UK News

from Global News Journal:

Cometh the hour, cometh Van Rompuy?

Three months ago, Herman van Rompuy might have struggled to be recognised on the streets of his native Belgium, let alone Paris or London. The bookish former prime minister, a fan of camping holidays and Haiku poetry, was nothing if not low-key; a studious consensus builder in the world of Belgian politics.

Three months on and Van Rompuy, 62, may not outwardly have changed much, but his title and the expectations surrounding him certainly have. In November he was chosen to be the first permanent president of the European Council, the body that represents the EU's 27 leaders, and on Thursday he will host those heads of state and government at an economic summit in Brussels -- the first such gathering he has chaired.

With Greece under extreme pressure with its mounting deficit and debt problems, and Portugal, Spain and Italy threatening to go the same way, the summit comes at a critical time. It is perhaps the most serious test of Europe's monetary union since the euro single currency was introduced 11 years ago.

"Cometh the hour, cometh the man", some might say, even if one wonders whether Van Rompuy would have been the first name on most European leaders' lips at such a pressing time.  But Van Rompuy it is, and he has his work cut out if he is going to seize the moment and tackle one of the EU's biggest problems.

First he must put Greece and debt on the agenda. As it stands the summit is only scheduled to discuss the EU's 2020 strategy (a plan to boost growth over the next decade), Haiti, governance and climate change. And once he has put Greece firmly on the table, he must ensure that EU leaders give it serious, hard-nosed discussion, even if that means broaching super-sensitive issues such as what plans the union has to bail Greece out if it comes to it.

Van Rompuy, with his thinning grey hair and professorial air, may not look like the sort of man to squeeze decisions or commitments out of the likes of French President Nicolas Sarkozy or Germany's Angela Merkel. But his record suggests he has hidden depth and a command of the issues that may prove handy.  

A student of philosophy as an undergraduate, Van Rompuy went on to gain a master's in applied economics and then worked for the Belgian central bank, before going into politics. As Belgium's budget minister in the 1990s, he was instrumental in helping to drive Belgium's debt down from a peak of 135 percent of GDP, higher than Greece's debt pile is right now. In his one-year stint as Belgium's prime minister, he won plaudits for his ability to build consensus, steering Belgium's notoriously fractious politics away from the brink on several occasions.

from Global News Journal:

Does Washington care about the EU?

Try as it might, the European Union's efforts to act like a bigger player in world affairs keep running into obstacles.

The latest setback is a report that President Barack Obama won't be able to make it to the annual EU-U.S. summit this year, pencilled in for Madrid in May. A hectic domestic agenda and the fact the U.S. president made 10 foreign trips last year -- more than any other president in his first year in office -- means staying at home is the priority and the Europe Union will have to wait.

President Obama, apparently not pointing in Europe's direction

Spanish officials -- Spain holds the rotating six-month presidency of the EU and is hosting the summit -- say the White House has not officially withdrawn his attendance. As far as they are concerned Obama is still coming, even if the dates for the meeting have not yet been finalised. 

But doubts about the trip have been sewn and soul-searching has begun in Brussels about whether Washington even cares about Europe.  If Obama doesn't come, goes the thinking, it's a blow to those who believe the 27-country EU, with its impressive economic power, might one day stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Washington in international affairs, and act as a counterweight to a rising Beijing.

Obama may still decide to come, and even if he doesn't, there is still the annual U.S.-EU summit in the United States, scheduled for the autumn. But rather than a 'will-he-come-or-won't-he?' story, the debacle says more about the awkward institutional structure of the EU and why it's a barrier to the region becoming more influential.

from The Great Debate UK:

A freakonomic view of climate change

Ahead of a U.N. summit in Copenhagen next month, scepticism is growing that an agreement will be reached on a global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012.

The protocol set targets aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which are believed to be responsible for the gradual rise in the Earth's average temperature. Many scientists say that reducing carbon dioxide emissions is key to preventing climate change.

But authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner argue in their new book SuperFreakonomics that humanity can take an alternative route to try and save the planet.

"If the goal is to stop warming then geo-engineering solutions are worth considering because they are far cheaper, probably much more do-able and easily reversible," Dubner told Reuters before a talk at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London.

Related vlog: How to become a freakonomist

On the frontline of the G20 summit

Abolish money. Punish the  looters. Eat the bankers.

Ageing 1960s hippies and their youthful anti-globalisation descendants joined in an angry  anti-capitalist protest at the Bank of England on Wednesday, waving placards and shouting slogans reflecting  a common fury at perceived corporate greed.

With worldwide recession destroying jobs by the week, protesters at the G20 protest in the City of London demanded an end to what they see as a global, predatory system that robs the poor to benefit the privileged.

“Welcome to Pig City: One war — class war” was the placard held up by a masked man standing on the doorstep of the central bank.

As hooded protesters scrawled “Peace and Love” on the walls of the Bank, Drogo, an elderly man in flowing multi-coloured robes and carrying an orb on a wooden stick, pointed at staff peering out of the Bank of England’s windows and said:

 ”I am here to tell these fat bankers to get off their arses and save the planet.

Ghost of past failure haunts G20

Stopping off in New York during a marathon, 18,000-mile diplomatic offensive before next week’s G20 summit in London next week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recalled a conference held in eerily similar circumstances in London 76 years ago.

Sixty-six nations gathered for the June 1933 London Monetary and Economic Conference which was aimed at lifting the world’s economy out of the Depression.

But amid American opposition to European plans to return to a system of fixed exchange rates, the conference collapsed and the world put up trade barriers, jobless ranks swelled and the rise of Fascism took the world into war.

“There was no further progress other than a resort to protectionism for the rest of that decade,” Brown told a business audience during a five-day pre-summit tour that has taken him to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, New York, Brazil and Chile.

Brown must be hoping desperately that history will not repeat itself when he hosts a meeting of leading industrial and developing economies in London on April 2 to try to chart a way out of the worst global financial crisis since the 1930s.

Again there have been signs of transatlantic division in advance of the summit, with many Europeans resisting U.S. pressure for more fiscal stimulus to boost the economy, while the Europeans put the emphasis on tightening regulation of the financial sector.

Mirek Topolanek, prime minister of the Czech Republic which holds the current European Union presidency, was quoted this week as saying U.S. President Barack Obama’s huge economic stimulus plan was “the road to hell”.