the road. It has come to seem more like a previously unnoticed chemical listed halfway down the small print on a hairspray bottle, ready to mutate fish or punch a hole in the ozone layer.

Central Europe snubbed in the vote for EU agencies

The EU tightens the grip on the institutions in its core while leaving Central Europe behind. Equality and geographical balance are pretty words, but when it comes to making decisions, Western Europe seems to have little patience for “snivelling” Eastern neighbours who don’t tow the line.

That is undoubtedly the main message that will be taken out by citizens in the countries like Slovakia, Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic from the vote to relocate two EU agencies, which took place on Monday 20 November. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) are currently based in London, but have to be moved as a result of Brexit, which caused a fierce race between EU Member States to attract them to their national capital.

Given the supporting words of Commission President Juncker (who few months ago gave a reassuring speech in the sense that the EU is a Union “of equals”, where “its members, big or small, East or West, North or South,” would all be treated the same), there was a broadscale expectation that at least one of the two agencies will go to a Central European country. In fact, Slovakia and the Czech Republic cooperated in advance to support their respective bids – with Prague standing behind Bratislava’s effort to host EMA, while Bratislava advocated the Czech capital’s proposal to host EBA. Instead, Central Europe got snubbed and EMA will go to Amsterdam and EBA to Paris.

In practice, either Central European governments spell this injustice clearly and start to have a common position in the Council (and not just rhetorically, when speaking to domestic audience in national capitals), or this will worsen as Prague, Warsaw or Bratislava continue being sent against each other, as they scramble for small, individual concessions from Brussels.

A thought on the Alexandrov Ensemble tragedy and art propaganda

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As we are all aware, populism exists across the whole political spectrum; yet we have learned to react to anything which differs from the left-winged consensus with anger and hysteria.

What recently caught my attention was the reaction of much of the  Western liberal crowd to the tragic perish of one third of the Alexandrov Ensemble in the air-crash in December 2016 and, in parallel, to the assassination of Russian ambassador in Turkey. From voices on social media to newspaper articles such as this gem on Daily News (US), both  tragedies were on a number of occasions described as an ironic payback to Putin’s “death-eater” international politics: his hegemonic strive for power and specifically the Russian intervention in Syria.

Seemingly for some members of the art world (and possibly not only for them), the tragic deaths of the 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble are regarded as some sort of an heroic end: an example of pure, innocent art perishing for a misguided political cause. What a number of these voices did not take into account is the essentially military nature of the Alexandrov Ensemble. Every member comes from the army and the group was founded in Moscow in 1926 as a tool to spread socialist ideals in playing music around the countries of Soviet Russia and the outside world. So even if the Alexandrovci were to die for a political cause (which was, allow me to stress it again, not the case), they would have been in full awareness of that very cause. These artists have not died because of Putin’s intervention in Syria, but solely because of faulty TU-154 planes that should have been removed from the airspace a long time ago.

Speaking of art propaganda:  spreading political ideology through art has indeed always been an instrument of politics, notably during the two World Wars and reaching a notorious peak during the Cold War between the US and Russia. What art propaganda does is that it uses intimate, relatable elements of art and reshapes them into a powerful and comprehensive tool of political influence. One could say that the intimate strength of art lies in the fact that it can be ultimately understood and shared by everyone. On rare moments, someone does propaganda through art so extremely well, such as the Alexandrov Ensemble (who shifted from their all-Russian approach and use influences from Georgian and other countries’ folk traditions), that it becomes a real masterpiece. That is art propaganda at its peak, exactly when we forget its hidden message, and instead get carried away by its powerful voice.

Alexandrov Ensemble performing a well-known Russian song “Smuglyanka-Moldovanka”, once intended to glorify the female partisans of the Russian Civil War

European Commission’s neoliberal agenda in France: weaker employee rights

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If you are following political developments in France a bit, you couldn’t have missed the recent waves of massive strikes and protests that hit the Hexagon. The cause is Hollande’s government push for “reforms” to the labour law. Obviously, the word reforms here stands for a range of measures in line with neoliberal tenets that take away rights from employees and give them to corporations. Namely, allowing less favourable local agreements on wages (to undermine collective bargaining of national trade unions) or making it easier to hire and fire staff. Crucially, the French government decide to invoke Article 49.3 of the Constitution that gives it the power to bypass parliament and impose reforms by decree. That way it also sidestepped critics in its own ranks, such as Parti socialist MP Laurent Baumel, who called the move ‘anti-democratic’ and labelled it as ‘a heavy-handed way of using the constitution to prevent the nation’s representatives from having their say.’

