A Paris university has withdrawn permission for a Palestine solidarity conference at the behest of the Zionist lobby.
In a statement issued today, the authorities at the University of Paris 8 said that the title of the conference – “Israel: an apartheid state?” – was “of a strongly polemical character.” Because there had been strong reactions to its theme, the university predicted there could be a “serious risk posed to public order” if the event scheduled for 27 and 28 February went ahead.
The complaint against the conference was made by the representative council for Jewish organizations in France, or CRIF as it’s better known. It had objected to the participation of Omar Barghouti, coordinator of the Palestinian campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
Boycott Israel “shock”
Barghouti’s presence in Paris would be “shocking”, according to CRIF, because the ideas that he espouses have “been found on several occasions to constitute an offence of incitement to discrimination.”
CRIF’s claim is misleading. While a number of BDS activists have been accused (ridiculously) of flouting French laws on racism, there have also been important rulings that uphold the right to urge a boycott of Israel. In December last, a court in the eastern city of Mulhouse acquitted 12 campaigners who had urged customers of the supermarket Carrefour not to buy Israeli goods.
I was also one of the invited speakers for the conference, which was part of Israeli Apartheid Week, a series of debates and actions on university campuses throughout the world. The group behind the event, Collectif Palestine Paris 8, wasn’t consulted ahead of the university’s decision to ban it.
This isn’t the first time that CRIF has attempted to muzzle criticism of Israel on French campuses. Last year it strong-armed the authorities at the École normale supérieure (ENS), another Paris college, into forbidding a Palestine solidarity discussion. The big cheese at the ENS succumbed to the pressure.
The “miracle” of Israel
Earlier this month, CRIF underscored its political clout, when Nicolas Sarkozy addressed its annual dinner. The president used the platform to call Israel a “miracle,” marvelling at how “from the debris [of the Holocaust], a democracy has been born.”
On his best behavior now that he is seeking re-election, Sarkozy saluted the “courage” of Benjamin Netanyahu, a man who he has called a “liar” in private conversations with Barack Obama (that were overhead by journalists).
Anyone who has been following events in that “miracle” called Israel will know that Netanyahu and his foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman are waging a war of attrition against civil liberties. Aspects of that war have been exported to France, where calling out Israel as an apartheid state is considered a threat to public order or, worse, a crime.
●First published by The Electronic Intifada, 17 February 2012.
Showing posts with label Nicolas Sarkozy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicolas Sarkozy. Show all posts
Friday, February 17, 2012
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Influence of French pro-Israel lobby examined in new book
How powerful is the pro-Israel lobby in Europe?
I’ve just finished reading a book on CRIF, the dominant Zionist organization in France, that provides some light on that little-discussed topic in a measured and scholarly way.
Written by Samuel Ghiles-Meilhac, Le CRIF: De la Résistance juive à la tentation du lobby (CRIF: From the Jewish Resistance to the lobby temptation) traces how a supposedly broad church has come to define itself narrowly as a defender of Israel’s worst excesses.
The representative council for Jewish institutions in France, or CRIF as it’s better know, bands together more than 60 groups ranging from scouts to lawyers. Its origins were in secret meetings during the Second World War, aimed at ensuring that Jews would never again have to endure the suffering inflicted on them by the Vichy regime, which helped deport over 75,000 Jewish refugees and French citizens to Nazi death camps.
Documents studied by Ghiles-Meilhac show that when its inaugural charter was being drawn up in 1943 and 1944, there was a lively debate about whether or not it should have a Zionist orientation. Communists taking part in the drafting discussions argued forcefully and with some degree of success that it shouldn’t declare support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
That changed in 1977, when a section titled “links with Israel” was inserted into the council’s revised charter. It described the state of Israel as “the privileged expression of being Jewish”.
Snubbed by Bibi
Nonetheless, the CRIF has not always blindly followed a line dictated to it by the Israeli government. In 1999, Benjamin Netanyahu (nearing the end of his first stint as prime minister) snubbed a delegation from the council in Israel because its president Henri Hajdenberg had recently exchanged pleasantries with Yasser Arafat during a meeting in Egypt.
There is no such friction with Netanyahu this time around. In June 2009, the council threw a party in his honor when he visited Paris, giving the prime minister a “triumphal reception” (Ghiles-Meilhac’s words).
Climate of censorship
Lurching more and more to the right, CRIF has tried to create a climate of censorship. In September 2000, the TV channel France 2 broadcast images of Israeli troops killing the Palestinian child Mohammed Al-Dura. Alarmed by how the footage increased awareness among the French public about the routine violence of the Israeli state, French politician Philippe Karsenty used a CRIF event to claim that “the child is not dead” and to accuse France 2 of anti-Semitism. Four candidates for the post of CRIF’s president were in attendance when Karsenty made those remarks; none of them took issue with him.
Another channel, ARTE, was told by CRIF in 2004 that it should interest itself in themes other than the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Careful not to exaggerate CRIF’s influence, Ghiles-Meilhac identifies instances where French policy has differed from that proposed by the council. Yet he demonstrates how CRIF has become the “second voice of Israel” in France, in effect serving as an adjunct to the official Israeli embassy. Its annual dinners have offered a platform, where leading political figures make what they consider as important policy announcements. François Fillon, the prime minister, stated his intention to seek new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme at the 2010 event.
Ghiles-Meilhac agrees that CRIF enjoys close links with Nicolas Sarkozy. These were cultivated when he was minister of the interior and flaunted publicly after Sarkozy’s election as president. In 2008, Sarkozy became the first French president to attend CRIF’s annual dinner.
But it was Bernard Kouchner, foreign minister from 2007 until last year, who proved to be especially malleable. When PNGO, the Palestinian network of non-governmental organizations, was named as a recipient of a French human rights award in 2009, CRIF went ballistic. After trying to smear the reputation of the network by insinuating it was a front for Hamas, the council succeeded in having the presentation ceremony for the award moved from the Quai d’Orsay, the foreign ministry’s headquarters, to another venue.
Kouchner still turned up at the ceremony but used his speech to castigate PNGO for exhorting a boycott of Israeli goods and institutions. According to Ghiles-Meilhac, it was probably “unprecedented” for the Zionist lobby to have such a direct say in the running of an official government event and the content of the message delivered at it.
If you understand French, I’d strongly recommend that you check out this fascinating book.
·First published by The Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada.net), 30 August 2011.
I’ve just finished reading a book on CRIF, the dominant Zionist organization in France, that provides some light on that little-discussed topic in a measured and scholarly way.
Written by Samuel Ghiles-Meilhac, Le CRIF: De la Résistance juive à la tentation du lobby (CRIF: From the Jewish Resistance to the lobby temptation) traces how a supposedly broad church has come to define itself narrowly as a defender of Israel’s worst excesses.
The representative council for Jewish institutions in France, or CRIF as it’s better know, bands together more than 60 groups ranging from scouts to lawyers. Its origins were in secret meetings during the Second World War, aimed at ensuring that Jews would never again have to endure the suffering inflicted on them by the Vichy regime, which helped deport over 75,000 Jewish refugees and French citizens to Nazi death camps.
Documents studied by Ghiles-Meilhac show that when its inaugural charter was being drawn up in 1943 and 1944, there was a lively debate about whether or not it should have a Zionist orientation. Communists taking part in the drafting discussions argued forcefully and with some degree of success that it shouldn’t declare support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
That changed in 1977, when a section titled “links with Israel” was inserted into the council’s revised charter. It described the state of Israel as “the privileged expression of being Jewish”.
Snubbed by Bibi
Nonetheless, the CRIF has not always blindly followed a line dictated to it by the Israeli government. In 1999, Benjamin Netanyahu (nearing the end of his first stint as prime minister) snubbed a delegation from the council in Israel because its president Henri Hajdenberg had recently exchanged pleasantries with Yasser Arafat during a meeting in Egypt.
There is no such friction with Netanyahu this time around. In June 2009, the council threw a party in his honor when he visited Paris, giving the prime minister a “triumphal reception” (Ghiles-Meilhac’s words).
Climate of censorship
Lurching more and more to the right, CRIF has tried to create a climate of censorship. In September 2000, the TV channel France 2 broadcast images of Israeli troops killing the Palestinian child Mohammed Al-Dura. Alarmed by how the footage increased awareness among the French public about the routine violence of the Israeli state, French politician Philippe Karsenty used a CRIF event to claim that “the child is not dead” and to accuse France 2 of anti-Semitism. Four candidates for the post of CRIF’s president were in attendance when Karsenty made those remarks; none of them took issue with him.
Another channel, ARTE, was told by CRIF in 2004 that it should interest itself in themes other than the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Careful not to exaggerate CRIF’s influence, Ghiles-Meilhac identifies instances where French policy has differed from that proposed by the council. Yet he demonstrates how CRIF has become the “second voice of Israel” in France, in effect serving as an adjunct to the official Israeli embassy. Its annual dinners have offered a platform, where leading political figures make what they consider as important policy announcements. François Fillon, the prime minister, stated his intention to seek new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme at the 2010 event.
Ghiles-Meilhac agrees that CRIF enjoys close links with Nicolas Sarkozy. These were cultivated when he was minister of the interior and flaunted publicly after Sarkozy’s election as president. In 2008, Sarkozy became the first French president to attend CRIF’s annual dinner.
But it was Bernard Kouchner, foreign minister from 2007 until last year, who proved to be especially malleable. When PNGO, the Palestinian network of non-governmental organizations, was named as a recipient of a French human rights award in 2009, CRIF went ballistic. After trying to smear the reputation of the network by insinuating it was a front for Hamas, the council succeeded in having the presentation ceremony for the award moved from the Quai d’Orsay, the foreign ministry’s headquarters, to another venue.
