Ashton’s Foreign Policy: Introduction*

They call her ‘a person without experience’ and ‘the lowest common denominator’. But she is not. Catherine Ashton is a very ambitious professional politician. She is the hope of Europe for a stronger engagement with the world and more efficient European Foreign Policy. She is the one who ought to have vision for a new set up of EU’s external relations. But does ‘ought to’ mean ‘can’ in this case. Can she have such a vision, or will this be the one of 1-2 national capitals or a closed circle, which has been thinking of the new European External Action Service for years before the job was handed to Ashton in November 2009?

Greek deficit games

Turning the tap off will leave countries who live beyond their means high and dry.

At this point it seems obvious – Greece will not be saved by the EU. There is no mechanism to do this and only a political decision will help. No one is ready to do it however.

The only ray of light is that S&P left Greece’s rating unchanged BBB+/A-2 so the government will still be able to refinance its bonds with cheap money from the ECB. If the rating goes down, which is quite likely, the ECB may decide to take the political decision for a higher risk margin and not shut the last door in front of Greece.

The safest country in the world

No, it is not Iraq, as the US government will try to convince us after the elections there and then one more time later this year. The winner is… the UK.

Cameracracy

След изборите в Ирак: изтегляне към нова война

Изборите в Ирак на 7 Март трябва да са повратната точка за иракската демокрация. Те трябва и да са ключов момент за демонстрация на напредъка в сигурността и последващото изтегляне на Американската армия от страната. Но дали това наистина ще стане ? До каква степен Ирак ще получи “нов старт” и доколко американците ще се оттеглят от Ирак?

Докалдите до момента сочат, че 62% от иракчаните са гласували. Това е малко повече от активността на американските президентски избори миналата година и значително по-малко от 75% по време на кървавите избори през 2005. Всъщност проценитите не са от голямо значние, тъй като друго е по-важно: през изминалите години Ирак се предвижи от сектантски милиции към политически процес, който все по-малко зависи от това кой колко бойци има на разположение.

Victory for Iraqi elections! Nooooot !

Elections in Iraq 7 March are supposed to be a turning point – a fresh start for Iraqi democracy in an improved security environment and withdrawing US military. But is this really the case – how fresh is the start and how withdrawn is the US from Iraq?

Reports say that last Sunday 62% of Iraqis voted. This is in fact slightly above the turnout in US presidential elections last year. Indeed, much lower than the 75% in 2005 among countless terrorists attacks. In fact, percentage here matter little, as there is one important thing to acknowledge: in the past years Iraq has moved from the rule of sectarian militias to a political process less dependent on arms.

There is indeed only one thing to acknowledge, because once we point out that secular non-sectarian leaders are the two most popular in these elections, we inevitably have to move to the next question: US withdrawal. End of January the last US marine left Iraq but there is still significant force in this country. Officials say that last week’s poll is decisive for the planned withdrawal. But how is the US  withdrawal planned? And is it really a withdrawal?

Inconvenient resolution on Armenian genocide stirs US Congress

Who judges superpowers?

Last Week US Congress commission on Foreign Policy voted a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide in Turkey during the First World War. It is not big news, given that a number of countries have done it and that this has happened before in the US Senate. This time however, the narrow vote (23:22) in the commission headed by former democrat presidential candidate John Kerry comes in a particularly inconvenient moment.