by Richard Gowan | Jun 1, 2008 | Europe and Central Asia, Influence and networks
As Alex notes in the post immediately below, new social networking technologies can be forces for good or evil. I’ll leave you to decide which category the EU’s new idea for a Political Facebook open to Europe’s 20,000 parliamentarians falls into:
Myparl.eu – officially to be launched in October – is a website currently under construction that aims to work along the same lines as the popular MySpace or Facebook social networking services, but in addition to linking social contacts is supposed to foster debate about legislative proposals coming both out of Brussels and from national parliaments.
The first official talks on the project, which is sponsored by the European Commission and will receive EU funds, took place in Brussels on 28 May involving MEPs and 27 national co-ordinators. Daniela Vincenti Mitchener, editor of the site, told EUobserver the project is about “creating a transnational community of ideas” and that it will alert MPs to MPs in other countries “who are thinking alike.”
The project could potentially involve up to 20,000 people, including politicians from regional governments and parliaments. Myparl.eu will put forward three main themes for debate – the future of Europe, climate change and intercultural dialogue.
by Alex Evans | May 30, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, Economics and development
Next week, the UN is holding a major summit on food security in Rome – I’ll be there throughout (and blogging regularly on what goes on). Ahead of the kick-off, I’ve updated the Global Dashboard page on where to get briefed on food prices, and put out a scene-setter press release through Chatham House that sets out a few thoughts on what the summit needs to achieve.
This week’s already seen a couple of new items on food prices that are worth a look, starting with a new annual FAO / OECD outlook report – which this year looks all the way out to 2017. It finds that although prices will come down in the short term (which you already knew, since you read it here on Global Dashboard on March 18th), nominal prices over the medium term will remain “substantially above” levels over the last ten years. In other words, it’s not just a blip.
Also worth a look is World Bank President Bob Zoellick’s ten point plan for food prices, published in the FT this morning. His article confirms that he’s well ahead of the curve on understanding the need for an integrated approach to scarcity issues:he says collective action is needed on “the interconnected challenges of energy, food and water [which will be] drivers of the world economy and security”. (I’ll be publishing a paper on how the multilateral system needs to be reformed to cope better with scarcity issues just before the G8 in early July.)
What will actually happen at the summit is currently anyone’s guess. It’s fair to say that FAO haven’t been very proactive in briefing the media on likely outcomes or what they’re hoping for, which puts them in the rather hazardous position of allowing high expectations to emerge without really managing them. Another risk is that a major spat over biofuels could erupt: Ahmadinejad and Chavez will both be at the food summit, and would like nothing better to embarrass the US over its support for ethanol – and while US subsidies for corn-based ethanol are certainly problematic, it’s hard to see these particular interlocutors opening up much political space on Capitol Hill as legislators contemplate the Farm Bill.
But on the upside, great progress has been made on financing the immediate humanitarian needs (after Saudi Arabia stunned everyone by coming up with half a billion dollars last week – a coup for WFP head Josette Sheeran and for UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Sir John Holmes, who’s invested much time encouraging Gulf countries to contribute). This, together with the prospect of some short term relief on prices, gives policymakers a chance to look ahead towards the longer term challenges as well as short term crisis management.
It’s also hard to remember a time when the UN system and the international financial institutions have worked together as closely or as effectively as they seem to have been doing on the UN’s food task force – a great story, given how fragmented the international system usually is, but one that’s gone largely unreported. Even so, the real work in pulling together the longer term agenda is still in front of us…
by David Steven | May 21, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, North America, UK
I am at the New America Foundation this morning, where David Miliband is due to ‘discuss the challenge of promoting Western style liberalism, democracy, civil society development in a world that in some corners views the word “democracy” suspiciously.’ The event will be streamed live here.
This is Miliband’s opportunity to connect with a younger audience in Washington. The meeting has been set up by the British Council, as part of its TN2020 network. I moderated the network’s first event in Berlin just before Easter, while Alex and I wrote an essay on climate for the TN2020 book. The intro:
The climate problem is now urgent enough to be a major determinant of the transatlantic relationship. In the wake of Bali, we are promised summits and shindigs galore as the world struggles to agree a global deal to replace Kyoto. This will keep climate at the top of the political and news agenda.
