Tag Archives: Europe

what is going on in the UK?

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The energy and inflation situation sounds pretty bad in Europe and particularly in the UK. Now, these are definitely political opinion articles so I would take them with somewhat of a grain of salt. But if the facts and figures quoted here are even roughly correct (which I haven’t independently verified), if sounds like the UK is losing its middle class.

Let me back all that up with…well…the statistics coming out of Britain are mind-boggling, and I mean that. Consider just a few. Inflation’s projected to hit 18%. 18%. Meanwhile, in the rest of the rich world, it’s peaking — at least for now. I quoted you the one about 70% of households living in fuel poverty already, but consider it again. What would you say if 70% of people in your country had to choose between food and energy? But it hardly ends there. There are more food banks than McDonalds in Britain. Raw sewage is washing up on beaches. Entire villages are running out of water, and soon enough the country will be water poor, yet there’s no plan or agenda to fix any of this.

eand.co

HM Revenue & Customs, on the other hand, suggests that average earnings were £26,000 before tax and £23,500 after tax in 2019-20, but it forgets national insurance, which might reduce this by £2,000, and almost compulsory pension contributions that might deduct another £800 after tax relief, leaving £20,700 to really spend. What that means is that the average household requires two working adults to make it work. It also suggests that having average earnings in the UK means earning less than £15 an hour.

Can such a household now have a decent lifestyle on this level of income? Given that this household is very unlikely to be able to afford a mortgage, rents matter here – and average rents in the UK are now over £1,100 a month, or over £13,000 a year…

What is obvious in all this is that a person on the average income in the UK is already struggling to make ends meet. Frankly, every person and household in this situation is likely to be in financial difficulty. They will already have to make difficult choices. Anything that tips the balance against them now literally leaves them beyond their limits.

Independent

Some of this is certainly due to the pandemic, the Ukraine war, etc. But maybe food, energy, and water prices are also sounding warnings that our unsustainable treatment of the natural environment is finally having consequences. While the underlying trends of pollution, degradation, and resource overuse accumulate slowly and gradually, our society may be able to make small adjustments to adapt to them as long as conditions are relatively stable and predictable. But then random shocks happen to the system, and we are not able to recover back to the trend, and our quality of life can suddenly erode and never quite get back to where it was.

Europe, the Baltics, the Caucasus, and NATO geography quiz

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There are lots of point-and-click geography quizzes online. I tried this one and did horribly at 57%. If I manage to find the time, I might take it once a day until I actually know where some of the places I am hearing in the news are. That still won’t help me much when the media uses terms like “the Baltic States” and “the Caucases” (being “Caucasian” doesn’t help me with that last one. I also looked up the map of who is in NATO at this point and what surprised both at some countries that are and some that aren’t.

According to Wikipedia:

The Baltic states is a modern unofficial geopolitical term, typically used to group three so-called Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea are sometimes referred to as the “Baltic nations”, less often and in historical circumstances also as the “Baltic republics”, the “Baltic lands”, or simply the Baltics.

Wikipedia

The Caucasus (/ˈkɔːkəsəs/), or Caucasia[3][4] (/kɔːˈkeɪʒə/), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly occupied by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically been considered a natural barrier between Eastern Europe and Western Asia.[5]

Wikipedia

The NATO members are:

  • ALBANIA (2009)
  • BELGIUM (1949)
  • BULGARIA (2004)
  • CANADA (1949)
  • CROATIA (2009)
  • CZECH REPUBLIC (1999)
  • DENMARK (1949)
  • ESTONIA (2004)
  • FRANCE (1949)
  • GERMANY (1955)
  • GREECE (1952)
  • HUNGARY (1999)
  • ICELAND (1949)
  • ITALY (1949)
  • LATVIA (2004)
  • LITHUANIA (2004)
  • LUXEMBOURG (1949)
  • MONTENEGRO (2017)
  • NETHERLANDS (1949)
  • NORTH MACEDONIA (2020)
  • NORWAY (1949)
  • POLAND (1999)
  • PORTUGAL (1949)
  • ROMANIA (2004)
  • SLOVAKIA (2004)
  • SLOVENIA (2004)
  • SPAIN (1982)
  • TURKEY (1952)
  • THE UNITED KINGDOM (1949)
  • THE UNITED STATES (1949)

European separatist movements

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This Project Syndicate post suggests a way European countries and the EU could deal with separatist movements legally.

If there was still demand for statehood and separation from the internationally recognized state to which they belong, the EU could invoke a code of conduct for secession. For example, the EU could stipulate that it will sanction an independence referendum if the regional government requesting it has already won an election on such a platform with an absolute majority of the voters. Moreover, the referendum should be held at least one year after the election, to allow for a proper, sober debate.

As for the new state, it should be obligated to maintain at least the same level of fiscal transfers as before. Rich Veneto could secede from Italy, for example, as long as it maintained its fiscal transfers to the South. Moreover, the new state should be prohibited from erecting new borders and be compelled to guarantee its residents the right to triple citizenship (new state, old state, and European).

The Catalonia crisis is a strong hint from history that Europe needs to develop a new type of sovereignty, one that strengthens cities and regions, dissolves national particularism, and upholds democratic norms. The immediate beneficiaries would be Catalans, the people of Northern Ireland, and maybe the Scots (who would in this manner snatch an opportunity out of the jaws of Brexit). But the longer-term beneficiary of this new type of sovereignty would be Europe as a whole. Imagining a pan-European democracy is the prerequisite for imagining a Europe worth saving.

I could almost imagine something like this in the U.S. No, there aren’t too many regions that would like to leave entirely, even if Texas makes noises about it. But my opinion is that the states are getting less and less relevant in an economic and practical sense relative to the metropolitan areas where the people live and the economic production happens, but they remain politically powerful relative to those metro areas. So I could see metro areas choosing to leave one state for another or seeking a legal and political status equivalent to a state. This would require a radical constitutional rewrite, of course.

more cold war redux

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Here are some more disturbing rumblings of U.S.-Russia confrontation in western Europe. But I also like the quote below by a German foreign minister.

More than 31,000 troops from 24 nations took part in Nato’s Anaconda-16 exercises in Poland, from 7 to 17 June.

The day after they ended, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned Nato against “sabre-rattling and warmongering”, calling for exercises to be replaced with more dialogue and co-operation with Russia. “Whoever believes that symbolic tank parades in Eastern Europe bring more security, is mistaken,” he told Bild newspaper.