For the past few years, the United States and the European Union have routinely disagreed on the future of international involvement in the domestic affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Where the EU took the view that the pull of eventual Union membership would prove strong enough to maintain momentum for reform in Bosnia, the US appeared inclined to preserve a certain coercive capacity in the office of the international high representative, or OHR. In the last few months, the US has fallen into line with the EU, under the leadership of Sweden, the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency. The result has been an unmitigated disaster.

In its October progress report on Bosnia, the European Commission for the first time spelled out which specific features of Bosnia’s constitution prevented the country from advancing in its membership bid. The Commission concluded that the constitution, part of the 1995 Dayton peace accords, hands the three national communities – Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Serbs and Croats – excessive veto powers over almost all aspects of political life. But any hopes that this diagnosis might be a first step towards a cure were dashed when Sweden, under its indefatigable foreign minister, Carl Bildt, rushed Bosnian party leaders into badly prepared talks on constitutional amendments in October, known as the ‘Butmir process’, after the military base where the talks were held. Bildt, who had been the very first high representative in Bosnia in 1995-97, wanted to declare the mission accomplished – to close down the OHR and withdraw EU peacekeepers.

The Bosnian Serbs under Milorad Dodik, prime minister of the semi-autonomous Republika Srpska, made it clear that they were not prepared to give up their veto rights in favour of a stronger central government (whose prime minister is from Dodik’s party). In response, the Swedes simply dropped the issue from the proceedings. The talks collapsed anyway, with all sides rejecting even modest modifications to the current set-up. The EU and the US nonetheless suggested that they had found a “broadly shared agreement” in favour of further Euro-Atlantic integration.

The EU presidency and the Commission had gambled high, and lost. Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for enlargement, threatened that Bosnia would be stuck indefinitely in the EU’s waiting-room if it did not grab the opportunity. But at the same time he held out the prospect of visa-free travel for Bosnian citizens as a reward for good behaviour. This contradicted years of insistence by Rehn and his officials that the steps towards EU membership would be decided by objective, technical criteria rather than any short-term political pressures. All of a sudden, everything seemed to be up for grabs. The talks also completely sidelined Valentin Inzko, the EU’s special envoy and the international high representative.

Last week things became even worse for Inzko. He met Catherine Ashton, the EU’s newly appointed foreign policy chief, on Thursday (10 December) to get her support for a move that was certain to provoke the Bosnian Serbs.

For months, the Bosnian Serbs had prevented the country’s authorities from extending the contracts of international judges and prosecutors working in Bosnia’s highest court – now numbering just 11. The last contract was to expire on Tuesday (15 December). Inzko explained to Ashton, and also to diplomats from the countries that oversee the OHR’s work, that he would have to impose an extension. A confidential analysis prepared by the OHR’s lawyers concluded that this was “the only way” to “protect the rule of law” in Bosnia. A former high representative said that imposing an extension of the judicial contracts was “vital” to protect the “entire international investment” in Bosnia of the last several years.

Click Here: pinko shop cheap

But Inzko was told that imposing an extension of the judges’ contracts was out of the question because nobody had the appetite for a confrontation with Dodik. (It turned out that Canada, Japan and Turkey did – but that was of little interest to the EU.) The international judges and prosecutors working on organised crime and corruption cases in Bosnia would lose their jobs on 15 December – and they did. Inzko was allowed to extend only the contracts of international judges and prosecutors working on war crimes, an issue that is of far less personal interest to Dodik and other Bosnian politicians.

Jelko Kacin, a liberal Slovenian MEP, called the decision not to extend the contracts of corruption prosecutors and judges “shocking” and its damage to the EU’s standing “intolerable”.

Ashton and Rehn “welcomed” the OHR’s decision and called on Bosnia to take action against corruption and organised crime. Dodik announced that the decision to extend the war-crimes judges’ contracts carried no weight and might be subject to a referendum in the Republika Srpska.

For the second time in as many months, the EU, together with the US, had tried to appease Dodik, only to find him unappeasable. There could hardly have been a less auspicious start to Ashton’s term of office.

This weekend the European Union will do something that many people in the Balkans thought impossible: it will open its borders to visitors from three countries of the former Yugoslavia. As of 19 December, citizens of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia will no longer have to obtain a visa for visits of less than three months to the Schengen area of border-free travel.