But if a global deal is signed in 2009, the fun will only just have started. Greenhouse gas emissions will need to be slashed by at least half, and probably much more, by 2050. Rich countries will be expected to make deep cuts almost immediately. A colossal and unprecedented economic realignment will therefore be needed. It’s a huge task. So how will Europe and the US fare on this shifting terrain?
The warm-up act is Andrew Sullivan, über-blogger and hawk turned hardcore Obamafan, and absolutely charming in person. He’s talking about the way that – in the new media age – the British and American media audience are merging, with southern England a centre left or centre right ‘blue state’. “I often feel my blog is better understood in London than it is in certain parts of the United States,” he says.
But then Miliband arrives and Sullivan is shuffled off the stage. Introduced by the Washington Note’s Steve Clemons (and our host) as ‘primarily a blogger’, Miliband sits on the table and talks without notes.
He starts with the much-stated, but seldom practised, point that the new diplomacy needs to meld state-to-state relations, economic integration, and the ‘new public diplomacy’ – the mobilisation of non-state audiences.
The great causes in international relations are far from dead, he says, focusing on four challenges. Can we build strong communities across race and religion? Can we take on the conflicts that blight people’s lives? Can we stabilise the global climate? And can we build stronger and more effective international institutions?
Miliband argues that the problems of globalization will be solved by extending globalization. The world needs to tackle its problems through more internationalism not less.
I suggest that the major challenge for globalisation is the combination of rising expectations with limits to strategic resources (food, energy, emissions etc – it’s now a familiar list). What impact will the politics of scarcity have on the international system?
Miliband’s response (with apologies for the paraphrase – hard to type while nodding attentively):
We are living through an unprecedented triple crunch of credit, food and fuel. The common denominator is between food and fuel is carbon dependence. Climate change closes the circle. The key question is whether we can get on a lower carbon trajectory or not. If we don’t, the conflicts that people fear are a real danger.
So, yes, we share an analysis – but I suspect that, collectively, the world is far from having the answers…
by Richard Gowan | May 20, 2008 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, UK
Since time immemorial, or at least the 1970s, British soldiers have liked to point out that they can “do” counter-insurgency thanks to their Northern Irish experience. When David Petraeus was attempting to drum up British interest in his Iraqi surge plan last year, he was quick to say that the Brits “really understand this kind of operation” because of their time in Ireland. But now British troops, no longer required to battle the IRA, stake their claim to expertise on, er, Iraq.
The Ministry of Defence has just published some rousing interviews with troops off to “reassure” Kosovo. Here’s a selection of the reassuring things they had to say:
“We’ve taken on Basra so Kosovo will have to seriously flare up for us to be put under pressure.”
“There’s nothing new or more difficult than what we will have done in Basra. The likelihood of enemy action will be significantly different to Basra; KFOR (the NATO Kosovo Force) is not in contact the way MND(SE) [Multi-National Division South East – Iraq] was in contact on an hourly basis.”
“Iraq was a bit of a surprise. The level of action increased from three or four mortar attacks a week to three or four a night by the time we left. My company fired 40,000 rounds in Iraq. That level of combat and experience is quite different. By and large it should be quiet in Kosovo, but if it does kick off, after Iraq I think people will be surprised by our robustness.”
So watch out Kosovo Serbs: you may think you’re in Mitrovica, but from now on you’re in Basra.
by Daniel Korski | May 15, 2008 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia, Influence and networks
General Richard Dannat, the head of the British army, once remarked that the British Armed Forces are less understood and less honoured for their commitment and sacrifice by ordinary Britons than in comparable societies, like United States, and probably even less than in earlier periods.
But this is not unique to Britain. And it is part of two broader inter-related trends; the disappearance of sacrifice as an element of Europe’s development and, as a result, the divorce of the institution most knows for sacrifice – the military – from European society.
The most obvious example is the disappearance of ex-military officers from politics. The appointment of Admiral Sir Alan West, the decorated former head of the Royal Navy, to a junior ministerial post in Gordon Brown’s government is remarkable precisely because it’s rare. Military experience has similarly become less important for reaching reach high office; no Ministers in the current Cabinet have served in the armed forces.
Few European countries appoint general officers to civilian positions; none serve at the top of the European Union’s bureaucracy, the Commission or the Council Secretariat. Of seven hundred European parliamentarians, only one was a former high-ranking officer: Philippe Morrilon, the former French UN general.
Contrast this with the United States, where, from George Washington onwards, military officers have regularly shed their uniforms to take high office.
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