Kouchner still turned up at the ceremony but used his speech to castigate PNGO for exhorting a boycott of Israeli goods and institutions. According to Ghiles-Meilhac, it was probably “unprecedented” for the Zionist lobby to have such a direct say in the running of an official government event and the content of the message delivered at it.
If you understand French, I’d strongly recommend that you check out this fascinating book.
·First published by The Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada.net), 30 August 2011.
Monday, May 30, 2011
The theft of Western Sahara
When and where did the “Arab Spring” begin? Most observers of the tyrant-toppling uprisings would probably agree they kicked off after the Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in December last year. Not for the first time, Noam Chomsky has highlighted an omission from the conventional discourse. The wave of protests really started a month earlier in Western Sahara, Chomsky has argued.
On 7 November, Moroccan forces occupying that territory destroyed tents set up by the indigenous Sahrawi people near the town of Laayoune, leading to a series of confrontations. Testimonies gathered by Amnesty International indicate that the tactics used in the operation were extremely aggressive, with elderly women beaten with batons. Amnesty says the tents were erected to highlight the Sahrawis’ “perceived marginalisation and a lack of jobs and adequate housing”. The word “perceived” is unnecessary, I believe. The marginalisation of the Sahrawis is a proven fact; we seldom see anything about Western Sahara – a former Spanish colony invaded by Morocco in 1975 - in our newspapers or on our TV screens.
Rather than imposing sanctions against Morocco over its acts of brutality in November, the European Union has effectively tightened its embrace of the Rabat authorities. Although a four-year fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco expired in February this year, both sides have decided to extend it for a further twelve months.
As EU representatives are constantly harping on about how much they cherish democratic values, the least we should be able to expect is that they would have published the information at their disposal about the agreement’s effects. Yet an evaluation of the agreement conducted at the European Commission’s request remains confidential.
Luckily, I have managed to have a peek at this report – drawn up by the French consultancy firm Océanic Developpement and dated December 2010. It concludes that the agreement with Morocco brings “the least favourable returns to the European taxpayers that we can find” in any of the fisheries agreements the EU has signed with countries beyond its borders.
Under the terms of the accord, the EU gives Morocco 36 million euros per annum. For every euro invested by the Union, the turnover generated is only 83 cents, the consultants calculate. In the 2007-2009 period, EU vessels availing of the agreement caught an average of 44,000 tonnes per year. With demand for fish in the Union reaching about 13 million tonnes per year, the agreement was making only a tiny contribution towards satisfying the requirements of Europe’s markets, Oceanic added.
More disturbingly, the consultants found that the agreement is having adverse ecological consequences. Trawlers are capturing demersal species – living near the bottom of the sea – that are already overexploited, while the capture of sharks in European nets runs contrary to the Union’s own policies on conserving endangered species. European vessels have targeted sharks in the same way as the industrial boats in the Moroccan fleet. Three large Portuguese vessels have been responsible for 70% of all sharks captured (more than 450 tonnes), according to the evaluation.
It’s not surprising that powerful figures in the EU bureaucracy want this evaluation kept secret. By extending the agreement, the Union has ignored advice that it spent good money to obtain.
This is part of a wider pattern. The agreement enabled European vessels to fish in the waters surrounding Western Sahara, on the condition that their activities brought tangible benefits to the Sahrawis. In an opinion made public during 2010, lawyers advising the European Parliament found there was no evidence that the Sahrawis had been aided in any way due to the accord’s implementation. Unless an “amicable settlement” could be found, European boats should be forbidden from entering a 200 nautical mile zone off Western Sahara, the lawyers recommended.
When I interviewed Maria Damanaki, the EU fisheries commissioner, in the autumn last year, she expressed sympathy with that legal opinion. Damanaki said she was “not persuaded” that the agreement was in the Sahrawis’ interests. Despite the clarity of her views, the European Commission still went ahead and clinched a deal with Morocco to prolong the agreement. Damanaki was clearly overruled by others in the EU executive. Can it be a coincidence that the Commission is headed by José Manuel Barroso of Portugal and that several Portuguese vessels are doing nicely from the arrangements?
Mindful of a looming presidential election, Nicolas Sarkozy has lately been promoting himself as an unflagging defender of North Africa’s downtrodden. Yet Francesco Bastagli, a former United Nations envoy to Western Sahara, has hinted there might be more than a whiff of hypocrisy emanating from the French president. “France is so unquestioning in its support of Morocco as to block even a reference to Sahrawi human rights in Security Council resolutions,” Bastagli wrote in a 2010 piece for The New Republic.
A report published in April this year by the New York City Bar Association says that if Morocco is receiving money from the EU for fishing off Western Sahara, without giving any to the Sahrawis, then it is violating international law. The same report highlighted how Irish and British companies are involved in exploration for oil and gas off Western Sahara. If they move from exploration to extraction, then their activities would be “unlawful”, the bar association concluded.
The resources of Western Sahara do not belong to Europe. So why are a few European fishing and energy firms allowed to steal them?
·First published by New Europe (www.neurope.eu), 29 May – 3 June 2011
On 7 November, Moroccan forces occupying that territory destroyed tents set up by the indigenous Sahrawi people near the town of Laayoune, leading to a series of confrontations. Testimonies gathered by Amnesty International indicate that the tactics used in the operation were extremely aggressive, with elderly women beaten with batons. Amnesty says the tents were erected to highlight the Sahrawis’ “perceived marginalisation and a lack of jobs and adequate housing”. The word “perceived” is unnecessary, I believe. The marginalisation of the Sahrawis is a proven fact; we seldom see anything about Western Sahara – a former Spanish colony invaded by Morocco in 1975 - in our newspapers or on our TV screens.
Rather than imposing sanctions against Morocco over its acts of brutality in November, the European Union has effectively tightened its embrace of the Rabat authorities. Although a four-year fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco expired in February this year, both sides have decided to extend it for a further twelve months.
As EU representatives are constantly harping on about how much they cherish democratic values, the least we should be able to expect is that they would have published the information at their disposal about the agreement’s effects. Yet an evaluation of the agreement conducted at the European Commission’s request remains confidential.
Luckily, I have managed to have a peek at this report – drawn up by the French consultancy firm Océanic Developpement and dated December 2010. It concludes that the agreement with Morocco brings “the least favourable returns to the European taxpayers that we can find” in any of the fisheries agreements the EU has signed with countries beyond its borders.
Under the terms of the accord, the EU gives Morocco 36 million euros per annum. For every euro invested by the Union, the turnover generated is only 83 cents, the consultants calculate. In the 2007-2009 period, EU vessels availing of the agreement caught an average of 44,000 tonnes per year. With demand for fish in the Union reaching about 13 million tonnes per year, the agreement was making only a tiny contribution towards satisfying the requirements of Europe’s markets, Oceanic added.
More disturbingly, the consultants found that the agreement is having adverse ecological consequences. Trawlers are capturing demersal species – living near the bottom of the sea – that are already overexploited, while the capture of sharks in European nets runs contrary to the Union’s own policies on conserving endangered species. European vessels have targeted sharks in the same way as the industrial boats in the Moroccan fleet. Three large Portuguese vessels have been responsible for 70% of all sharks captured (more than 450 tonnes), according to the evaluation.
It’s not surprising that powerful figures in the EU bureaucracy want this evaluation kept secret. By extending the agreement, the Union has ignored advice that it spent good money to obtain.
This is part of a wider pattern. The agreement enabled European vessels to fish in the waters surrounding Western Sahara, on the condition that their activities brought tangible benefits to the Sahrawis. In an opinion made public during 2010, lawyers advising the European Parliament found there was no evidence that the Sahrawis had been aided in any way due to the accord’s implementation. Unless an “amicable settlement” could be found, European boats should be forbidden from entering a 200 nautical mile zone off Western Sahara, the lawyers recommended.
When I interviewed Maria Damanaki, the EU fisheries commissioner, in the autumn last year, she expressed sympathy with that legal opinion. Damanaki said she was “not persuaded” that the agreement was in the Sahrawis’ interests. Despite the clarity of her views, the European Commission still went ahead and clinched a deal with Morocco to prolong the agreement. Damanaki was clearly overruled by others in the EU executive. Can it be a coincidence that the Commission is headed by José Manuel Barroso of Portugal and that several Portuguese vessels are doing nicely from the arrangements?
Mindful of a looming presidential election, Nicolas Sarkozy has lately been promoting himself as an unflagging defender of North Africa’s downtrodden. Yet Francesco Bastagli, a former United Nations envoy to Western Sahara, has hinted there might be more than a whiff of hypocrisy emanating from the French president. “France is so unquestioning in its support of Morocco as to block even a reference to Sahrawi human rights in Security Council resolutions,” Bastagli wrote in a 2010 piece for The New Republic.
A report published in April this year by the New York City Bar Association says that if Morocco is receiving money from the EU for fishing off Western Sahara, without giving any to the Sahrawis, then it is violating international law. The same report highlighted how Irish and British companies are involved in exploration for oil and gas off Western Sahara. If they move from exploration to extraction, then their activities would be “unlawful”, the bar association concluded.
The resources of Western Sahara do not belong to Europe. So why are a few European fishing and energy firms allowed to steal them?