Visa restrictions have been very effective at maintaining a feeling of profound isolation across the Balkans. For close to two decades, the countries of the former Yugoslavia have found themselves on the wrong side of what Kostyantyn Yeliseyev, Ukraine’s chief negotiator with the EU and a deputy foreign minister, calls a “new ‘Berlin Wall’ of visa restrictions” between the EU and its neighbours to the east and south-east. The feeling is especially acute in the former Yugoslavia, devastated by a decade of war, economic collapse and social upheaval.

When the real Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, Yugoslavs were free to travel without visas across Europe, but they were quarantined when war broke out in 1991. That forced isolation has persisted until now.

Visa agreements

In recent years, the EU has signed visa facilitation agreements with all the countries of the Balkans as well as with Ukraine, Russia and Moldova. Those agreements were supposed to make travel to the Schengen area easier: applying for a visa was to be cheaper and faster. However, officials from these countries complain that the process is not working as designed.

European Voice has seen numerous examples from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine of embassies of EU member states violating the terms of the agreements. Certain consulates appear routinely to fail to inform students and pensioners that they are eligible for a waiver of the visa fee. While it is impossible for outsiders to know or to prove, it is possible that the fee – €35 – might be pocketed by the consular staff, usually local, who receive applications. Some consulates also appear routinely to demand documents that are not required by the agreements, for example, medical records, including HIV tests. Applicants describe such demands as “humiliating”.

Officials from the countries affected describe such violations as systemic and say that complaints to the European Commission have remained unanswered. A senior government official recalled how staff at a member-state consulate openly solicited a bribe when he applied for a visa for a private trip. Anecdotally, it seems that visa applicants have fairly accurate ideas of what might await them in certain consulates, so they will avoid the Austrian or Spanish consulates and go instead to the consulates of the Netherlands or Denmark, for example.

Thus, irregularities at certain consulates are not only a major nuisance for visa applicants; they also shift the burden of processing applications to other countries’ consulates, putting additional strain on the resources of those consulates that fully implement the facilitation agreements. (Travellers are supposed to apply at the consulate of the main, or first, destination, but the rule is easily circumvented in practice.)

Fact File

WHAT IS SCHENGEN?

The Schengen area includes all EU member states except Ireland and the United Kingdom, plus non-EU members Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. The Council of Ministers keeps a ‘white list’ of non-member states whose citizens do not need a visa for visits shorter than three months. Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia have now been added to that list.

In principle, a Schengen visa enables its holder to travel throughout the entire Schengen area without the need for additional permits. There are exceptions to this rule, known as ‘Schengen minus’ visas. Greece, for example, requires that Macedonian citizens obtain a separate, national visa in addition to their standard Schengen visa, an arrangement that will come to an end with Saturday’s lifting of visa requirements.

LIBERALISATION V FACILITATION

The ‘visa liberalisation’ from which the three Balkan countries will now benefit is distinct from ‘visa facilitation’, currently in force with all the countries of the Balkans as well as Russia, Ukraine and Moldova.

Visa facilitation agreements, concluded in exchange for commitments to take back illegal migrants, reduce the standard, non-refundable visa fee of €60 to €35 and exempt certain groups from the fee altogether, for example pensioners, students, children or close relatives of people residing in the EU. An EU official estimated that in most countries, 50%-80% of applicants fall into one of these groups.

The agreements also stipulate that visa applications must be processed within ten calendar days and list the documents that have to be submitted to support the application.

A popular decision

Such conditions explain the exuberance with which people in Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia welcomed the decision by the EU’s justice ministers on 30 November that they will no longer need visas. “It’s a big step for Macedonia and was enthusiastically greeted by its citizens,” said Sanja Kostovska, an analyst at the Center for Research and Policy Making in Skopje. Many, possibly most, citizens of these countries have relatives or friends in the EU that they have not been able to visit freely – until now.

Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina are not part of the current round, but are likely to qualify next summer. Kosovo will remain in limbo because not all EU countries recognise its claim to statehood. There appears to be little appetite on the part of the EU – above all, Germany – to lift restrictions on Ukraine. But the EU could yet make life easier for citizens of these countries if its member states implemented the agreements that they have already signed. The wall of visa restrictions has been moved, but it has not been dismantled entirely.

Neelie Kroes, the European-commissioner designate for digital agenda, must face a second grilling before members of the European Parliament, following a lacklustre performance at her formal hearing yesterday.

MEPs from the Parliament’s political groups decided unanimously last night that Kroes should be summoned for extra questioning, a rare step.

A spokesman for the European People’s Party (EPP) group said that Kroes, a liberal, had shown a “lack of inspiration” at her hearing.

