One of the reasons to understand why the EU has got to where it is today lies in the creation of the European Commission with the monopoly on legislative initiative.

If the European Commission doesn’t take the lead the EU has to look for other ways to move forward. During the Barroso I Commission nothing can be recalled as main achievement, on the other hand 3 referendums were lost and the Lisbon strategy was an appalling failure. Yet, as I explain in my former post, last week the Barroso II Commission presented another economic plan for 2020 that is doomed to fail.

Yes, the EU needs a European Monetary Fund and yes, the European Commission should have presented these ideas a long time ago. It is their duty to think about the instruments that will take Europe out of the crisis; the instruments that allow a smarter European integration. It is worrying that, out of desperation, the member states have to take the lead in telling Brussels what Europe needs and not all the way round. This is against the treaties and the teachings of history.

It can be argued –by some- that in times of economic boom it is politically convenient to have a weak and quiet European Commission… but in times of crisis the Commission has to change business as usual, take the lead and propose solutions. Instead in the strategy for 2020 the Commission is showing a very worrying lack of attitude and seems to wait for the member states to pave the way forward.

If the newly elected European Commission continues to refuse to take the lead the European Parliament, the body to which it is accountable, should call for a vote of confidence. The Parliament is too much used to blaming the European Commission for lack of this and lack of that but after all the three big groups –conservatives, socialists and liberals- voted in favour of Barroso II for his promises of change. It Barroso II fails to deliver the Parliament should preserve the European interest.

During this last week in Northern California I had the chance to check the pulse not only of the civil society groups but also of the political scene in the US and the most relevant thing I found is how the green movement is really kicking-off with a strong political agenda, very often linking green demands with social justice.

In Europe very often we dissociate green politics from social justice because this allows everybody to be green and trendy –even Barroso from the wheel of his SUV promotes green economy-. This is interesting. The ecological crisis, to a certain extend caused by a concrete economic model of production and consumption, is happening and the mainstream parties tend to see it as a mere technological reshuffling to convert the business as usual into a green business as usual.

There is another approach to the issue of climate change that because of the higher social equality in Europe I haven’t seen in the old continent and that is the social justice approach to climate change and the green economy. Using a politically neutral approach to the current crisis allows to apply technological changes without questioning who profited from the appropriation and exploitation of resources during last centuries. A social justice approach to the current crisis wants to link the problem of climate change to its social causes and impacts, namely; how those who suffer the most from failing states or failing ecosystems are those who profit the less from the economic progress.

Europeans tend to ignore or oversee this point. This is strategically good because it avoids social unrest and allows a civilised response. However this is a problem when dealing with the rest of the world because they have a different take on it. For instance during the Copenhagen summit the developing countries insisted in having Europeans (and north-americans) pay the ecological debt.

In the US, a highly fragmented society in racial, social and economic terms, more and more green movements are linking the green revolution with social demands. After all it is low-wage workers who work in the most polluting industries or live next to a hazardous waste incinerator. Since they are the ones who suffer the most from the wealth that the upper-middle class American families accumulate, it should not surprise anyone that this kind of local movements are growing strong. The reason why it is highly interesting to listen to them is because of the take they have on the green economy i.e.: they promote the real green solutions and do not hesitate bashing the greenwashing from the industry and the political stablishment about using nuclear power or burning waste to fight climate change.

The green revolution has to be linked with a social agenda that allows to decarbonise the economy whilst creating sustainable jobs and social equality. A lots of red-neck Americans call them green-communists. I think that their demands, albeit sometimes too populist, make a lot more sense than the greenwashing with which the industry and in consequence the European and national governments bomb us with everyday. Even what is considered to be quality media promote this greenwashing.

Below a video from Van Jones, one of the leaders of this movement in Oakland, California, founder of “Green for all” and former responsible for Green Jobs for the Obama government –before being target of the neo-cons who ousted him from Washington-. A good example to understand what is going on outside the old continent.

I never thought I would be writing about such a “simple” thing as going shopping but the experience I had this last weekend really deserves it.

My experience these days is that eating sustainable food has become a fulltime job and it is not cheap. If you go to a local market in Brussels it is possible to buy seasonal products and if you try even harder you can even find out where the products come from (but you are quite likely to go back with a good amount of plastic bags and other kinds of packaging).

During this last weekend that I spent in Tuscany I went to the most sustainable shop I’ve ever seen. In the shop Effecorta 80% of the products come from 70km around the Capannori municipality (aiming to get to 95%), many of them biological. But this is just the top of the iceberg; the shop adheres to the principle of Zero Waste and it doesn’t use any plastic bag or any non-reusable package. This is not only true for the tomatoes but also for soap, milk products, cosmetic creams, beer, wines, beans, rice, spices, salt, sugar… you name it! Everything they sell is in refillable, re-usable or/and biodegradable packaging.