·First published by New Europe (www.neurope.eu), 29 May – 3 June 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
France, war and the denial of history
Recent history contains several examples of political leaders resorting to military action at times when public opinion is against them. Margaret Thatcher is widely credited with securing re-election in 1983 after going to war over those outposts of empire, the Falkland Islands, at a time of mass unemployment in Britain. Bill Clinton tried to distract attention from sexual peccadilloes that affected nobody beyond his immediate family in 1998 by bombing Afghanistan and Sudan. The resulting destruction of a Sudanese factory that was a principal supplier of medicines in a poor African country was deemed unworthy of comment by a supine US press.
Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be following the Thatcher/Clinton trend. One year before a presidential election, he has both political rivals and nominally independent editorial writers praising his hawkish stance on Libya.
France’s opening salvo of missiles against Libya has helped its president “win back his international stature”, according to Agence France-Presse. That verdict may have been slightly premature: there are rumblings of disquiet in NATO about France trying to upstage other “important” countries by making sure it was the first to attack.
The truth behind Sarkozy’s manoeuvre is doubtlessly crude. Sarkozy’s primary motivation in any major decision he takes is how it meshes with his plan to stay in office for as long as possible. So all his talk about being forced to assume a role “in the face of history” is claptrap. What he is really interested in is winning a second term.
You can be sure that Sarkozy has not been staying up at night shedding tears over how ordinary Libyans have been suffering under Muammar Gaddafi’s tyranny. Rather than protecting civilians, he is much more likely to be concerned with protecting the profits of Total, the French energy giant, which produced an average of 55,000 barrels of oil from Libyan wells per day in 2010. Let us remember that the same Sarkozy came out in favour of a ban on investment in Burma a few years back. The small print to his valiant act of support for Buddhist monks had an important caveat: Total could continue exploiting Burmese resources as before.
Nor should it be forgotten that Sarkozy had courted Gaddafi assiduously over the past few years. Business deals were central to this tawdry alliance. In 2009, the value of declared French arms sales to Libya came to €30.5 million. Ominously, these included nearly €500,000 worth of contracts belonging to a category called chemical and biological weapons and tear gas. They also included €17.5 million in sales of military planes. There is a breathtaking hypocrisy in calling for a no-fly zone against a country to which France had been supplying warplanes.
It is distressing, too, that the French Socialists have abandoned the chief responsibility of an opposition party: to oppose. Benoit Hamon, a leading member of the Socialists, has strongly backed Sarkozy on the Libya question.
Although Libya is a former Italian colony, rather than a French one, France has abetted crimes against humanity in various parts of the neighbouring region. Both Socialists and the centre-right in France are refusing to deal with imperialism’s toxic legacy. In 2005, they teamed up to introduce a provision in national law requiring that school textbooks celebrate “the positive role of the French presence in its overseas colonies, especially in North Africa.”
That amounted to a denial of historical reality. Four years earlier a book by Paul Assauresses revealed how France had supported widespread torture in Algeria, Libya’s next-door-neighbour. Assauresses admitted that as a French general he personally had committed grotesque abuses.
The US may be the world’s imperial leviathan today, yet French politicians are playing a supporting role. In his book The Breaking of Nations, Robert Cooper (now a senior official in the EU’s diplomatic service) lauds “limited form of voluntary empire” that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund embody. The IMF is headed by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a veteran French Socialist whose name keeps popping up whenever there is speculation about who could be the next president of his country (assuming Sarkozy’s defeat).
Strauss-Kahn has embraced neo-liberal ideology as zealously as any politician from the centre-right. The IMF’s prescriptions of austerity for countries stretching from Ireland to Jamaica in recent times all bear his signature. The idea that he would represent an alternative to his old nemesis Sarkozy is laughable.
There may be a few differences between Sarko and the Socialists on dossiers like working hours. But the Socialist leadership is not seriously interested in making society more egalitarian (in the country that is credited with inventing the concept of equality). Martine Aubry, its leader, has been exposed as a hollow opportunist. Last year, she was highly critical of government moves to expel Roma gypsies. Yet it emerged that she had supported the dismantlement of a Roma camp near Lille, where she was mayor. I have visited some of the Roma camps in that part of northern France myself and was deeply shocked by the poverty in them and how they lacked basic sanitation. Roma are among the most marginalised people in French society; shame on Aubry for attacking them.
The cowardice of the French Socialists is replicated by their sister parties in Greece, Spain and Ireland. Those parties are all cutting back on public expenditure in a way that harms the poor most. The case for building a genuine left has never been more urgent.
·First published by New Europe (www.neurope.eu), 27 March – 2 April 2011
Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be following the Thatcher/Clinton trend. One year before a presidential election, he has both political rivals and nominally independent editorial writers praising his hawkish stance on Libya.
France’s opening salvo of missiles against Libya has helped its president “win back his international stature”, according to Agence France-Presse. That verdict may have been slightly premature: there are rumblings of disquiet in NATO about France trying to upstage other “important” countries by making sure it was the first to attack.
The truth behind Sarkozy’s manoeuvre is doubtlessly crude. Sarkozy’s primary motivation in any major decision he takes is how it meshes with his plan to stay in office for as long as possible. So all his talk about being forced to assume a role “in the face of history” is claptrap. What he is really interested in is winning a second term.
You can be sure that Sarkozy has not been staying up at night shedding tears over how ordinary Libyans have been suffering under Muammar Gaddafi’s tyranny. Rather than protecting civilians, he is much more likely to be concerned with protecting the profits of Total, the French energy giant, which produced an average of 55,000 barrels of oil from Libyan wells per day in 2010. Let us remember that the same Sarkozy came out in favour of a ban on investment in Burma a few years back. The small print to his valiant act of support for Buddhist monks had an important caveat: Total could continue exploiting Burmese resources as before.
Nor should it be forgotten that Sarkozy had courted Gaddafi assiduously over the past few years. Business deals were central to this tawdry alliance. In 2009, the value of declared French arms sales to Libya came to €30.5 million. Ominously, these included nearly €500,000 worth of contracts belonging to a category called chemical and biological weapons and tear gas. They also included €17.5 million in sales of military planes. There is a breathtaking hypocrisy in calling for a no-fly zone against a country to which France had been supplying warplanes.
It is distressing, too, that the French Socialists have abandoned the chief responsibility of an opposition party: to oppose. Benoit Hamon, a leading member of the Socialists, has strongly backed Sarkozy on the Libya question.
Although Libya is a former Italian colony, rather than a French one, France has abetted crimes against humanity in various parts of the neighbouring region. Both Socialists and the centre-right in France are refusing to deal with imperialism’s toxic legacy. In 2005, they teamed up to introduce a provision in national law requiring that school textbooks celebrate “the positive role of the French presence in its overseas colonies, especially in North Africa.”
That amounted to a denial of historical reality. Four years earlier a book by Paul Assauresses revealed how France had supported widespread torture in Algeria, Libya’s next-door-neighbour. Assauresses admitted that as a French general he personally had committed grotesque abuses.
The US may be the world’s imperial leviathan today, yet French politicians are playing a supporting role. In his book The Breaking of Nations, Robert Cooper (now a senior official in the EU’s diplomatic service) lauds “limited form of voluntary empire” that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund embody. The IMF is headed by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a veteran French Socialist whose name keeps popping up whenever there is speculation about who could be the next president of his country (assuming Sarkozy’s defeat).
Strauss-Kahn has embraced neo-liberal ideology as zealously as any politician from the centre-right. The IMF’s prescriptions of austerity for countries stretching from Ireland to Jamaica in recent times all bear his signature. The idea that he would represent an alternative to his old nemesis Sarkozy is laughable.
There may be a few differences between Sarko and the Socialists on dossiers like working hours. But the Socialist leadership is not seriously interested in making society more egalitarian (in the country that is credited with inventing the concept of equality). Martine Aubry, its leader, has been exposed as a hollow opportunist. Last year, she was highly critical of government moves to expel Roma gypsies. Yet it emerged that she had supported the dismantlement of a Roma camp near Lille, where she was mayor. I have visited some of the Roma camps in that part of northern France myself and was deeply shocked by the poverty in them and how they lacked basic sanitation. Roma are among the most marginalised people in French society; shame on Aubry for attacking them.
The cowardice of the French Socialists is replicated by their sister parties in Greece, Spain and Ireland. Those parties are all cutting back on public expenditure in a way that harms the poor most. The case for building a genuine left has never been more urgent.
·First published by New Europe (www.neurope.eu), 27 March – 2 April 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Corporate tax avoidance: a global scourge
Almost six years ago, I made the best decision in my life: to stop drinking alcohol. As a convert to sobriety, I feel embarrassed by my past. And so I stayed well clear of Irish pubs last week, for fear of being reminded of how I used to spend Saint Patrick’s Day quaffing a lot more beer than my liver could absorb.
If there is one thing more unsettling than how Ireland’s national holiday prompts many of my compatriots to reinforce national stereotypes, it is the behaviour of the new Dublin government. Enda Kenny, the taoiseach (prime minister), is engaging in a huge deception by claiming that the programme for misery imposed on Ireland by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund can be renegotiated. As the most he will be granted are a few trivial concessions, it would be more honest and honourable to default now than to cripple an entire nation with unpayable debts.
Kenny insists that Ireland’s low rate of corporate tax is sacrosanct and that he will not raise it under EU pressure. Foreign investors will quit the country if they are not allowed to keep the bulk of their profits for themselves, the argument goes. Everyone who tries to question that orthodoxy is portrayed by the Irish establishment as a far-left fantasist.
Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the IMF, can hardly be labelled as far-left. In a piece published on The New York Times website in November, he stated that at least 20% of Ireland’s gross domestic product derived from “ghost corporations”. Although firms operating in Ireland are officially taxed at 12.5%, the more shrewd among them “are able to construct complicated schemes involving other offshore tax havens that reduce their effective tax rates to the low single digits,” Johnson wrote.