“None of her answers were straightforward and clear,” he said. “We have the impression she was reluctant to come before the committee.”

The extra questioning will take place on Tuesday (26 January) morning in Strasbourg. The meeting will be held in camera. Only the spokesmen for each political group in the Parliament’s industry committee will put questions to Kroes.

Asked to comment, a spokesperson for the European Commission said: “It would be highly inappropriate for the Commission to interfere with the assessment process ongoing.”

Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German Liberal MEP, issued a statement offering support to Kroes. “We have to take up the fight for the protection of intellectual property now. Neelie Kroes is the right person for this job,” he said.

Angelika Niebler, a German conservative, was one of several MEPs to express dissatisfaction with Kroes’s responses at the hearing. She said that MEPs had not got “many specific answers” from the commissioner-designate. “I don’t really feel I know in which [policy] direction you are going to go,” she said.

European Union officials are exploring the possibility of providing a heavily-conditioned loan to Greece instead of seeing it turn to the International Monetary Fund.

Officials are worried about the possible impact on banks elsewhere in the eurozone of Greece defaulting on its sovereign debt. But they would prefer to avoid the ignominy of a eurozone country seeking IMF assistance.

In recent days, the value of the euro has fallen sharply against the dollar, the pound and the yen, which is being attributed to fears that the economic crisis in Greece might damage the eurozone’s economic recovery.

“The fate of one is the fate of all,” said Joaquín Almunia, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, after a meeting of EU finance ministers on Tuesday (19 January).

The EU does have a European Commission-administered programme for €50 billion of emergency assistance to member states with balance of payments problems, which has been used in the past year to help Hungary, Latvia and Romania. But the programme is designed specifically for non-eurozone countries and has been deployed alongside support from the IMF. Avoiding IMF involvement in a eurozone sovereign-debt crisis would be one of the objectives of creating a new lending facility.

Emergency guarantees

Another option under discussion would be to mobilise short-term emergency inter-governmental guarantees to Greece by some eurozone countries if conditions deteriorate rapidly.

Greece is regarded as particularly vulnerable to a sudden loss of confidence by financial markets which could lead to an international “lenders’ strike”.

Rating agencies have already cut their ratings on Greek debt. Indicative of eroding international confidence, yields on Greek government ten-year bonds have soared in recent weeks to 6.09% compared with 3.24% for German bonds.

Fact File

The European Commission is preparing proposals as to how Greece should repair its battered public finances: they will be put to the EU’s finance ministers next month.
The proposals will be published before the next meeting of EU finance ministers on 15-16 February and may be finalised as early as next week.
The package will include:
õ A recommendation to finance ministers as to how long Greece should be given to bring its budget deficit to within 3% of gross domestic product (the ceiling set by the EU’s stability and growth pact). The Greek government’s current plans foresee this being achieved in 2012.
õ A draft multi-annual deficit reduction plan. Based largely on a plan agreed by the Greek government on 14 January, it includes a freeze on recruiting civil servants, tax reform, salary caps for senior civil servants, and a rationalisation of local government.
õ An action plan to reform the national statistics office and how government ministries calculate expenditure.
õ Joaquín Almunia, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, wants ministers to agree that they will evaluate Greece’s compliance with the deficit-reduction plan and action plan on statistics at least three times a year. Finance ministers are expected to endorse the package at their meeting on 16 February.
Jim Brunsden

Greece’s budget deficit is forecast to hit 12.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2009, far above the EU’s 3% ceiling. Government debt is forecast to be 113% of GDP, double the 60% limit, and confidence in Greek statistics is shattered.

Absurd idea

Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, last week described as “absurd” the idea that Greece might be forced out of the eurozone, but he heaped pressure on Greece by issuing a blunt warning to governments that are not following sustainable economic policies. “No government, no state, can expect any special treatment from us,” he said.

There is mounting concern in Frankfurt, Brussels and in other eurozone capitals that, if the crisis is handled badly, contagion might spread from Greece to create financing difficulties for some other member countries of the eurozone, notably Spain, Portugal, Ireland and even Italy.

The discussions are complicated by the Maastricht treaty’s “no bail-out” clause for eurozone members. The treaty prohibits the direct financing of public entities’ deficits by national central banks or the European Central Bank.

Click Here: Cheap France Rugby Jersey

But, according to an EU official, the “no bail-out” clause might be side-stepped if the crisis was dealt with inter-governmentally within the Eurogroup. The Eurogroup – the gathering of finance ministers of the eurozone – is now recognised as an official EU institution under the Lisbon treaty.