This system:

- allows every buyer to buy according to its needs which minimises the waste eventually produced by normal packaged stuff and responsible for lots of food to be wasted (8.3 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year),

- saves us from having to check the source and composition of the products because you know they are all local and in most of the cases biological (time saving),

- contributes to minimise the waste generation at home (no waste packaging and a lot less food wasted).

Believe it or not because of what I explain above you end up spending (and buying) less than in a normal supermarket, even if you buy bio!

This initiative was started by 6 idealists from Tuscany in August 2009 and it has already achieved economic stability and from all the products, the sales of the biological products are increasing by a 20%.

A lot of people questioned in the beginning the quality of natural biological refillable soaps and others. For this reason the entrepreneurs gave to normal people (not the already convinced greeny) different soaps to try and in the end the customers decided to stay with the locally produced biological soap with the refillable packaging for pure practical and quality reasons. The customers of the shop are all kinds of people; the main aim being that this shop should be a normal shop of the future and not something strange thought for already aware people. I could see with my eyes that they are succeeding.

Personally, from all the amazing products I tried it surprised me a fantastic local beer, a really authentic wine (without sulfites!) and above all the fact of being in a shop without marketing; a shop where you see, smell and touch what you buy and not end up deciding according to the nice face on the packaging or anything except what matters. This reduces the bill because you get less distracted and you buy only what you need. How twisted can this society be when I can be surprised of being able to see what I buy?

Anyway, back to my cloudy Brussels now I can’t stop from wishing to have one day one of these shops close to my place. I know that there are other sustainable options in Brussels such as:

- the consumers cooperatives that I highly appreciate and value

- and reason2.be which offers online shopping of seasonal food and even meat with free delivery. It is not a shop as such but a delivery service of mostly organic and local products.

Unfortunately people with jobs like mine can’t use either of these two options because they require a commitment and regularity that I just can’t guarantee with a job that obliges me to travel constantly. Plus they only provide vegetables, fruits and a little more whilst Effecorta offers almost everything you need at home.

If the world is to be sustainable one day Effecorta is the shop of the future.

I was invited to give a conference in Capannori, in Tuscany and unsurprisingly there was no other option than flying there. The train would have taken 14h each way (changing 4 times), cost 4 times as much and taken extra time to go to book in the station. Note that the part of the trip that can be booked any the Belgian station (booking the trip online is impossible) and considering the reliability of the train system in Europe lately a trip with more than 2 changes involving 3 countries is something that you just don’t want to risk. So far about European transnational networks.

So here I go with the fantastic Ryanair, paying 100eur for a return ticket (+ 26€ to get to Charleroi airport from Brussels) and contributing to global warming and environmental and economical dumping by using a mode of transport that doesn’t pay taxes on fuels. Sadly enough, nothing new until here.

But it is good to always let the events surprise you! Ryanair is as famous for being one of the most punctual airlines in Europe as it is for having the worst labour working conditions, not displaying the complete prices or charging unreasonable charges to pay with debit or credit cards. My surprise comes from the fact that the 1,5h flight turns into a flying supermarket circus from the moment it takes off. They start with selling hotdogs, hamburgers and drinks, they continue with tobacco advertising and selling (with the stewardess seductively walking up and down the corridor showing the cigarettes packages like in a fashion parade) followed by selling participations for a lottery for I don’t know which NGO to save I don’t know which children in I don’t which country and the flight concludes with a duty free with watches, perfumes…

All in all, a flying shopping mall promoting consumerism up in the clouds. How better can it get?

I have to admit that this time our politicians surprised me (which is something very difficult to do). Having spent last week in Copenhagen and last years following climate change negotiations I could have never expected that our politicians could have dared to craft such a disastrous non-existing deal. I just couldn’t even dream that they could be so bad.

The UNFCCC has lost all credibility as manager of international relations to fight climate change.

Photo: Dave Ciplet

There are lots of new approaches about how economics should be reformed in order to allow prices to tell the truth, internalising future or environmental costs, integrating scarcity in the equation, new indicators of wealth, etc.  All these topics which might have looked revolutionary or idealist not too long ago are not provocative anymore for many.

However I run into a report about a new approach in looking at the value of work which struck me. A study by NEF in which they look at how much the different professions are paid in comparison to how much they contribute to society it concludes that whereas waste recycling workers they generate 12 pounds for every pound they are paid, bankers destroy 11 pounds worth of value for every pound in value they generate. Yet in our economic system those who destroy wealth are rewarded with huge salaries and those who create it receive minimum wages.

I love it when common sense competes with economics even though the former always loses…

Worth a read:

Waste recycling workers do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced when goods are recycled instead of sending them to incineration or landfill. There is also a value in reusing goods, and we have included this in our model. Our model projects that for every £1 of value spent on wages, £12 of value will be generated.