Kenny is not the only one who is being Jesuitical. Attending his first summit of EU leaders earlier this month, he had a row with Nicolas Sarkozy over Ireland’s rate of corporate tax. Sarkozy alleged that Ireland has an unfair competitive advantage in luring multinational companies to its shores because its 12.5% rate is the lowest in the euro-zone.
But that is only part of the story. The target of Sarkozy’s ire is the statutory rate of taxation, not the actual amount that companies pay. What he neglected to mention is that while France’s statutory corporate tax rate stands at 35%, its effective rate stands at 14%, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The effective rate gives a more accurate picture, as it takes depreciation and a range of exemptions and reliefs into account.
When the EU holds yet another summit later this week, leaders will try to give the impression they are navigating their way out of the financial crisis skilfully and sensibly. You can be sure they will not bother themselves with ensuring their “solutions” are socially just.
In a recent paper, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) in Washington contended that corporate income tax is “one of the most progressive” forms of taxation. “Since stock ownership is concentrated among the very wealthiest taxpayers, the corporate income tax falls primarily on the most affluent residents of a state,” ITEP said. “The wealthiest 1% of Americans held just over half of all corporate stock in 2007, while the poorest 90% of Americans owned just 10% of the total.”
Although that message is cogent, there is a reluctance to make corporations pay tax on either side of the Atlantic. The European Commission has lately recommended a common system for calculating corporate taxes. But national governments will continue to set rates and allow multinationals avoid taxes.
Tax avoidance is a reason why much of the world’s population lives in poverty. In 2008, Christian Aid estimated that trade mispricing – whereby companies underreport their profits in order to wriggle out of paying tax on them – deprived poor countries of $160 billion per year.
Richard Murphy, a prominent tax researcher, stated in August last year that wealthier countries have allowed the concept of a limited liability corporation “to become debased, to become opaque to the point where we know little or nothing about most of the world’s corporations – even to the extent of not knowing where some of them are incorporated or if they even exist on registers anywhere.”
Through banking secrecy rules, many EU countries or their dependent territories have become tax havens. In 2009, the Tax Justice Network published a league table of 60 tax havens or “secrecy jurisdictions”. These included the Cayman Islands, Madeira, the British Virgin Islands, Austria, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Hungary.
Because tax avoidance is a global scourge, it must be tackled on a global level. Yet Europe is preventing this from happening. Last summer the United Nations launched an inquiry into how it can beef up its capacity to promote international cooperation on tax. In a submission to that inquiry in January, the EU argued against giving more power to a UN committee of tax specialists. Britain is particularly opposed to the idea because it wants to preserve the City of London’s status as a tax haven.
One of the most inspiring protest groups formed in recent times is UK Uncut, which targets corporations that avoid tax. There is a desperate need for this to grow into a truly international movement, so that corporations are finally made to pay their fair share.
·First published by New Europe (www.neurope.eu), 20-26 March 2011.
If there is one thing more unsettling than how Ireland’s national holiday prompts many of my compatriots to reinforce national stereotypes, it is the behaviour of the new Dublin government. Enda Kenny, the taoiseach (prime minister), is engaging in a huge deception by claiming that the programme for misery imposed on Ireland by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund can be renegotiated. As the most he will be granted are a few trivial concessions, it would be more honest and honourable to default now than to cripple an entire nation with unpayable debts.
Kenny insists that Ireland’s low rate of corporate tax is sacrosanct and that he will not raise it under EU pressure. Foreign investors will quit the country if they are not allowed to keep the bulk of their profits for themselves, the argument goes. Everyone who tries to question that orthodoxy is portrayed by the Irish establishment as a far-left fantasist.
Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the IMF, can hardly be labelled as far-left. In a piece published on The New York Times website in November, he stated that at least 20% of Ireland’s gross domestic product derived from “ghost corporations”. Although firms operating in Ireland are officially taxed at 12.5%, the more shrewd among them “are able to construct complicated schemes involving other offshore tax havens that reduce their effective tax rates to the low single digits,” Johnson wrote.
Kenny is not the only one who is being Jesuitical. Attending his first summit of EU leaders earlier this month, he had a row with Nicolas Sarkozy over Ireland’s rate of corporate tax. Sarkozy alleged that Ireland has an unfair competitive advantage in luring multinational companies to its shores because its 12.5% rate is the lowest in the euro-zone.
But that is only part of the story. The target of Sarkozy’s ire is the statutory rate of taxation, not the actual amount that companies pay. What he neglected to mention is that while France’s statutory corporate tax rate stands at 35%, its effective rate stands at 14%, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The effective rate gives a more accurate picture, as it takes depreciation and a range of exemptions and reliefs into account.
When the EU holds yet another summit later this week, leaders will try to give the impression they are navigating their way out of the financial crisis skilfully and sensibly. You can be sure they will not bother themselves with ensuring their “solutions” are socially just.
In a recent paper, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) in Washington contended that corporate income tax is “one of the most progressive” forms of taxation. “Since stock ownership is concentrated among the very wealthiest taxpayers, the corporate income tax falls primarily on the most affluent residents of a state,” ITEP said. “The wealthiest 1% of Americans held just over half of all corporate stock in 2007, while the poorest 90% of Americans owned just 10% of the total.”
Although that message is cogent, there is a reluctance to make corporations pay tax on either side of the Atlantic. The European Commission has lately recommended a common system for calculating corporate taxes. But national governments will continue to set rates and allow multinationals avoid taxes.
Tax avoidance is a reason why much of the world’s population lives in poverty. In 2008, Christian Aid estimated that trade mispricing – whereby companies underreport their profits in order to wriggle out of paying tax on them – deprived poor countries of $160 billion per year.
Richard Murphy, a prominent tax researcher, stated in August last year that wealthier countries have allowed the concept of a limited liability corporation “to become debased, to become opaque to the point where we know little or nothing about most of the world’s corporations – even to the extent of not knowing where some of them are incorporated or if they even exist on registers anywhere.”
Through banking secrecy rules, many EU countries or their dependent territories have become tax havens. In 2009, the Tax Justice Network published a league table of 60 tax havens or “secrecy jurisdictions”. These included the Cayman Islands, Madeira, the British Virgin Islands, Austria, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Hungary.
Because tax avoidance is a global scourge, it must be tackled on a global level. Yet Europe is preventing this from happening. Last summer the United Nations launched an inquiry into how it can beef up its capacity to promote international cooperation on tax. In a submission to that inquiry in January, the EU argued against giving more power to a UN committee of tax specialists. Britain is particularly opposed to the idea because it wants to preserve the City of London’s status as a tax haven.
One of the most inspiring protest groups formed in recent times is UK Uncut, which targets corporations that avoid tax. There is a desperate need for this to grow into a truly international movement, so that corporations are finally made to pay their fair share.
·First published by New Europe (www.neurope.eu), 20-26 March 2011.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Israel lobby junket for Euro-MPs
The pro-Israel lobby is seeking to increase its influence among members of Europe’s parliaments by offering them an expenses-paid trip to the Middle East.
Brochures circulated in several elected assemblies invite their representatives to take part in a visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, organised by the group European Friends of Israel (EFI). Established in 2006, the EFI has emerged as Europe’s closest equivalent to the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington.
The brochures give no details about how the visit from 5 to 8 February is being financed, other than requesting a €300 contribution from each member of parliament who accepts the invitation. The contribution, which will only cover a fraction of the visit’s costs, is described as “non-mandatory”.
Marek Siwiec, a Polish member of the European Parliament (MEP) who sits on the EFI board, said the organisation has a “fundraising system, where the money is coming from the private sector”. When asked to name its main donors, Siwiec referred me to the organisation’s Brussels office.
But a spokesman for that office said he could only release such details if granted permission by the MEPs sitting on the organisation’s board.
Although the EFI’s website gives viewers links to AIPAC and similar organisations in Washington, the spokesman insisted that it does not receive funding from the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. “I promise you 100% that no [we do not receive such funding],” he said. So far, however, EFI has declined to say how it is financed. It has also not signed up to a register of “interest representatives” set up by the European Commission as part of an initiative reportedly designed to shed light on how pressure groups operate.
The forthcoming visit is being promoted as the EFI’s second “policy conference”. It will commence with a “gala dinner” in Jerusalem, hosted by Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, feature day-trips to the headquarters of arms-makers and technology firms, and conclude with another gala dinner, which Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is scheduled to attend. The visit coincides, too, with the annual Herzliya security conference, which usually attracts the top military and political figures in Israel, as well as eminent guests from abroad.
Other tours on the itinerary include visits to the Israeli settlements of Ofra, Kfar Adumim and Gush Etzion in the occupied West Bank. Those settlements are officially regarded as illegal by the European Union as they were constructed in violation of international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 forbids an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into the land that it occupies.
Spouses of elected representatives have been invited to join the visit, provided they pay €300 each. A return flight from Brussels to Tel Aviv on El Al, Israel’s national carrier, for the dates in question costs €570.
Piet de Bruyn, a Belgian Senator, said he has decided to take part in the visit, despite how he is critical of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. “I am curious to find out how it will be,” he said. “Will they be brainwashing us or will they be more subtle?”
De Bruyn stressed that he is taking part in an individual capacity, rather than as a representative of his country’s Senate. He would be particularly interested, he said, to see how the tour of Israeli settlements is presented. “I don’t know what message will be given to us,” he said.