What is less apparent is that the French government’s attack on employee rights has a European dimension. Revealed recently by the association Corporate Europe Observatory, the European Commission is using all its new powers gained after the financial crisis of 2008 to move France in the direction of ‘liberalisation of labour code’. ‘Simply put, France has been required flat out to ensure higher profitability for businesses by driving down wages,’ say the authors of the study. For those interested in how the European Union stands on the side of austerity and neoliberalism, this is an interesting read that shouldn’t be missed.

Merkel’s blunders are piling up

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Mein lieber Gott! So, according to recent polls, German Chancellor’s popularity is on rise again. Does Merkel have to do anything but change the colour of her costume to make a “political comeback”?

Perhaps our German friends are drinking too much beer and eat to many Bratwürste by the evenings to have enough time to follow politics, because I cannot understand it otherwise. Whatever it may be, this overrated and lacklustre politician sat through her office withholding any decisions until it was absolutely inevitable. And when she took them, she made everything much worse: think of Ukraine, Greece or now, Turkey.

While Turkey descends into an autocratic sultanate and guns down the Kurds, Merkel negotiates a draft deal that gives Turkey: a) payments for returning migrants from Greek islands back to Turkey, b) visa-free travel for Turkish citizens from June 2016, c) speeding up EU membership negotiations across all chapters, d) 6 bn EUR that are (supposed) to be allocated for refugee facilities for Syrians in Turkey. Plus, the preliminary agreement includes a nice clause reminiscent of trading with human beings – for every Syrian moved from the Greek islands to Turkey, Turkey will move another Syrian to one of the 28 EU Member States. Besides being fairly twisted, does it even make any sense?

Now, what the EU gets out of it? More secure borders? More money for the Greeks and other countries to improve their refugee facilities? Recognition of Cyprus’ territorial integrity? Ceasing violence against our anti-ISIS allies, the Kurds?

Well, there is your answer how useful politician Merkel is.

Finnish police advises to wave your hand to prevent rape

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This “advice” of Finnish police to women is so stupid and pathetic that I don’t know whether to first laugh or cry. Apparently, if a woman feels threatened, the best means of defence according to Finnish law enforcement is “forcefully waving” with her hand towards the attacker. The sad fact is that this is perhaps the only thing left to do, with everything else, including pepper sprays, being banned in a number of European countries (Scandinavia but also Belgium, for instance). God forbid that you hurt the attacker – or kill him! It’d be hard to find a better example of softening of the brains in Europe – or in one word, decadence.

‘Market economy status’ to China? A bad, bad idea

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According to a leaked paper published by the daily Politico this morning, granting China the status of a ‘market economy’ by the end of 2016 would not have the best consequences for EU economy. Directorate-General TRADE, the European Commission’s “ministry” responsible for these matters, in its own working document states that this move would not only entail significant job losses in Europe (up to 188,300 jobs), but also increase in imports (between 17 and 27 percent) currently affected by anti-dumping measures. The manufacturing sector would take the hardest hit and particularly Italy. It is little surprise then that Italy’s Prime Minister Renzi is expected to ‘lean strongly’ against DG TRADE’s push for granting China the market economy status.

One has to wonder what exactly pushes the European Commission – and European political elites in general – in the craze for constantly more ‘free’ trade without minding too much the consequences. The problem with free trade policies is that they only make sense if the competition is on the same ground. How can EU manufacturers compete if our environmental, health, work and social standards are on a higher level than in China? They are more protective, but also make the cost of the comparative EU product more expensive and less competitive as a consequence with the economies that have their system set differently. Yet this obvious truth, told already two hundred years ago by German economist Friedrich List, seems to be repeatedly ignored by the European Commission. The beneficiary of opening economic borders without minding whether there are really comparable standards is fairly clear: transnational corporations who can produce cheaply in China and sell with a big margin back in Europe. Is it the case that the Commission works only for the benefit of these corporate stakeholders?