High-earning investment bankers in the City of London are among the best remunerated people in the economy. But the earnings they command and the profits they make come at a huge cost because of the damaging social effects of the City of London’s financial activities. We found that rather than being ‘wealth creators’, these City bankers are being handsomely rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse. While collecting salaries of between £500,000 and £10 million, leading City bankers to destroy £7 of social value for every pound in value they generate.

Although the role of an advertising executive has high status, the impact of the industry has always been a point of controversy. It encourages high consumer spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress. In our economic model we estimate the share of social and environmental damage caused by overconsumption that is attributable to advertising. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12 million, top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate.

But, as I said, I wanted to look at this with a certain distance; humankind finds it self in a religious moment, in a purely philosophically existential dilemma, in a maturity test, in a “to be or not to be” situation…

We are in a religious moment because the world is about to “flood” for a second time (according to the old testament), the “sinners” have been warned by science (!) that if we continue with our life-style, with the business as usual, we will be flooded. Fair enough. The human race didn’t listen to the warnings of God the first time, the earth was flooded but God gave us a second chance. If we prove again that we are incapable of listening, of taking action to save ourselves… why should nature (or God for that matter) gives us another chance?

We are in a philosophical existential dilemma because as a race, as the big herd that we are, we have to choose between survival and extinction. The evolution of our philosophy has produced a society built on the basis of individuals, with irrational and artificially created material needs, and in which short term profit is put before the preservation of the species. Our philosophical evolution has also equipped us with phantastic logic reasoning, common sense, prudence. What will prevail?

We are in a maturity test because nature is testing our sociological and psicological evolution as a “team” to see if we are ready to survive as a whole or we rather prefer to test our luck. This means that blinded by the short term profit we chose to play our long term existence in a Russian roulette which in the best case will mean the sacrifice of some of us for the sake of the rest but which in 9 out of 10 cases means the disappearance of us all.

It is a “to be or not to be” situation because we have to take a common decision to “be”; to “exist”. Even if climate change would be an invention what is at stake in Copenhagen negotiation is the trust in ourselves as human beings beyond our national borders. If the developed and most polluting countries chose to abandon the developing countries with another treachery compromise the situation will deteriorate and the trust gap will increase. The south will become more and more suspicious about the north; whatever is left of trust will evaporate. And lack of trust in the team is the root of serious and long-lasting conflict.

Sadly, the text leaked today in which Denmark, US and UK worked behind all the other countries is a perfect example of how to destroy confidence with an otherwise very logical short-sighted move from the developped countries.

As redundant as it might sound humankind can only get out of this as a team… Today in Copenhagen I could see Africans screaming and crying out of rage, desertification is literally killing them. It is the second day and this risks getting emotional. Emotions? That animal instinct?

In my opinion the only way we will get anything useful out of Copenhagen is if our repressed animal instinct comes out and we make the irrational decision that “YES! Even though it will cost us money, sacrifice, power, you name it we still want to take the irrational decision to exist.”
Will we be that illogical? I doubt it…

The US has been giving the impression that they were taking the climate change negotiations more seriously than in previous times. And they do. To the extend of influencing the composition of the delegations that other countries are sending to the COP15 in Copenhagen so that they can get their way easily by taking out those negotiatiors known to be a pain.

The ultimate example of this sabotage strategy is the “coincidence” of the visit of US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton to the Philippines with the destitution of Bernardita de Castro Muller as climate-change advisor of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and coordinator for the G77 (group of the 77 development countries) and China Group in the climate-change talks.

Bernadita has been one of the main responsibles that the heterogeneous group of G77+China managed to articulate a strong and united message that tells the inconvenient truths that the developed countries don’t want to hear. Hence, the US thought it would be a good idea to get her out of the way so that the Copenhagen talks can be more “peaceful”. The 20 years experienced diplomat and her whole team were removed from the Philippine delegation, which at the same time left the G77+China without spokesperson.

The surprise came when right before the negotiations the Sudan delegation announced that Bernadita de Castro Muller would be representing the country which happens to chair the G77. Other members of her team appeared representing countries such as Bolivia. The “Ditas” team was back in the game!

The Philippino government made a fool of itself when it came out that the US strategy to behead the G77+China backfired and as Muller declared: “By serving as the negotiator for Sudan/G77, we will all be proving a point to the Annex 1 countries. Vulnerable countries, despite their “vulnerability”, can and will stand as one and be strong for each other and for the entire humanity.”

The US and the EU have been repeatedly trying to torpedo the unity of the developing world so that they can continue polluting whist at the same time even manage to make some money out of it. The old “divide and rule” tactic is being used over and over again.