In a lecture given in the Lebanese capital Beirut during November last year, Daud Abdullah from the London-based Middle East Monitor (MEMO) argued that there has been a marked increase in the impact of the pro-Israel lobby in Europe over the past decade. “If the influence of the Israel lobby was manifested in the policies of the individual European countries, it was even more apparent in the collective policies of the EU,” he said.
Abdullah noted that several pro-Israel groups have set up European affairs offices in Brussels and are in regular contact with some of the highest-ranking officials in the EU institutions. These groups include the American Jewish Committee, the European Jewish Congress and B’nai B’rith. One of their greatest achievements to date was a decision taken by EU foreign ministers in 2008 to “upgrade” their relations with Israel by integrating Israel into the Union’s single market for goods and services. The pro-Israel lobby had mounted a vigorous campaign for the “upgrade” ahead of that move and is continuing to advocate that the decision be given practical effect, even though work on doing so has stalled because of Israel’s three-week attack on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.
The EFI’s visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories follows its inaugural “policy conference” in Paris in 2008. Israeli politicians taking part in that event were granted meetings with Nicolas Sarkozy and Bernard Kouchner, France’s president and foreign minister.
A spokesman for Israel’s embassy in Brussels said that the EFI has not been given any finance from the Israeli state to organise its forthcoming visit. “We have lots of friends in Europe,” the spokesman said. “We have contacts with like-minded people and we have good dialogue with people who are opposed to our policies.”
Michel Legrand, chairman of the Luxembourg Committee for a Just Peace in the Middle East, complained that the EFI’s activities are “not at all transparent”. Its efforts to win support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine are “really crass”, he added.
·First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 25 January 2011
Brochures circulated in several elected assemblies invite their representatives to take part in a visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, organised by the group European Friends of Israel (EFI). Established in 2006, the EFI has emerged as Europe’s closest equivalent to the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington.
The brochures give no details about how the visit from 5 to 8 February is being financed, other than requesting a €300 contribution from each member of parliament who accepts the invitation. The contribution, which will only cover a fraction of the visit’s costs, is described as “non-mandatory”.
Marek Siwiec, a Polish member of the European Parliament (MEP) who sits on the EFI board, said the organisation has a “fundraising system, where the money is coming from the private sector”. When asked to name its main donors, Siwiec referred me to the organisation’s Brussels office.
But a spokesman for that office said he could only release such details if granted permission by the MEPs sitting on the organisation’s board.
Although the EFI’s website gives viewers links to AIPAC and similar organisations in Washington, the spokesman insisted that it does not receive funding from the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. “I promise you 100% that no [we do not receive such funding],” he said. So far, however, EFI has declined to say how it is financed. It has also not signed up to a register of “interest representatives” set up by the European Commission as part of an initiative reportedly designed to shed light on how pressure groups operate.
The forthcoming visit is being promoted as the EFI’s second “policy conference”. It will commence with a “gala dinner” in Jerusalem, hosted by Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, feature day-trips to the headquarters of arms-makers and technology firms, and conclude with another gala dinner, which Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is scheduled to attend. The visit coincides, too, with the annual Herzliya security conference, which usually attracts the top military and political figures in Israel, as well as eminent guests from abroad.
Other tours on the itinerary include visits to the Israeli settlements of Ofra, Kfar Adumim and Gush Etzion in the occupied West Bank. Those settlements are officially regarded as illegal by the European Union as they were constructed in violation of international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 forbids an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into the land that it occupies.
Spouses of elected representatives have been invited to join the visit, provided they pay €300 each. A return flight from Brussels to Tel Aviv on El Al, Israel’s national carrier, for the dates in question costs €570.
Piet de Bruyn, a Belgian Senator, said he has decided to take part in the visit, despite how he is critical of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. “I am curious to find out how it will be,” he said. “Will they be brainwashing us or will they be more subtle?”
De Bruyn stressed that he is taking part in an individual capacity, rather than as a representative of his country’s Senate. He would be particularly interested, he said, to see how the tour of Israeli settlements is presented. “I don’t know what message will be given to us,” he said.
In a lecture given in the Lebanese capital Beirut during November last year, Daud Abdullah from the London-based Middle East Monitor (MEMO) argued that there has been a marked increase in the impact of the pro-Israel lobby in Europe over the past decade. “If the influence of the Israel lobby was manifested in the policies of the individual European countries, it was even more apparent in the collective policies of the EU,” he said.
Abdullah noted that several pro-Israel groups have set up European affairs offices in Brussels and are in regular contact with some of the highest-ranking officials in the EU institutions. These groups include the American Jewish Committee, the European Jewish Congress and B’nai B’rith. One of their greatest achievements to date was a decision taken by EU foreign ministers in 2008 to “upgrade” their relations with Israel by integrating Israel into the Union’s single market for goods and services. The pro-Israel lobby had mounted a vigorous campaign for the “upgrade” ahead of that move and is continuing to advocate that the decision be given practical effect, even though work on doing so has stalled because of Israel’s three-week attack on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.
The EFI’s visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories follows its inaugural “policy conference” in Paris in 2008. Israeli politicians taking part in that event were granted meetings with Nicolas Sarkozy and Bernard Kouchner, France’s president and foreign minister.
A spokesman for Israel’s embassy in Brussels said that the EFI has not been given any finance from the Israeli state to organise its forthcoming visit. “We have lots of friends in Europe,” the spokesman said. “We have contacts with like-minded people and we have good dialogue with people who are opposed to our policies.”
Michel Legrand, chairman of the Luxembourg Committee for a Just Peace in the Middle East, complained that the EFI’s activities are “not at all transparent”. Its efforts to win support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine are “really crass”, he added.
·First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 25 January 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
America pulls Europe's strings
Commenting on the state of trans-Atlantic relations in 2008, former American president Jimmy Carter argued that European Union governments are “not our vassals” but “occupy an equal position with the U.S.”. Documents released over the past month appear to offer a different view.
In a report finalised earlier in December, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton signalled that the EU’s main purpose internationally is to “help” Washington “achieve its global objectives”. By coincidence, a series of secret cables from U.S. embassies around the world – made public by the website WikiLeaks - indicates that America expects Europe to constantly act as its subordinate.
A memo approved by William Leach, then U.S. ambassador to Paris, in 2005 deals with French opposition to the war declared against Iraq two years previously. Leach takes comfort in learning that the anti-war stance of President Jacques Chirac was not supported by some prominent members of Chirac’s own party, the Union for a Popular Majority (known by its French acronym UMP).
The memo summarises a visit which Leach received from Hervé de Charette, a former foreign minister and then head of international relations for the UMP. De Charette, according to the memo, called Chirac’s position on the war “embarrassing”. Giving the impression that he was speaking on behalf of Nicolas Sarkozy, now France’s president and the UMP leader at the time, de Charette identified a sturdy relationship with the U.S. as “the basis for French foreign relations”. De Charette also described the Israel-Palestine conflict as “the key issue” for both the EU and U.S. and suggested that he wished to counter the perception that France was more sympathetic to the Palestinians than to Israel.
Another cable from 2005 pinpoints Britain and the Netherlands as America’s most trusted allies in western Europe. Drafted by Clifford Sobel, who was about to step down as the U.S. envoy to The Hague, it labels the Dutch as “go-to guys” when disagreements arise between the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Sobel says that the Dutch helped “push back” plans by France and Germany to develop a European military capability that could act independently of NATO, a US-dominated alliance. He applauds the Dutch, too, for providing “early logistic support” for the war in Iraq by allowing the U.S. military pass through Rotterdam, when it was unable to use other European ports for that purpose.
Furthermore, the cable celebrates the willingness of Dutch diplomats to act as “eyes and ears” for America. It recommends that – because the Netherlands has a history as a coloniser in the Caribbean- the Dutch should be given a role in countering the rise of left-wing politicians in Latin America. According to Sobel, the Dutch are “deeply concerned” about “meddling” by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in the Caribbean. “As a Caribbean power, the Dutch have good reasons to lead an effort to balance traditional Spanish dominance on Latin American issues in the EU, but the U.S. and others will need to push them to take this role,” the cable adds.
Eva Golinger, a New York lawyer who has written several books on Chavez, said that the cables published by WikiLeaks underscore Washington’s “obsession” with relations between Cuba and Venezuela. Claims that Cubans have penetrated every aspect of Venezuelan government and economy are redolent of Cold War warnings about “communist expansion” in the Southern hemisphere, Golinger wrote on her internet publication Postcards from the Revolution. She also accused US diplomats of painting a false picture of Venezuela. Whereas one cable alleges that the quality of hospitals has declined under Chavez, his administration has pumped billions into a public healthcare system which guarantees free treatment to all citizens.
Two decades after the Cold War was widely assumed to have ended, the cables show that at least 200 American nuclear weapons remain on European soil. Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey are named as some of the countries hosting these weapons.
In addition, the cables appear to offer proof that NATO is planning for a confrontation with Russia. A document from January 2010 shows that the alliance approved a plan during that month to expand an operation known as Eagle Guardian, under which preparations would be made for fighting with Russia in Poland and the three Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia).
The decision follows NATO’s encroachment into countries surrounding Russia over the past decade. This enlargement occurred despite promises made to Moscow by James Baker, the U.S. secretary of state from 1989 to 1992, that NATO would not expand eastwards. As members of NATO since 2004, the Baltic states have accommodated both military bases for the U.S. and operations training soldiers preparing attacks on Afghanistan.
Writing in September, Rick Rozoff, a blogger with the campaigning website Stop NATO, noted that the warplanes from a variety of NATO members fly “round-the-clock” over the three Baltic countries, all of which adjoin Russia. Rozoff intimated that these operations are bound to increase friction between Russia and the alliance.
