CIAO DATE: 06/07

European Affairs

 

Fall/Winter 2006: Volume 7, Number 3 & 4

 

Letter from the Editor:

• A Forward-Looking German Presidency

 

Cover Story: Immigration

• Transatlantic Contradictions on Immigration
  Kathleen Newland, Director and Board Member, Migration Policy Institute

  American and European social models show a contrasting interrelation between immigration and labor-market flexibility. U.S. policy is to bar immigrant access to the public welfare system and open the labor market wide to them. Europe does the opposite, especially for asylum seekers.

• Europe: Immigration Unwanted
  Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, Director of Research, CNRS (CERI), Paris

  EU countries are becoming “nations of immigrants” – despite themselves and without wanting to be. The fast growth (and assertiveness) of Islam in Europe is a challenging complication. Many remedies are being tried, but the right policy mix (and mainstream political consensus) is proving elusive for the European Union.

 

Polish Migrants to Britain - Pros and Cons

• Polish Migrants to Britain: Pros and Cons

  As a special case of immigration, flows inside Europe – from “new” EU countries in the east to richer, older EU member states – continue to increase in defiance of predictions that they would level off. They arouse political tensions blamed for contributing to popular distrust of the EU in Western Europe. To illuminate this situation, a case study offers four contrasting views, pro and con, from Polish and British sources.

• Emigration Is Good News for Poland
  Piotr Gillert, U.S. Correspondent, Rzeczpospolita, Polish daily

  The “Polish plumber” may be a bogyman for Western trade unions. For Poles, he represents an investment in the future of Poland. And emigration involves a less definitive break nowadays.

• Britain’s Problems Are Worsened by Massive Immigration
  Migrationwatch UK

  This web statement by a British private group leery of immigration, warns that immigration trends are out of control. Immigrants may add to national economic growth, but in proportion to population growth, the benefit to the host community is small. Cultural identity is eroding in some areas.

• Poles Help Bring Prosperity to Britain
  James Harding, Business Editor,ge Times, London

  These immigrants have helped Britain enjoy a huge increase in its labor market, certainly in its flexibility, without making inflation boil up, because they help tamp wage increases. The indirect benefits of cultural diversity are too ofen overlooked.

 

Economy and Trade

• Is It Time for TAFTA? Or What?
  A Conversation with Robert Zoellick, Managing Director and Chairman, International Advisers Department, Goldman Sachs

  With the Doha round in the doldrums and prospects dimming for any further breakthrough on global trade liberalization, discussion is suddenly heating up about an ofen-mooted, never adopted idea: a Transatlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA).ge former U.S. Trade Representative dissects what different ideas people have in mind. In his view, the Transatlantic economic tissue is already so dense it requires a more sophisticated treatment.

• TAFTA Could Work Like an "Economic NATO"

  Excerpts from War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity by Gabor Steingart

 

Energy and Environment

• Nuclear Rising on Both Sides of the Atlantic
  John Ritch, Director General, World Nuclear Association

  Energy security tops the list of national concerns in many countries, but the problems are di`erent on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The U.S. worries about oil to fuel its cars and trucks. Europe worries about natural gas for its electricity and heating – much of it, gas from Russia. Both the EU and the U.S., at least recently, also worry about cleaner energy to slow global warming. There is no realistic prospect to meet the demand for more, cleaner energy without much greater reliance on nuclear energy, says advocate Ritch.

 

European Institutions

• Berlin’s EU Presidency: No Rabbits in German Hat
  Dr. Andreas Rinke, Deputy Chief, Berlin OUce, Handelsblatt

  Germany takes on the six-month mandate amid a chill in support for the European project, reform fatigue and widespread doubts about any further enlargement. Realistically, Chancellor Merkel's team has tried to lower expectations about how much can be accomplished in 2007. Crises outside Europe may impose a more ambitious agenda. U.S. ties, especially on trade, will matter.

 

European Diplomacy

• On Iran, Europeans Decide to Work in Concert
  Charles A. Kupchan, Professor of international aTairs, Georgetown University

  Afer the failure of the EU constitution and the deep wounds opened in Europe and across the Atlantic by the invasion of Iraq, European leaders needed an initiative to unite them. So their diplomacy concerns the future of Europe as much as it does the nuclear question in Iran.

• This Time Europe Got its Act Together
  Daniel Vernet, Correspondent, Le Monde, Paris

  By creating the “EU-3” model for dealing with Iran, Europe has invented a form of variable geometry that may prove useful in future crises. In this case, time may be running out: France, particularly robust against nuclear proliferation, is alarmed by the rise of Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon as a threat to French interests.

 

Politics in Europe

• What Kind of Foreign Policy under “PrimeMinister Gordon Brown”?
  James P. Rubin, Commentator, Sky News television, London

  Brown will not want to be seen jumping to do the White House’s bidding – unlike his predecessor. But he has not taken a great interest in global political a`airs and will not have the wish (or the means) to break the dense web of special relations and shared assumptions between London and Washington.

• "New Conservative" Cameron: Rooted in the Atlantic Alliance
  Maurice Fraser, Fellow in European Politics, London School of Economics and Political Science

  Cameron has scant experience in diplomacy or defense, and his instincts and political calculations will incline him to see eye to eye with U.S. leaders. He is more cautious about foreign interventions than Tony Blair has been. But he shares the prevailing conservative sense, in London and in Washington that the world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place.

 

Verbatim

• French-U.S. Relations: Sarkozy Has a Fresh Take
  Nicolas Sarkozy

  France’s Presidential Candidate Nicolas Sarkozy delivered a speech in Washington in which he pointedly distanced himself from the tone and actions of disapproval of overall U.S. policy that has been shown by the current French government (in which Sarkozy is interior minister). His main criticism: too ofen, French policy seems designed to discomfit Washington, not contribute constructively to solving problems.

 

Defense and Security

• Canada: Soft Power Won’t Do It in Afghanistan – or Darfur
  David Wright, Kenneth and Patricia Taylor Distinguished Visiting Professor in Foreign ATairs, Victoria College, University of Toronto

  While the U.S. war in Iraq is wrong-headed and even illegitimate, Afghanistan is a totally di`erent challenge because the United Nations has pledged to help that nation rebuild from civil wars and occupation. Reconstruction requires security, which can only be supplied by military force. If the UN starts enforcing its rules that governments have a responsibility to protect their citizens, itmay have to intervene in Darfur – with force.

 

Book Reports

• A German who Bridged the Atlantic: Fritz Stern
  Five Germanys I Have Known by Fritz Stern
  Reviewed by Michael Mosettig

• Kofi Annan as Tragic Hero: His UN Legacy
  by James Traub
  Reviewed by François Clemenceau

• Political Correctness, French Style Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space
  by John R. Bowen
  Reviewed by Lauren Zoebelein