It is true that the G77 is extremely heterogeneous and that countries like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait are radically different than countries such as Ruanda or Bangladesh but it is also true that the only way the G77+China can push the US and the EU to face its responsibilities is by staying together and acting as one. Having the experienced Bernardita Muller back in the negotiations, despite the efforts of the Americans to get her out of the way, will definitely help to bring in realism to Copenhagen.

All the rest is mainly distractions. The video below is an excellent and understandable explanation of what is important and what is superfluous about the historical negotiations we are about to assist to:

So far, if there is anything that Barroso has  proven to be capable of is to listen and obey the European Council. He has never dared to call himself a federalist. In small circles he has even mentioned that he is not sure of what he really is! In fact, he is probably the less federalist Commission president that I can recall…

On the other hand Van Rompuy comes from Belgium, a country that knows what federalism is and hence knows what he is talking about when he says that he is a “non-fundamentalist” federalist. It is excellent that we have a federalist presiding the European Council because this will allow him to shape the position in the right way; i.e. not wanting to be the head of the executive or use a kind of a prime minister approach that probably someone like Tony Blair would have taken on.

However, I still believe that it would be good (or even mandatory) if the president of the most communitarian body of the EU would be a federalist. History tends to put people in strange positions but such a contradiction of vocations in the two top jobs of the EU is quite remarkable.

Wouldn’t it make more sense that Barroso becomes the president of the European Council and Van Rompuy the president of the European Executive?

If there is common agreement between the two a swap could be arranged. I believe they would sleep better at night if they would know that during the day their political beliefs match their political roles.

In its new European Commission JM Barroso has decided to separate environment from Climate Change; Environment portfolio goes to Janez Potocnik (Slovenia), who wad Research in the last Commission, the new ‘Climate Action’ nominee is Connie Hedegaard from Denmark.

Is this the result of member states short-sightedness and not understanding the system when amending the Constitutional treaty so that the new Lisbon treaty would have an European Commission (representing the European interest) with 27 commissioners?

Could be…

But what is for sure is that Barroso is using this illogical increase in the name of portfolios to divide and rule. It is understandable, this is politics.

The field of Environment has been a pain during the last 5 years; one of the policy fields that more legislation has produced, that more cases has brought in front of the European Court of Justice and with one of the stronger commissioners: Stavros Dimas.

Stavros Dimas, outgoing Environment Commissioner, has been one of the positive surprises of the last commission. Nobody expected the greek conservative to take environment seriously, hence he was the perfect candidate to keep Environment low profile. This didn’t work and luckily for the environment he has been a pain; he has never hesitated in contradicting his president and the member states.

But Barroso is learning; he doesn’t want to have a strong profile on Environment (remember his cutting red-tape obsession) so he separated Environment from Climate Change first and then put Potocnik, a profile with proven record of uncontroversiality, ahead of it. This should help him keep things under control…

But is this good for Europe? The problem with separating dossiers is that when producing policy it is often the case that different DGs of the Commission produce contradictory policies. For instance; the industry DG deciding push for more cars when environment DG says we should have less or Environment DG deciding on policies that reduce employment, contradicting what is preached by DG Employment.

So far, it has been very useful (and logical) to have Environment DG dealing with climate change because it assured that all environmental policies were intended to fight climate change. This might seem obvious but it is not. Even now DG environment has promoted legislation that does not help to fight climate change. For instance; instead of pushing for recycling the EU is effectively promoting incineration. The argument of climate change was useful to make the case that destroying resources and having to start with extraction and production cycle again is worst than recycling. Still the EU chose incineration because of one more example of the power of industrial lobbies. This is one of the exceptions, but generally speaking DG Environment has been consistent in policies that link environmental protection with climate change.

By splitting the Enviroment portfolio and giving it to low profilers we will have more examples of uncoordinated action to fight climate change. More contradiction means less action, less action means less trouble. We can continue to play the role of the naked emperor with the aggravation of using climate change as an excuse to justify anything, even what is not good for the environment. There is a danger that the new Climate Action DG might become the newest greenwashing tool at supranational level.

Barroso is showing he is willing to manage power and it is to be welcomed that he is now taking own decisions under his sole responsibility. But is this emergence of a real head of the European executive good for the environment and, at the end of the day, good for Europe?

Manila suffered severe floods a month ago: 4 typhoons visited the archipelago and almost all the city (20million hab) was flooded.  Water and mud reached three-stories high. This might sound like the typical climate change story (and it partly is): unusual intense rains blocked the sewers, not used to such big flows. However, the fact is that when being there I could see how the high intensity of torrential waters was only responsible for 50% of the damage; the truth is that sewers were blocked by the huge amounts of waste, mainly plastic bags, dumped in the streams across the city. If the damage that these plastic bags caused had been included in their prices they would have been so expensive that they had not been able to be sold. The price of the plastic bags only reflected part of the cost of production but in no way its environmental cost.