“NATO’s new members on the Baltic Sea are delivering on the demands imposed upon them by accession to the alliance,” he added. “They host NATO – particularly U.S. – troops, bases, warplanes, warships and missiles. They provide troops for wars far abroad. They supply training opportunities on the ground and in the air for the war in Afghanistan and for future conflicts with none of the restrictions that exist in North America and Western Europe. And they render those multiple services near Russia’s western border.”
·First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 22 December 2010
In a report finalised earlier in December, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton signalled that the EU’s main purpose internationally is to “help” Washington “achieve its global objectives”. By coincidence, a series of secret cables from U.S. embassies around the world – made public by the website WikiLeaks - indicates that America expects Europe to constantly act as its subordinate.
A memo approved by William Leach, then U.S. ambassador to Paris, in 2005 deals with French opposition to the war declared against Iraq two years previously. Leach takes comfort in learning that the anti-war stance of President Jacques Chirac was not supported by some prominent members of Chirac’s own party, the Union for a Popular Majority (known by its French acronym UMP).
The memo summarises a visit which Leach received from Hervé de Charette, a former foreign minister and then head of international relations for the UMP. De Charette, according to the memo, called Chirac’s position on the war “embarrassing”. Giving the impression that he was speaking on behalf of Nicolas Sarkozy, now France’s president and the UMP leader at the time, de Charette identified a sturdy relationship with the U.S. as “the basis for French foreign relations”. De Charette also described the Israel-Palestine conflict as “the key issue” for both the EU and U.S. and suggested that he wished to counter the perception that France was more sympathetic to the Palestinians than to Israel.
Another cable from 2005 pinpoints Britain and the Netherlands as America’s most trusted allies in western Europe. Drafted by Clifford Sobel, who was about to step down as the U.S. envoy to The Hague, it labels the Dutch as “go-to guys” when disagreements arise between the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Sobel says that the Dutch helped “push back” plans by France and Germany to develop a European military capability that could act independently of NATO, a US-dominated alliance. He applauds the Dutch, too, for providing “early logistic support” for the war in Iraq by allowing the U.S. military pass through Rotterdam, when it was unable to use other European ports for that purpose.
Furthermore, the cable celebrates the willingness of Dutch diplomats to act as “eyes and ears” for America. It recommends that – because the Netherlands has a history as a coloniser in the Caribbean- the Dutch should be given a role in countering the rise of left-wing politicians in Latin America. According to Sobel, the Dutch are “deeply concerned” about “meddling” by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in the Caribbean. “As a Caribbean power, the Dutch have good reasons to lead an effort to balance traditional Spanish dominance on Latin American issues in the EU, but the U.S. and others will need to push them to take this role,” the cable adds.
Eva Golinger, a New York lawyer who has written several books on Chavez, said that the cables published by WikiLeaks underscore Washington’s “obsession” with relations between Cuba and Venezuela. Claims that Cubans have penetrated every aspect of Venezuelan government and economy are redolent of Cold War warnings about “communist expansion” in the Southern hemisphere, Golinger wrote on her internet publication Postcards from the Revolution. She also accused US diplomats of painting a false picture of Venezuela. Whereas one cable alleges that the quality of hospitals has declined under Chavez, his administration has pumped billions into a public healthcare system which guarantees free treatment to all citizens.
Two decades after the Cold War was widely assumed to have ended, the cables show that at least 200 American nuclear weapons remain on European soil. Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey are named as some of the countries hosting these weapons.
In addition, the cables appear to offer proof that NATO is planning for a confrontation with Russia. A document from January 2010 shows that the alliance approved a plan during that month to expand an operation known as Eagle Guardian, under which preparations would be made for fighting with Russia in Poland and the three Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia).
The decision follows NATO’s encroachment into countries surrounding Russia over the past decade. This enlargement occurred despite promises made to Moscow by James Baker, the U.S. secretary of state from 1989 to 1992, that NATO would not expand eastwards. As members of NATO since 2004, the Baltic states have accommodated both military bases for the U.S. and operations training soldiers preparing attacks on Afghanistan.
Writing in September, Rick Rozoff, a blogger with the campaigning website Stop NATO, noted that the warplanes from a variety of NATO members fly “round-the-clock” over the three Baltic countries, all of which adjoin Russia. Rozoff intimated that these operations are bound to increase friction between Russia and the alliance.
“NATO’s new members on the Baltic Sea are delivering on the demands imposed upon them by accession to the alliance,” he added. “They host NATO – particularly U.S. – troops, bases, warplanes, warships and missiles. They provide troops for wars far abroad. They supply training opportunities on the ground and in the air for the war in Afghanistan and for future conflicts with none of the restrictions that exist in North America and Western Europe. And they render those multiple services near Russia’s western border.”
·First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 22 December 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
My 'date' with Angela Merkel: let's see how multiculturalism hasn't failed
Far-right politicians may soon need to padlock their wardrobes. Should present trends continue they could find that all their clothes have been stolen by “mainstream” parties.
The xenophobic tone of recent rhetoric from two of Europe’s most powerful leaders is frightening to anyone with a rudimentary grasp of this continent’s history. First, Nicolas Sarkozy engaged in the worst kind of populism when he announced an onslaught on the Roma. Sarkozy’s efforts to criminalise an entire ethnic group proved that he is not averse to stoking the flames of racism in order to appear tougher than the Front National (at a time when a successor to Jean-Marie Le Pen is being chosen).
Unlike Sarkozy, Angela Merkel does not appear to face a significant electoral challenge from Nazi admirers. But this hasn’t stopped her from directing insults against Muslims that would be considered taboo if aimed at followers of any other religion. During the first week of October, the chancellor told Muslims they must accept that “our culture is based on Christian and Jewish values”. Later in the month, she went further by declaring multiculturalism to have “utterly failed”.
Whether intentionally or not, Merkel has thrown down the gauntlet to the left. There is an onus on everyone who regards himself or herself as egalitarian to counter her bigotry. I’m not advocating that we respond with a misty-eyed “United Colours of Benetton” view of diversity but that we shatter the myths she is so busy propagating.
Myth number one: multiculturalism has failed. Yes, it is easy to find districts in many cities and towns where there is tension between different ethnic groups. But there are even more cases where a minority has enriched a city by creating an ambience that is vibrant and exciting. If Merkel doesn’t believe me, I’ll gladly take her for a drink in Matongé, the African quarter of Brussels, when she jets in for this week’s EU summit.
Myth number two: migration is “illegal”. In a just world, it would be unnecessary to travel outside one’s own home country to make a decent living. The world we have today is far from just – not least because European governments are committed to defending an economic system that widens global inequalities. As long as this system remains, the poor will have little choice than to migrate. There is nothing criminal about this.
Myth number three: Europe is “overrun” by asylum-seekers. Data compiled by the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, indicate that there were 377,000 applications for asylum filed in industrialised countries last year, around the same number as 2008. It is telling that the top countries of origin for asylum-seekers were Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries occupied by the US and its European allies. If we want fewer asylum-seekers, let’s have fewer wars.
Myth number four: Europe is based on Christian and Jewish values. As Muslims have lived in Western Europe since the eighth century, those who try to airbrush Islam out of our history have concocted an intellectual fraud. Europe equally has long had millions of atheists and agnostics. So how can its values be the property of just one or two religions?
I began by noting that the far-right is setting an agenda that more “moderate” parties feel obliged to follow. This does not mean that I predict the far-right will vanish once its repugnant policies are implemented. The strong performance of extremists in recent parliamentary elections in Sweden and the Netherlands shows how adept they are at tapping into the disillusionment that is widespread in these dangerous times.
The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek has linked the rising popularity of far-right firebrands to what he calls “the withdrawal of leftist politics”. Speaking on the excellent American TV programme Democracy Now! last week, he said: “It is as if the left, being obsessed by the idea that we shouldn’t appear as reactionary in the economic sense, that is to say that ‘No, we are not the old trade union representatives of the working class, we are for postmodern digital capitalism’, they don’t want to touch the working class or so-called lower ordinary people. And here right-wingers enter. The horrible paradox is that, apart from some small leftist fringe parties, the only serious political force in Europe today which still is ready to appeal to the ordinary working people are the right-wing anti-immigrants?”
Separately, Zizek has warned that the future of European politics is likely to be dominated by figures like Silvio Berlusconi, a man who has thought nothing about forming a grubby alliance with largely unreconstructed fascists. This warning should rouse all of us on the left from our slumber. Running Europe is too important a business to be left to charlatans such as Berlusconi.
There is no magic formula for how the left can reclaim the ground lost to the far-right. Doing so will take organisation, determination and perspiration. Clearly, we should address the grievances that often lead otherwise decent people to vote for fascist scumbags. But we should never pander to the far-right. Our dedication to justice is not something to feel embarrassed about.
Another important message is that the alternative to multiculturalism isn’t much fun. I should know – the part of Ireland where I grew up was almost exclusively white. My country is an economic disaster zone but immigration has made it a far sexier place than it used to be. Thank God.
·First published by New Europe (www.neeurope.eu), 24-30 October 2010
The xenophobic tone of recent rhetoric from two of Europe’s most powerful leaders is frightening to anyone with a rudimentary grasp of this continent’s history. First, Nicolas Sarkozy engaged in the worst kind of populism when he announced an onslaught on the Roma. Sarkozy’s efforts to criminalise an entire ethnic group proved that he is not averse to stoking the flames of racism in order to appear tougher than the Front National (at a time when a successor to Jean-Marie Le Pen is being chosen).
