“like a ship bringing the plague to Europe”?

European Diary, 3.10.2020: In Catania, the trial against the Italian ex-Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini for deprivation of liberty begins today with the hearing of the radical right-wing leader, who is now in opposition. In July 2019, Salvini had refused a ship of the Italian coast guard entry into the port of Augusta in Sicily. The ship carried 131 boat refugees rescued from maritime distress. The competent court in Catania considered this a crime of deprivation of liberty, punishable by a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. In February, a majority of the Roman Senate voted to lift Salvini’s immunity – when the coalition between Salvini’s right-wing Lega Nord and the Five-Star Movement was already history. Salvini, who crashed in the polls in the wake of the Corona crisis, is in any case using the process for his permanent election campaign. For days he has been mobilizing in Sicily with flaming speeches and Verdi arias from the tape. “Vincerò” – “I will win”. He had only defended the borders and the honor of Italy by taking 130 people hostage in his right-wing extremist politics. A conviction of Salvini is nevertheless considered unlikely – and so the trial will probably also help him to work on his comeback.

European Diary, 3.10.2019: The captain of the sea rescue vessel Sea-Watch 3, Carola Rackete, today gave a speech to the European Parliament in Brussels, at a hearing of the Committee on Home Affairs – and received a standing ovation from part of the MEPs. The Austrian Broadcast ORF reported in detail about this unusual event on the same day:

“‘I was received like a ship bringing the plague to Europe,’ Rackete said on Thursday in the Parliament’s Committee on Internal Affairs. ‘It was hard to be an EU citizen these days. I was ashamed.’

Rackete’s hearing took place on the sixth anniversary of the Lampedusa refugee tragedy in which 366 people died. While the deputies commemorated the tragedy with a minute’s silence, Rackete stressed that not much has changed since then.

The German activist vividly described her experiences as a rescuer at sea, for example when her ship hit a wreck around which bodies were floating. Some had held each other in their arms as they died, ‘the bodies inseparably connected’. She also saw three children ‘holding the body of a baby in their arms. Then some sang for this baby and rocked it as if it was still alive.

None of these experiences were as bad as the ‘frustration’ of spending 70 days with rescued people on the Sea-Watch 3 in the Mediterranean ‘and explaining to people that Europe didn’t want them, Europe, the symbol of human rights’. In this context, Rackete once again defended her decision to go to the port of Lampedusa. This was not a provocation’, said Rackete. ‘I should have done it much earlier’, said Rackete, referring to the protection of human life. ‘Yes, I would do it again any time. People die every day, of course I would do it again,’ she later replied to a corresponding question.

When she landed in Lampedusa against the will of the Italian government, she received ‘a lot of unwanted attention’, Rackete told the MPs. But where were you when we called for help through all possible channels, where were you when we asked for a safe place? If we are really concerned about torture in Libya, Europe must stop cooperating with the Libyan coast guard,’ Rackete demanded, to the applause of the MEPs.

Six years have passed and instead of avoiding similar tragedies, the EU has externalised its responsibilities and delegated them to Libya in violation of international law. But there is ‘hope’, namely the actions of civil society organizations.

Rackete called for a radical change in the way migration is handled. A reform of Dublin is ‘long overdue’, she said, and humanitarian corridors and safe and legal routes to Europe are needed. A landing of rescued persons must be in accordance with the law and must not be left to ad hoc negotiations.

‘After my arrest, there was great interest in sea rescue. I hope that this will be reflected in the deeds. I hope for real progress and not that it will become even more difficult for me and many organizations,’ said Rackete. ‘We must be careful about what is negotiated in the coming weeks and make sure that our demands are enforced,’ she urged MEPs.

At the hearing, representatives of Frontex, the EU Commission, the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and Italian coast guard captain Andrea Tassara made it clear that the rescue of refugees in the Mediterranean should not be criminalized. However, differences emerged during the debate. Conservative members of parliament insisted on putting a stop to the smugglers. Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri repeatedly avoided the question of whether he considers Libya a safe third country.

The Director for Migration of the EU Commission, Michael Shotter, pointed out that since June more than 1,000 people have already been able to land and have been distributed to other member states and Norway in ad hoc actions. ‘We now need a reliable and continuous search and rescue operation instead of ad hoc actions,’ said Shotter. It is therefore ‘important’ that after the Malta agreement, other member states participate and show ‘solidarity’.

The chairman of the interior committee, Spanish Socialist Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar, also insisted on clear rules that prevent the criminalization of sea rescue. The committee will draft a resolution on this issue, which will be adopted at the next plenary session of the European Parliament.

MEPs from right-wing populist parties, such as the Slovakian Milan Uhrik, who himself suggested that Rackete himself should leave for Africa, countered this. I can only identify with Salvini, who says you should be in prison,’ said the member of parliament for the ‘People’s Party – Our Slovakia’. The German right-wing populist Nicolas Fest followed up by asking Rackete if she considers it part of her mission to ‘endanger the lives of Europeans by infiltrating torturers and terrorists’. In the debate, ÖVP delegation leader Karoline Edtstadler voiced little veiled criticism of the activities of the sea rescue workers. I simply wonder how we are going to end this business if the rescue is still the ticket to Europe,” said the former state secretary on the question of the ‘pull factor’ of rescue operations. The EU should not allow itself to be ‘divided into good and bad states’, Edtstadler demanded the establishment of a system ‘that does not play into the hands of the wrong people’.