On the top of that, the mud that covered the city was dragged by the waters from the hills surrounding the city. This had not happened in the past because the forests were keeping the soils in place (40 years ago similar storms struck Manila but the mud stayed in the hills) . During the last 20 years all these trees have been cut to build residential complexes and gulf fields. It is now clear that those trees, because of its function, had a lot higher value than what economists and developers thought and what prices reflected. And the top of the paradox is that those paying most of the price of removing the trees are now the poor people living downtown who have seen their households covered with mud. Those who live in the hills only paid a marginal cost for cutting the trees.

All in all; man-made climate change, man-produced plastic bags and forests cut by men are all three the living demonstration of bad economics. The prices didn’t tell the truth; most of the costs (that should have been included in the price) were to be paid after the products were sold and the profit was made by some whilst costs had to be shouldered by many.

Economic theory is useful to nurture philosophical discussions and make one’s ego feel good but seeing with my eyes the effects of getting things wrong (and it’s been 200 years of bad economics) is as humbling as it is infuriating. Being “green” is not a trend, not even a matter of political choice; it is about understanding that the real meaning of economics is the efficient management of today’s and future’s resources in a world of scarcity.

And all of this will come true unless we choose to reverse it.
Read the message, then read it again in reverse.

By Jonathan Reed

My girlfriend had to be operated of an infection and because of language issues and lack of knowledge of the Belgian system she decided to go for the private sector, choosing an English-speaking doctor recommended by a friend working in the European institutions.

The first checkings were quite expensive but considering the gravity of the situation we didn’t want to look at the prices and focus on getting the operation done. This private/independent doctor operated her in the Clinique Edith Cavell which is supposed to be among the best in Brussels.

The doctor was leaving the same day for holidays so we had to rush to operate or we risked having to wait one month –aren’t there other surgeons in the most expensive hospital in Brussels?-. Anyway, the day of the operation came and we went to this fantastic private hospital. We had to wait 2 hours more than scheduled, and when the operation finally took place my girlfriend was sent back half-unconscious to the room where I was waiting. The doctor didn’t show up to explain how it went so I had to ask a nurse to call her to get a briefing of the situation. The doctor doesn’t work for the hospital which means that it took more time to find her mobile number. We finally managed to talk to the doctor who was already on her way to the airport eager to start her holidays, luckily the operation went well. The only personnel I saw that day apart from the nurse was the anaesthetist who showed up 1h later…

We went home and she started the recovering of the surgery. Some days after the operation my girlfriend started bleeding. We called the bureau of the doctor who operated her but not a single doctor was left for urgencies; all the doctors were on holidays. We had no other choice than going to urgencies in the same expensive private Clinique of Edith Cavell, the waiting room was empty and yet they had us 1,5h waiting with her close to fainting due to the haemorrhage. Exercising extra pressure we managed to find a bed where she could lay down. Then a very nice nurse informs us that they have no urgency doctors available in the hospital but they are trying to find someone, hence the delay. 45 minutes later a kind doctor appears telling us from the start that he is a surgeon and not a generalist and hence he doesn’t know much about these kinds of operations but he will have a look anyway. Luckily the haemorrhage is nothing serious and it can be stopped. 2h later we go back home.

We start to find this scandalous.

The story continues when I have to go visit a doctor in the same hospital to check that I have not been contaminated by the infection of my girlfriend. My girlfriend’s doctor before leaving on holidays had asked her to have me seen by a doctor friend of hers who is also working as independent in the facilities of the Clinique Cavell. Full of suspicion I follow the instructions. I go see the doctor, the visit happens normally, except from the fact that he uses his own laptop and not the computer or the hospital facilities. The surprise comes when is time to pay: he asks me to pay cash the arbitrary amount of 50eur. I’ve been to other doctors so I know that this price is quite expensive; I ask why is 50eur and he tells me that independent doctors are free to charge us whatever extra to the regular amount for their honoraries. Weird. I don’t have 50eur in cash so I ask if I can pay by card to the secretary outside. No, he charges customers directly and he wants it cash so he asks me to go to withdraw money in the ING ATM machine which is in the ground floor of the Clinique. I find this very awkward. Before leaving he asks me to put the 50eur in an envelope and slide it under the door of his room later on because he will be with another visit.

Before leaving I ask for the voucher for the “mutualite” so that I can get some money reimbursed, he agrees but refuses to write down the amount of 50eur. It is not necessary, he says. Right, so he doesn’t want to declare the expenses; perfectly visible black market operations in the healthcare jetset…

Puzzled by the experience I leave the room to go withdraw money. The ING ATM inside the hospital doesn’t work so I end up having to go to another bank 5 minutes walk.