Others argue that a facility which made support heavily conditional on a country meeting specific economic policy requirements would not fall foul of the treaty.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the Eurogroup, has already set his cap against IMF involvement.

Speaking after a meeting in Paris on 14 January with France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, Juncker said: “We do not think that assistance from the IMF to Greece would be appropriate or welcome.” Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the IMF, said: “[Greece] is a eurozone country and it is totally normal that the eurozone and the European Central Bank try to work out its problems alone.”

Eurozone leaders would like to demonstrate that the eurozone is able to deal with its own problems internally without IMF involvement, but adverse market reactions may yet leave Greece and the EU with no other option.

C’est l’un des grands rendez-vous de l’année dans la capitale: du 20 juillet au 20 août, les quais de Paris accueillent les vacanciers. A vos maillots!

Oublié votre petit raccourci, sortez votre bikini! Oui, la circulation risque d’être difficile sur l’île Saint-Louis, mais quel plaisir de voir les berges grises et tristounettes devenir paradis de sable fin! D’ailleurs votre mine livide aussi va faire le plein de vitamines et de couleurs… C’est parti pour un mois de festivités, de farniente, de bronzing et de canoë!
Nouveaux transats ultra-design, palmiers et sable: la 8ème édition de Paris Plages ouvre ce lundi, transformant les bords de Seine en station balnéaire éphémère.

Une barge a débarqué 2.000 tonnes de sable vendredi sur la rive droite de la Seine au pied de la Mairie de Paris. Deux plages artificielles ont été installées sur la voie Georges Pompidou entre les Tuileries et le quai Henri IV, et une troisième au bassin de la Villette.

Entamé mercredi, l’aménagement de Paris Plages s’est achevé par l’installation de palmiers dans la nuit de dimanche. Et lundi, une fois les derniers coups de balai donnés, les premiers visiteurs ont pu profiter d’une nouvelle esthétique lancée cet été.

Le mobilier traditionnellement bleu et blanc a adopté une nouvelle gamme chromatique dans les tons bleu (azur, turquoise, cobalt) et vert (anis, tilleul, verveine).

Destinée à ceux qui ne pourront quitter la capitale, Paris Plages est placée sous le signe d’un «été solidaire, dans un contexte économique difficile», a souligné la mairie. Cette année, précise-t-on, sa fréquentation risque d’augmenter, les gens partant moins en vacances en raison de la crise. Les estivants profiteront du tapis doré, mais aussi de multiples activités à la fois ludiques, sportives et culturelles.

Sur la base nautique de La Villette, petits et grands pourront s’essayer au kayak, à la voile, au pédalo ou encore, nouveauté de l’année, utiliser des sphères flottantes.

Sur la voie Georges Pompidou, on aura le choix entre escrime, tennis de table, massages, pétanque, Tai-chi, boxe, base-ball et remise en forme…

Des ateliers découverte proposés par la Cité des Sciences et la Maison des Métallos mettront à l’honneur l’astronomie, la mer et le développement durable. Les enfants (à partir de 6 ans ) seront invités à écouter les chansons de Claude Nougaro, les promeneurs pourront s’initier à la gravure en taille douce dans des ateliers dominicaux et les familles s’offrir un parcours pédagogique avec le jeu «Paris et son histoire».

Au pied du Pont Marie, 300 ouvrages seront consultables sur place. Entre deux livres prêtés par Flammarion, les flâneurs pourront s’initier aux instruments de musique à la photo ou au jonglage. Mais comme pour les précédentes éditions, se seront sûrement les concerts qui draineront le plus de participants.

Chaque matin, les Jeunesses musicales de France donneront des «aubades» dans le répertoire classique. La Fnac présentera des affiches alléchantes dans le cadre de son Festival Indetendances. Amadou et Mariam, Charlie Winston, Cirkus avec Neneh Cherry se produiront ainsi sur le parvis de l’Hôtel de Ville.

Le budget: 2,5 millions d’euros (dont 1 million venant de partenaires) est constant par rapport à l’an dernier, a indiqué la mairie.

Les citadins en mal d’échappées belles pourront se promener cette année à Toulouse, Rodez, Bègles, Lille, Dijon et Puteaux Plages…

Ce havre de paix en pleine ville a même fait des émules à l’étranger jusqu’à Bruxelles, Londres, Rome, Berlin et New-York. Un succès annoncé!

Lundi 20 juillet 2009