Unlike Sarkozy, Angela Merkel does not appear to face a significant electoral challenge from Nazi admirers. But this hasn’t stopped her from directing insults against Muslims that would be considered taboo if aimed at followers of any other religion. During the first week of October, the chancellor told Muslims they must accept that “our culture is based on Christian and Jewish values”. Later in the month, she went further by declaring multiculturalism to have “utterly failed”.
Whether intentionally or not, Merkel has thrown down the gauntlet to the left. There is an onus on everyone who regards himself or herself as egalitarian to counter her bigotry. I’m not advocating that we respond with a misty-eyed “United Colours of Benetton” view of diversity but that we shatter the myths she is so busy propagating.
Myth number one: multiculturalism has failed. Yes, it is easy to find districts in many cities and towns where there is tension between different ethnic groups. But there are even more cases where a minority has enriched a city by creating an ambience that is vibrant and exciting. If Merkel doesn’t believe me, I’ll gladly take her for a drink in Matongé, the African quarter of Brussels, when she jets in for this week’s EU summit.
Myth number two: migration is “illegal”. In a just world, it would be unnecessary to travel outside one’s own home country to make a decent living. The world we have today is far from just – not least because European governments are committed to defending an economic system that widens global inequalities. As long as this system remains, the poor will have little choice than to migrate. There is nothing criminal about this.
Myth number three: Europe is “overrun” by asylum-seekers. Data compiled by the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, indicate that there were 377,000 applications for asylum filed in industrialised countries last year, around the same number as 2008. It is telling that the top countries of origin for asylum-seekers were Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries occupied by the US and its European allies. If we want fewer asylum-seekers, let’s have fewer wars.
Myth number four: Europe is based on Christian and Jewish values. As Muslims have lived in Western Europe since the eighth century, those who try to airbrush Islam out of our history have concocted an intellectual fraud. Europe equally has long had millions of atheists and agnostics. So how can its values be the property of just one or two religions?
I began by noting that the far-right is setting an agenda that more “moderate” parties feel obliged to follow. This does not mean that I predict the far-right will vanish once its repugnant policies are implemented. The strong performance of extremists in recent parliamentary elections in Sweden and the Netherlands shows how adept they are at tapping into the disillusionment that is widespread in these dangerous times.
The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek has linked the rising popularity of far-right firebrands to what he calls “the withdrawal of leftist politics”. Speaking on the excellent American TV programme Democracy Now! last week, he said: “It is as if the left, being obsessed by the idea that we shouldn’t appear as reactionary in the economic sense, that is to say that ‘No, we are not the old trade union representatives of the working class, we are for postmodern digital capitalism’, they don’t want to touch the working class or so-called lower ordinary people. And here right-wingers enter. The horrible paradox is that, apart from some small leftist fringe parties, the only serious political force in Europe today which still is ready to appeal to the ordinary working people are the right-wing anti-immigrants?”
Separately, Zizek has warned that the future of European politics is likely to be dominated by figures like Silvio Berlusconi, a man who has thought nothing about forming a grubby alliance with largely unreconstructed fascists. This warning should rouse all of us on the left from our slumber. Running Europe is too important a business to be left to charlatans such as Berlusconi.
There is no magic formula for how the left can reclaim the ground lost to the far-right. Doing so will take organisation, determination and perspiration. Clearly, we should address the grievances that often lead otherwise decent people to vote for fascist scumbags. But we should never pander to the far-right. Our dedication to justice is not something to feel embarrassed about.
Another important message is that the alternative to multiculturalism isn’t much fun. I should know – the part of Ireland where I grew up was almost exclusively white. My country is an economic disaster zone but immigration has made it a far sexier place than it used to be. Thank God.
·First published by New Europe (www.neeurope.eu), 24-30 October 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
On the margins, then expelled: how France treats Roma
Lille, France
Broken bicycles and old suitcases mark the entrance to the makeshift camp. Ankle-deep in mud that is newly wet from a rain-shower, the visitor is taken by the hand by lively children to meet their parents. “Papers?”, a woman named Elena asks, proffering her identity card. It shows she is from Romania, a member state of the European Union, just like France. In four years time, Romanian citizens will be allowed to work and live wherever they wish in the EU; for now, Elena, her family and all Roma gypsies in France face the risk that they could be expelled from the country at any moment.
In the centre of Villeneuve d’Ascq, an economically depressed suburb of Lille, transparent panels display excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Everyone has the right to a decent standard of living, one panel proclaims. No-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of property, says another.
It does not take long to find evidence of how these rights – officially regarded as fundamental by the United Nations – are being denied a short distance away. Lacking proper toilet facilities and running water, the children have to urinate on the edges of a car park. Meanwhile, the threat that the camp with its six caravans could be dismantled appears very real; bulldozers have been used to deprive other Romas of refuge nearby in recent weeks.
“We have many problems with the police,” a man called Vasir says, clearing out the boot of his car. “The police come here many times. We have no work, no money, nothing.”
The Lille region in northern France has been at the centre of efforts by the French government to drive Roma out of the country.
In July, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy gave an inflammatory speech, in which he blamed crime on foreigners and announced that Roma camps would not be “tolerated”. The first police operation against a Roma camp following that speech occurred in Lesquin, also near Lille. Forty-eight people and 14 caravans were “evacuated” – in the words of officialdom - during that move, kicking off a process that saw 1,000 Roma expelled from France in the month of August.
In another operation, nine adults and 12 children were forced out of their mobile homes one morning in the last week of August. The official reason given was that they were occupying private land.
The expulsions have not gone unchallenged. A Lille court has ruled twice recently against the national government’s policy that Roma camps can be considered a threat to public order. And some locals have taken to the streets of Lille, alleging that Sarkozy’s policy on Roma – coupled with his controversial efforts to cut the country’s social welfare system - are bringing shame to France.
The plight of the estimated 1,200 Roma in and around Lille has become the subject of squabbling between rival political parties, too. After Martine Aubry, leader of the opposition Socialist Party, spoke out about the expulsions, Sarkozy’s centre-right allies responded with claims of double standards. Aubry had requested that Roma be uprooted from camps earlier in the summer, when she was mayor of Lille, her rivals revealed.
Although a 2004 EU law forbids collective deportations from one of the Union’s member states to another, the Brussels authorities have been reluctant to take any action against France. José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission’s president, made no reference to the French policy of expelling Roma – and similar practices in some other EU countries – when he made his first ever “State of the Union” speech Sep. 7. Barroso’s reticence came despite how he had met Sarkozy the previous day and despite how the treatment of the Roma had been discussed extensively between France and the European Commission over the previous few weeks.
Viviane Reding, Europe’s justice commissioner, has similarly declined to publicly say that France has contravened EU law, even though internal papers prepared by officials working under her direction suggest that it has. One such paper refutes French assertions that the deportations were voluntary and says that the granting of small sums of money to Roma deportees was not sufficient to ensure that France complied with EU rules on the free movement of people.
Because the European Parliament – the EU’s only directly-elected body – was on holidays in August, it was also silent about the deportations. Yet once it resumed business, the assembly approved a resolution against the French policy. Supported by 337 members of Parliament – with 245 against – the resolution rejected “any statements which link minorities and immigration with criminality and create discriminatory stereotypes”.
•First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 13 September 2010
Broken bicycles and old suitcases mark the entrance to the makeshift camp. Ankle-deep in mud that is newly wet from a rain-shower, the visitor is taken by the hand by lively children to meet their parents. “Papers?”, a woman named Elena asks, proffering her identity card. It shows she is from Romania, a member state of the European Union, just like France. In four years time, Romanian citizens will be allowed to work and live wherever they wish in the EU; for now, Elena, her family and all Roma gypsies in France face the risk that they could be expelled from the country at any moment.
In the centre of Villeneuve d’Ascq, an economically depressed suburb of Lille, transparent panels display excerpts from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Everyone has the right to a decent standard of living, one panel proclaims. No-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of property, says another.
It does not take long to find evidence of how these rights – officially regarded as fundamental by the United Nations – are being denied a short distance away. Lacking proper toilet facilities and running water, the children have to urinate on the edges of a car park. Meanwhile, the threat that the camp with its six caravans could be dismantled appears very real; bulldozers have been used to deprive other Romas of refuge nearby in recent weeks.
“We have many problems with the police,” a man called Vasir says, clearing out the boot of his car. “The police come here many times. We have no work, no money, nothing.”
The Lille region in northern France has been at the centre of efforts by the French government to drive Roma out of the country.
In July, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy gave an inflammatory speech, in which he blamed crime on foreigners and announced that Roma camps would not be “tolerated”. The first police operation against a Roma camp following that speech occurred in Lesquin, also near Lille. Forty-eight people and 14 caravans were “evacuated” – in the words of officialdom - during that move, kicking off a process that saw 1,000 Roma expelled from France in the month of August.
In another operation, nine adults and 12 children were forced out of their mobile homes one morning in the last week of August. The official reason given was that they were occupying private land.
The expulsions have not gone unchallenged. A Lille court has ruled twice recently against the national government’s policy that Roma camps can be considered a threat to public order. And some locals have taken to the streets of Lille, alleging that Sarkozy’s policy on Roma – coupled with his controversial efforts to cut the country’s social welfare system - are bringing shame to France.
The plight of the estimated 1,200 Roma in and around Lille has become the subject of squabbling between rival political parties, too. After Martine Aubry, leader of the opposition Socialist Party, spoke out about the expulsions, Sarkozy’s centre-right allies responded with claims of double standards. Aubry had requested that Roma be uprooted from camps earlier in the summer, when she was mayor of Lille, her rivals revealed.