When 15 minutes later I slide the envelope under the door of the room of the “doctor” I ask myself how it can be that in a developed country such as Belgium:

- I can’t pay by bankcard in a hospital,

- I get charged random amounts that don’t appear in the receipt,

- Payment is done sliding an envelope with cash under the door?

All in all, how can it be that the Belgian tax authorities don’t stop this legal black market taking place in their semi-private hospitals?

In order to find out whether the system is weird or it is me that I’m special I go directly to my mutualite with the voucher from the doctor. When I explain them the situation they recognise it immediately: these are the famous rip-offs of private hospitals such as Edith Cavell or Park Leopold, they employ independent doctors who are free to charge whatever they feel like and are not accountable to the hospital, they make good money with EU civil servants and internationals. They work as a network so they send customers from one another for different kinds of checks. This way they work in parallel to the normal system.

They explain me that the price of the visits is regulated and the official price for my visit was 23.7eur (the basis on which I get reimbursed by the mutualite) and they charged me twice as much and it’s ok, they are free to do so. The Belgian system allows this. If I would be an EU civil servant and the mutualite of the European Commission (taxpayers money) would be paying the bill for me I could chose not to care but as an average person with a normal salary the issue really shocked me.

Perplexed and irritated I went home and think of moving to Siria…

I normally don’t write about these kind of topics but since I see the hysteria kicking off in this beginning of Autumn I thought of bringing some information to the issue of swine flu.

How to know if you have swine flu? How to know if what you have is swine flu or a normal flu?

According to the doctor I just visited in Belgium, if you get the swine flu the first symptoms are going to be really strong. In a matter of less than one hour you should be feeling very, very bad, with high fever and pain all over, and even vomiting. A normal flu is a  lot more gradual. This is just one opinion I found after lots of effort, is it right?

It is really a problem that nowhere in internet but even in hospitals is explained the symptoms of the flu whilst at the same time the media don’t stop making everyone go paranoid about it. After searching a bit in internet the closest thing I found about Swine Flu H1N1’s symptoms are:

- Sudden onset of fever, depression

- Coughing and sneezing

- Discharge from the nose and/or eye

- Diarrhea and vomiting

- Breathing difficulties

- Red eyes or inflammation

- Reduced or no food intake

We are in the beginning of Autumn, the flu season is just starting and Belgian hospitals are already collapsed with people thinking that they have the swine flu. If the authorities allow media to go paranoid about this so-called “pandemic” they should also give the means to the people to know what is it about and how to detect it. Most of the people don’t go to the doctor when they catch a flu because they know how to handle it, however they will go to the hospital this time round because of the hysteria about this virus. It would be a lot cheaper and responsible if there would be a phone number or a website where people could find basic information about detecting whether they have this flu or not.

I want to believe that, despite the economic benefits that a few will get out of this, there is no interest in letting the paranoia spread on this issue.

One of the novelties of the treaty is the change of a rotative presidency of the European Council for an elected position of 2,5 years mandate. The new president of the European Council will chair and organise the meetings and represent the EU in the international sphere. In a way, if we build a parallelism with a state the new president of the European Council would be the equivalent of a king whilst the president of the Commission would be more of a prime minister. However the definition of the position is vague enough in order to give the possibility to the future president of the European Council to grow into a kind of a president of the “European republic” in a more French approach.

In other words, the power relation between the president of the European Commission and the President of the European Council is not set and it will very much depend on the personality of politicians presiding either institution.

From the side of the European “executive” the personality of Barroso is known for its non-confrontational and servilist approach and experience has shown that in case of conflict the Commission has preferred to be a secretariat of the Council rather than following the will of the European Parliament. It is hence to be expected that in case a strong figure, such as Tony Blair, would be appointed president of the European Council, the European Commission led by its president would easily fall under the control of the most intergovernamental body of the union. Therefore, for the sake of keeping interinstitutional balance and maintaining right of initiative as well as the communitarian will it is important that a personality of the level of Jan Peter Balkenende is appointed as president of the European Council.

Balkenende has proven to have a diffuse personality, lacks initiative and, same as Barroso, is experienced in losing referendums (Netherlands 2005). As sad as it is, Balkenende might be the best candidate to chair the European Council: he won’t go beyond the treaties, he won’t step into others competencies, he won’t have progressive ideas to increase the power European Council and as a consequence he will leave space to a very crowded, confused, rather powerless and ambition-lacking European Commission.

The STIB (Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles) is the largest urban public transport company in Belgium and supplies the city with buses, night buses, trams and metros. In 2003 it launched the Cambio car-sharing with great success and right now there are Cambio car-sharing stations all over Belgium and in Brussels there is a big supply that allows many of us to happily live without a car. However no common card Cambio+Stib exist and you need one for every different service.

