Chancellor Angela Merkel must have been surprised by the international outcry after her mid-October speech to the Junge Union (a German young-conservative group), declaring multiculturalism to be a "failed" experiment in Germany — "absolutely failed." The speech was "widely seen as a lurch to the right," according to the U.K. Guardian. It was used as a hook for a Ha'aretz piece about rising racism in Europe and Israel. And the showboating Islamophobe Geert Wilders didn't miss his chance to praise Merkel for "breaking a taboo" in public debates about Islam. Of course she did no such ... Read More
Liberals Gone Wild
September 1, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
It's an ongoing mystery that "liberal" is still a swear word in vast parts of the United States and may even be synonymous with "Europe" — as in, "all those liberals in Europe" — while Europeans would hardly recognize themselves in the label. "Obama portrays himself as a moderate, but he's really much more liberal than he says," a Fox News talking head declared during the 2008 U.S. presidential election, hoping to ding the candidate's reputation. Two years on, most Europeans would only agree: Barack Obama has turned out to be a far more typical American president — far more liberal ... Read More
Greatly Exaggerated: Rumors of the Euro’s ‘Collapse’
August 4, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The demise of the euro has been rumored for months, and Europe's sovereign-debt crisis ginned up a cloud of speculation this year that the currency would "collapse." This sort of talk has abated since the EU established its so-called bailout fund in May, but observers tend to agree that a trillion dollars in financing bought the euro nothing but time. So the currency's future is still obscure. But "collapse" is a dramatic word. It's also not very specific. What on Earth does it mean? The immediate fear last spring was a partial dismantling of the euro zone. Before the bailout package, it ... Read More
How to Cap a Banker’s Bonus
July 20, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
A week or so before the U.S. Senate passed the biggest Wall Street overhaul since the Depression, the European Parliament voted for some of the world's strictest rules on bankers' compensation. These "bonus caps" should be imported quickly to Washington, while the spirit of reform is still fresh. Next year EU bankers will start taking home an up-front limit of 30 percent of their bonuses, deferring the rest for three to five years. They risk losing some or all of the remaining compensation if their investments go sour, or if their banks go bust. (Some large bonus packages will be limited to ... Read More
Betting Against the Euro
June 29, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The destruction of Greek credit on international markets this year has been framed as a drama between laissez-faire instincts in Britain and the United States on the one hand, and slower, cud-chewing, pseudo-socialist European tendencies on the other. "There is a part of the Anglo-Saxon press that no longer bothers to hide its desire to see the euro zone disappear," Jean Quatremer wrote in Libération in February, referring to Anglo-American economic areas by the traditional misleading term. Europeans like to talk about a conspiracy against the euro. But was there really some kind of ... Read More
Anti-Semitism Keeps Rising in Europe. Why?
June 9, 2010 • By • 10 Comments
Anti-Semitic attacks spiked in early 2009, particularly in Europe, just after Israel's brief but brutal war to punish Hamas and stop the steady drumbeat of missile fire from the Gaza Strip. "Operation Cast Lead" had awkward ripple effects around the world, but particularly in Britain and France, where anti-Semitic incidents apparently multiplied by three or four. Someone drove a car through the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse and set it on fire, burning the gates; synagogues and Jewish community buildings in Britain and France have been daubed with graffiti. There were problems with arson ... Read More
Google Street View Ruffles European Feathers
April 14, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Recent controversies over the volume of information about ordinary Europeans that U.S. agencies have demanded in the wake of 9/11 — including banking details, flight-customer data and passport biometrics — show a strange difference between America and the Old World. Americans make noise about small government and individual freedom, but they tend to be more willing to give up private data than your average European. Why? One reason is that Europeans have darker memories of "big government" from the last century than Americans do, just as they have a closer relationship to major wars. In ... Read More
A More Efficient Europe Is Not a U.S. of Europe
October 14, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
The recent ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland brings the European Union one step closer to an overhaul of the way things work in Brussels. Once the treaty takes effect (and, despite some bellyaching from the Czechs, it most likely will), the EU will be governed by a new legal framework meant to streamline the decision-making and legislative processes. A European president will be elected, individuals will be appointed to negotiate on behalf of the entire EU, and the European Parliament will work hand in hand with national governments to make policy. Many here believe that the ... Read More
Should the States Run Public Insurance Instead?
October 14, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
A few ideas dribbling out of the Senate last week set off another flurry of debate over health care: Maybe it should be state-based! The principle appeals to Republicans because it keeps the federal government about as far as possible from running a public insurance plan. One version of the idea appeals to some Democrats as a reasonable compromise, although liberal blogger Jane Hamsher compares the "opt-out public option" scheme to bad football. "God I love Democrats," she writes. "Headed for the end zone, they pick up the ball and run it 10 yards in the wrong direction." The principle of ... Read More
Fostering Abortion With Soviet Gusto
October 7, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Europe, of course, is a decadent place where spoiled, cheese-eating hedonists tolerate socialist taxation and sexual perversion of almost any kind. European national health systems even pay for abortions. President Obama has tried to be very clear that any American system won't — "Under our plan," he told Congress on Sept. 9, "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions" — but that hasn't kept the issue from flaring up. An amendment to strengthen anti-abortion language in the controversial Baucus bill was voted down by the Senate Finance Committee on Sept. 30. Republican ... Read More