Although a 2004 EU law forbids collective deportations from one of the Union’s member states to another, the Brussels authorities have been reluctant to take any action against France. José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission’s president, made no reference to the French policy of expelling Roma – and similar practices in some other EU countries – when he made his first ever “State of the Union” speech Sep. 7. Barroso’s reticence came despite how he had met Sarkozy the previous day and despite how the treatment of the Roma had been discussed extensively between France and the European Commission over the previous few weeks.
Viviane Reding, Europe’s justice commissioner, has similarly declined to publicly say that France has contravened EU law, even though internal papers prepared by officials working under her direction suggest that it has. One such paper refutes French assertions that the deportations were voluntary and says that the granting of small sums of money to Roma deportees was not sufficient to ensure that France complied with EU rules on the free movement of people.
Because the European Parliament – the EU’s only directly-elected body – was on holidays in August, it was also silent about the deportations. Yet once it resumed business, the assembly approved a resolution against the French policy. Supported by 337 members of Parliament – with 245 against – the resolution rejected “any statements which link minorities and immigration with criminality and create discriminatory stereotypes”.
•First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 13 September 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Plight of Roma low priority for EU
Roma gypsies are routinely described as Europe’s largest ethnic minority. Numbering between 10 and 16 million, their combined population exceeds that of many European Union countries. Yet their numerical strength offers no compensation for the poverty, persecution and scapegoating that the Roma have to endure – or for how their welfare is accorded a low priority by the EU’s institutions.
That few Brussels officials pay much attention to the situation facing Roma has been exemplified in recent weeks as Nicolas Sarkozy’s government in France effectively declared a war against gypsies. When the Paris authorities announced in late July that it had authorised the systematic destruction of Roma camps and the large-scale expulsion of Roma to Bulgaria and Romania, the European Commission initially insisted that the surrounding matters concerned national EU governments only.
Following the deportation of about 1,000 Roma by France during the month of August, the Commission has finally questioned the legality of these measures. In an unpublished paper, the EU’s executive arm cast doubts on assurances by Paris that all of the deportations were voluntary and therefore did not breach a 2004 law – known as the “free movement directive” – that forbids group deportations from one of the Union’s states to another.
According to the paper, the granting of lump sums ranging from 100 euros (129 dollars) for child deportees to 300 euros for adults “was not sufficient” to exempt France from the EU’s “free movement principles”.
“The response (from Brussels) has been very slow,” Sophie Kammerer from the European Network Against Racism said. “Although the measures were announced by the French at the end of July, the first press statement from Viviane Reding (the EU’s justice commissioner) wasn’t until the end of August. So almost a month passed with no reaction. Now, at least, the Commission is looking seriously into the matter.”
Kammerer noted that under EU law, deportation orders must be given in writing one month before they take effect and must allow for the possibility that they can be appealed. “Clearly, this was not respected,” she added. “The camps were dismantled one day and people were asked to leave the next day.”
So far, however, Reding has not given any indication of whether she would be willing to start legal proceedings against France. Her spokesman Matthew Newman took issue with suggestions that the Commission had dithered in reacting to the French announcement.
“The Commission has been deeply involved in Roma issues for years,” he said. “We give large sums of money to Roma integration. It is really quite surprising to hear people say we are not on top of this issue. If anything, we have been trying to raise attention to the discrimination faced by the Roma.”
France has struck a defiant tone in the contacts it has had with the EU authorities. Eric Besson, an immigration minister, insisted during a visit to Brussels last week that there have been no “collective deportations” but that some Roma have been required to leave France over their involvement in theft and “aggressive begging”. Besson claimed that France has been subject to “needless and scandalous accusations” over the measures it has taken.
The French offensive against Roma bears some similarities to an initiative unveiled by Italy in May 2008. The Italian “security package” provided for the dismantling of Roma camps and the automatic deportation of migrants who cannot prove that they have regular employment. Since then, thousands of Roma have been pushed out of Italy.
Europe’s more recent wave of attacks against Roma kicked off in July when the mayor of Copenhagen Frank Jensen urged the Danish national authorities to ensure that “criminal Roma” were arrested and expelled. More than 20 Roma were deported from Denmark soon afterwards.
Germany, Belgium, Britain and Sweden are among the other EU countries that have either taken action against the Roma or stated their intention to do so. Meanwhile, anti-Roma sentiment and the tendency to blame Roma for crime has been vigorously exploited by far-right politicians in many parts of Europe. The Hungarian extremist party Jobbik has called for Roma to be forced to live in segregated camps from the general population. In response to its call, the Hungarian Socialist Party said it hoped that Jobbik did not wish to have “concentration camps” erected.
And racism against Roma manifested itself in a particularly violent way in Slovakia in late August when a gunmen killed six members of a Roma family and another woman in Bratislava. Some human rights campaigners have linked the murders to the negative stereotyping of Roma by powerful European politicians.
Ivan Ivanov, director of the European Roma Information Office, the main group representing Roma in Brussels, said he had warned five years ago that his community was likely to come under attack from several EU governments. He urged the European Commission both to take robust action against France for contravening EU law and to draw up a comprehensive strategy for combating discrimination against Roma. Despite the Roma’s status as Europe’s largest ethnic minority, the Commission does not have a specific unit of officials dedicated to serving their interests. The Commission’s employment department, for example, has only one official tasked with handling issues affecting the Roma.
“The European institutions should not look at this on a case-by-case basis but should come up with a proper European approach, ” Ivanov said. “Roma are European citizens, so they should benefit from the same rights as any other European citizens.”
•First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 6 September 2010
That few Brussels officials pay much attention to the situation facing Roma has been exemplified in recent weeks as Nicolas Sarkozy’s government in France effectively declared a war against gypsies. When the Paris authorities announced in late July that it had authorised the systematic destruction of Roma camps and the large-scale expulsion of Roma to Bulgaria and Romania, the European Commission initially insisted that the surrounding matters concerned national EU governments only.
Following the deportation of about 1,000 Roma by France during the month of August, the Commission has finally questioned the legality of these measures. In an unpublished paper, the EU’s executive arm cast doubts on assurances by Paris that all of the deportations were voluntary and therefore did not breach a 2004 law – known as the “free movement directive” – that forbids group deportations from one of the Union’s states to another.
According to the paper, the granting of lump sums ranging from 100 euros (129 dollars) for child deportees to 300 euros for adults “was not sufficient” to exempt France from the EU’s “free movement principles”.
“The response (from Brussels) has been very slow,” Sophie Kammerer from the European Network Against Racism said. “Although the measures were announced by the French at the end of July, the first press statement from Viviane Reding (the EU’s justice commissioner) wasn’t until the end of August. So almost a month passed with no reaction. Now, at least, the Commission is looking seriously into the matter.”
Kammerer noted that under EU law, deportation orders must be given in writing one month before they take effect and must allow for the possibility that they can be appealed. “Clearly, this was not respected,” she added. “The camps were dismantled one day and people were asked to leave the next day.”
So far, however, Reding has not given any indication of whether she would be willing to start legal proceedings against France. Her spokesman Matthew Newman took issue with suggestions that the Commission had dithered in reacting to the French announcement.
“The Commission has been deeply involved in Roma issues for years,” he said. “We give large sums of money to Roma integration. It is really quite surprising to hear people say we are not on top of this issue. If anything, we have been trying to raise attention to the discrimination faced by the Roma.”
France has struck a defiant tone in the contacts it has had with the EU authorities. Eric Besson, an immigration minister, insisted during a visit to Brussels last week that there have been no “collective deportations” but that some Roma have been required to leave France over their involvement in theft and “aggressive begging”. Besson claimed that France has been subject to “needless and scandalous accusations” over the measures it has taken.
The French offensive against Roma bears some similarities to an initiative unveiled by Italy in May 2008. The Italian “security package” provided for the dismantling of Roma camps and the automatic deportation of migrants who cannot prove that they have regular employment. Since then, thousands of Roma have been pushed out of Italy.
Europe’s more recent wave of attacks against Roma kicked off in July when the mayor of Copenhagen Frank Jensen urged the Danish national authorities to ensure that “criminal Roma” were arrested and expelled. More than 20 Roma were deported from Denmark soon afterwards.
Germany, Belgium, Britain and Sweden are among the other EU countries that have either taken action against the Roma or stated their intention to do so. Meanwhile, anti-Roma sentiment and the tendency to blame Roma for crime has been vigorously exploited by far-right politicians in many parts of Europe. The Hungarian extremist party Jobbik has called for Roma to be forced to live in segregated camps from the general population. In response to its call, the Hungarian Socialist Party said it hoped that Jobbik did not wish to have “concentration camps” erected.
And racism against Roma manifested itself in a particularly violent way in Slovakia in late August when a gunmen killed six members of a Roma family and another woman in Bratislava. Some human rights campaigners have linked the murders to the negative stereotyping of Roma by powerful European politicians.
Ivan Ivanov, director of the European Roma Information Office, the main group representing Roma in Brussels, said he had warned five years ago that his community was likely to come under attack from several EU governments. He urged the European Commission both to take robust action against France for contravening EU law and to draw up a comprehensive strategy for combating discrimination against Roma. Despite the Roma’s status as Europe’s largest ethnic minority, the Commission does not have a specific unit of officials dedicated to serving their interests. The Commission’s employment department, for example, has only one official tasked with handling issues affecting the Roma.
“The European institutions should not look at this on a case-by-case basis but should come up with a proper European approach, ” Ivanov said. “Roma are European citizens, so they should benefit from the same rights as any other European citizens.”
•First published by Inter Press Service (www.ipsnews.net), 6 September 2010
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