Then in 2009 the company JCDecaux won the license to develop a bike-sharing system in the Brussels region. In partnership with the region and Brussels mobilite this company that has already successfully implemented similar systems in cities such as Paris or Lyon is quickly expanding its presence in the European capital. The bicycles are not as cute as others but they are solid and do the work. This bike-sharing system seems to be expanding all over the world, however having been one of the first “Villo-people” in Brussels I can say that the deployment of the bike-sharing is still far from being finished and still lots of work has to be done by the company to make sure some stations are not left without bicycles during most of the time, but things are improving. The problem again is: you need another card for Villo.be!

I wonder how can it be that in these times of multifunctionality, when a mobile phone can serve as radio or a calendar or when a computer can be used as a TV, how can it be that it is not possible to produce a single card which would allow access to STIB, CAMBIO, VILLO and maybe even other transport services. Any modern ID card could easily integrate all these functions.

The problem is clearly not technical, the STIB has integrated cards for transport and museums,  but a matter of either lack of will or lack of demand from the consumers. It is undeniable that even though STIB, CAMBIO and VILLO are different companies it would clarify the concept of “sharing” if the region would ask all of them to produce an integrated card.

In the meantime I’m afraid I’ll have to keep on carrying the three different cards plus the card of the supermarket, of brico, miles and more, privilege customer of I don’t know what store and whatever else is needed to have access to all these wonderful services.

The monetary policy is an exclusive competence of the eurozone of the European Union, yet it is unclear what role the European currency is to play in the world, in comparison to other important currencies, or what is the strategy of the EU regarding the current reshuffle of world power relations. Even more worrying is the fact that in the current discussions on the programme that the European Commission should implement during the next 5 years not a single word is mentioned about this issue which, if excluded, on its own, can do away with all the EU’s efforts to get out of the crisis.

In any normal state the currency is one of the main tools of foreign policy, for devaluation can increase exports, for it can attract or repel investments or when used as reserve currency it can help finance national debt. Any remotely good school of economics teaches its students that the equilibrium of balance of payments is one of the most important tools for the stability of a country. The EU seems to have forgotten that even though it is not a state, having a common currency means that it needs to act as if it were one when it comes to using monetary policy with its relations with the world.

Indeed, most of the trade of the EU countries takes place within the EU which might give the false impression that the role of the euro as tool of foreign policy is not that important. Are we, Europeans, reading the historical moment we find ourselves in correctly?

The 20th century has seen the rise and consolidation of the US as the world superpower which has been interlinked with the establishment of the dollar as the world currency. The current economic crisis, with the US decline and the emergence of new world powers, is leading towards a multipolar world and this will result in a new world monetary order which will re-shape economics, internal policies and international relations for years to come. During the last decades the US has been exploiting the condition of the dollar as a reserve currency to run colossal deficits in its trade and current-accounts with which it has financed its economy and has managed to keep its status of the world superpower. This time it looks like the dollar domination is over and during next years most probably we will assist to the birth of a new monetary world order.

We are observing how the continuous depreciation of the dollar is having devastating effects in the reserves of most world countries which are held in this currency. Most importantly, countries such as China which have huge surpluses in their trade account with the US see the fate of their economies linked to the strength of a currency whose strength diminishes whilst being forced to buy US debt to avoid further devaluations of the dollar.

Paul Kennedy in his article published in the New York Times on 28 August rightly pointed out two facts which signal an important change: during the G20 meeting in London of April the IMF received an allocation of 250 billion $ in Special Drawing Rights (SDR) and two months later a meeting of the BRICs –Brazil, Russia, India and China- debated shifting currency holdings from the dollar to these IMF units of account in order to diversify risk.

The debate on the post-dollar era and with it the new world monetary system is something that is happening, even if the EU wants to ignore it. We are assisting to the most important change in world monetary policy since 1944 when in Bretton-Woods John Maynard Keynes proposed the creation of a “bancor”, a world currency unit based on the average price of 30 commodities, and the US opted for a monetary system based on the gold standard linked to the dollar which effectively turned the dollar into the world currency. Back then nobody could challenge the strength of the American currency, fair image of the then most powerful world economy. This is no longer the case and the emerging economies don’t want to see its efforts to develop go up in the air with the destruction of its reserves whilst continuing to finance the US economy.

The United States have a clear interest in keeping the status quo in the world monetary relations, since this allows them to get their economy financed by the rest of the world. The Chinese have an interest in changing the rules of the game but they are not against the dollar per se because they indeed have most of their reserves in this currency. However they do understand that if things go bad and the Americans start printing money to finance their way out for the crisis this will lead to inflation and subsequently to a depreciation of the dollar which will decrease the value of the chinese reserves and do away with their development effort of the last decade. A similar reasoning applies for other emerging economies such as India or Brazil.

Also the European Union is and will continue to be severely affected by this constant depreciation of the dollar, since the comparative strength of the Euro will render the European exports more expensive and hence move jobs and economic activity out of the EU. There is a lot at stake for the EU in this game and if we look at the current state of affairs and the discussions taking place between the European Commission and the European Parliament on next years programme, it seems that neither have a clear understanding of the stakes in the game.

What should the role of the EU be in this new monetary world order? There are some reasons why the EU should take the lead in proposing a new system:

First and foremost, because it is easier to push for an equitable, democratic and transparent system in a multipolar world than in a polarised world. History teaches us that the predominance of a currency tends to be proportional to the power of the country that issues it. The end of the US hegemony will bring with it the end of the dollar hegemony and the new multipolar world will bring with it a new distribution of power that will be reflected in the monetary strength. Now is the time when emerging economies can agree to a compromise, in 10 years it might be too late. It is strategically important to take advantage of the moment to work out a plan from which all can benefit in the years to come. China may join a world system today but it won’t do it once it is doped with the taste of power.

Secondly, as indicated above because the current status-quo damages the competitiveness of the EU and unless it is reversed it can seriously harm the recovery of the EU economy. If we add a strong exchange rate and political disunion in monetary policy to the lack of a coordinated recovery plan and the inability of the EU to properly finance itself we have the ingredients for a troublesome future.

Thirdly and finally because if the EU doesn’t take (or join) the initiative the world will move on without and the cost of hopping on the train once it has started moving will be higher than being in the vanguard. Clear signs that the train is moving is when in March this year Zhou Xiaochuan, head of the Chinese central bank, called for an overhaul of the global monetary system by replacing the dollar for a world unit composed of a basket of the most important currencies (SDR). As explained before the talks among the BRICs after the 250 billion $ in SDR given to the IMF to guarantee stability also show a tendency.

The EU, except some timid initiatives taken by the French presidency a year ago, did not react to these declarations and signs and instead we continue to behave like if we were in the 20th century.

At present the EU 27 holds most of the voting power in the IMF and if acting together it could even decide to move the siege of the organisation to Europe. This simple example shows the power that the EU still has, although not for long, in influencing world monetary policy. The EU‘s weight in the IMF is disproportionate to its economic and demographic size and it will be corrected soon.Why not taking advantage of the last moments “in power” to give the right steps to create a more representative, fair and above all stable and robust monetary system? Isn’t it in our interest? The euro can not and should not be the new world currency; instead the European experience of monetary integration could be very useful for the setting up of a new world monetary system based on SDR. Why does Europe stay silent when the status quo is harming European interests?

The eurozone has delegated competence in monetary policy and the council can decide by qualified majority on a proposal from the European Commission: it is therefore in the hands of the European Executive to put together the EU monetary plan. Ideally, the newly elected president of the European Commission should seize initiative and put the European Union at the forefront of these crucial negociations for the world governance. The role of the euro in the new world monetary order should have a prominent place in the program that Barroso will present for approval in front of the European Parliament together with the new European Commission in December 2009 or January 2010.

May the Barroso program fail to tackle this vital point for the future of Europe, the European Parliament should better start looking for another candidate to lead the EU executive.

However, something that from the beginning has surprised me is how the opportunity to promote green transport and practices in these congregations is being missed. The parades are lead by a hummer and a 4WD which run on LPG -see pic- which is all very well because this Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) reduces around 20% the CO2 emissions in comparison with a normal car in petrol. But for heaven sake, the consumption of such an irrational and mad machine as the Hummer is still of 24 liters per 100km in the city!

So, the logo claiming to be riding green is nothing less than greenwashing and being severely misleading as it is the organisers should make a point in replacing it by a normal car with capacity to carry a couple of good speakers. The ideal solution -if they want to use a car for it- would be to get an electric car running on clean electricity powered by Lampiris. It will help reduce the consumption, the noise, the pollution, it will not stink -if you skate after the car or even during the breaks the skaters are inhaling the fumes of this thing- and it will allow them to correctly brand themselves as “we ride green”.

One more thing that can be improved from the environmental impact point of view is the disposal of the bottles of water given by the sponsor evian to the sweaty rollers -also the cans from Redbull-. Even though Evian as a company has some good environmental credentials the truth is that they are really committed with the environment they should make sure that the bottles they distribute are collected and recycled. Having participated in many of the roller events I can assure that all these bottles are not separately collected and I would bet more than 80% of them end up in the Brussels incinerator. Therefore it would be good if Redbull or Evian would ask the organisers to take care of the collection of the waste produced by the parade. I’m sure the rollers themselves would be happy to collaborate and it would really be preaching by doing which would be a lot more effective than just sticking the label “we ride green”.

The season of  belgianrollers will be finishing in two weeks. Let’s hope next year the organisers plan these things better and improve this great initiative to give the city to the skaters for some hours.