SPÖ MEP Bettina Vollath demanded an end to the criminalization of sea rescue workers. It can never and under no circumstances be criminal to help people in need, but it is a moral and legal obligation,” she emphasized in a statement referring to current figures of the United Nations, according to which this year already more than 1,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea and since the beginning of 2014 more than 15,000 people. ‘Legal entry routes, fast and legally secure procedures and local help are needed to combat the causes of flight’, she stressed.

Monika Vana, head of the Austrian delegation of the Greens, wants to launch an EU sea rescue programme. ‘The Mediterranean is a mass grave for those in need of protection, that is a disgrace for the entire EU’, Vana told ORF.at. She is in favor of legal and safe entry into the EU. The trade of smugglers must be stopped and safe escape routes must be created. The EU-Council has to agree to the Frontex-Fund ‘Search and Rescue’, which was proposed the day before yesterday by the budget committee of the European Parliament, demanded Vana.

According to MEP Erik Marquardt of the German Greens, ‘humanitarian aid became part of a political game’: ‘The EU should send ships to the Mediterranean to save people. This is not only a responsibility of the Commission, but of each member state. It is not only the people who are drowning in the Mediterranean, but also our European values’, said Marquardt.” (Source: https://orf.at/stories/3139594/)

The rascals from the first bench

European Diary, 16.9.2020: My first cinema experiences were “Hurray, hurray the school is burning” and “The rascals from the first bench”. To funny box office hits of German 1960s cinema that told the adventures of spoiled brats from well done families that you somehow liked anyway. No rebels in fact. When it came to real problems, the rich father of the young “hero” bribed the director of the school. That was funny.

Not funny, however, is what the schoolboys in the Austrian government do today. They can’t even send a halfway plausible application to the EU Commission, in order to help the Austrian economy, hit by the pandemic, with extra subsidies that are conflicting somehow with fair competion rules in the EU. Actually, this is important enough to make a bit of an effort.

Already a few days ago, Minister of Finance Gernot Blümel once again scolded the EU for blocking the extension and expansion of the generous economic aid to ailing companies (fixed cost subsidies). Now they yesterday met in Vienna, interestingly enough in front of invited press representatives, to discuss the disagreements with the EU representative in Vienna, Martin Selmayr. Did Mr. Blümel in erneast thought he could publicly embarrass the EU representative.

Thanks to the Austria Press Agency and the Standard, we were able to get a closer look at an utterly failed exercise in Message Control. Martin Selmayr was obviously not amused, partly because he was the last to speak instead of being allowed to explain the EU’s objections. The rascals from the first bench first had to present to the press their own interpretation of the sinister EU machinations. Martin Selmayr, himself a rather conservative politician, visibly had to stick to himself. And then calmly pointed out to the schoolboys that they simply had to submit a legally compliant application.

And that actually “today”, that is now yesterday, was the last day to do that. Time enough to do the homework had been indeed since the beginning of August, when the concerns of the EU Commission were communicated politely to the Austrian Minister of Finance. “If today the notification takes place as suggested by Mrs. Vestager (the Commissioner for Economic Affairs) last Friday, then it will be done tomorrow,” Selmayr said. A correct application could be done, “if three intelligent people get together, within half an hour”. He hopes that the Ministry of Finance and the Commission will “get it done this afternoon”. And he offered effective tutoring: There are three possible solutions, he said, even “if it is quite tight on the last day”. Then Selmayer insisted on tearing up Blümel’s original application in detail and demonstrating in public what an unprofessional sloppiness had been delivered. Which in turn did not amuse Gernot Blümel and Minister of Tourism Elisabeth Köstinger.

Selmayr explained to them coram publico how to write a proposal. What was possible in times of lockdown, namely to blame everything on a natural catastrophe and to pretend that there were no sales at all, that no longer corresponds to the circumstances. The basis for the application must now be a reference to the severe economic crisis that triggered the pandemic: “Then the Commission can approve immediately.”

The caught Blümel became impudent. “I ask you, stop with these paragraphs; I already know that one must pay attention to legal things”, so Blümel. “It is about Austrian, not European tax money that is to be used.”

Martin Selmayr continued to show his patience and advised once again to simply work together instead of stubbornly sticking to an application that could not be approved. And he also agreed with the company representatives present, who complained about their suffering, and repeated time and again that they were entitled to be helped, even in the amount they ask for. The schoolboys in Vienna would just have to do their homework “properly”, just like everyone else.

Gernot Blümel showed himself obviously disinterested in the fact that common and legally effective rules in the EU also apply to Austria, even when it comes to “Austrian tax money”. This is exactly what these common rules, from which Austria has so far benefited particularly in the Eastern and Central European markets, are made for.

Or is this loutishness calculation, the desire to play with fire in order to continue to stir up anti-EU sentiment. And as the already running program of financial aids for businesses is not really working smoothly – isn’t it better to blame Brussels for the mismanagement of the Austrian government and its authorities anyway? After all, their is an election campaign running in Vienna. Mr. Blümel is number one on the right wing-conservative party list.
And if nothing helps, daddy can bribe the director after all.

A little more is a little less less…

European Diary, 18.9.2020: It works after all. Or at least a little bit. To quote Claude Juncker: “A little more would be a little less less”.

Germany now apparently wants to take in an additional 1553 refugees from the burnt down Moria camp. For a long time, there was no movement between Minister of the Interior Seehofer and the 150 German cities and municipalities (including Berlin) that demanded to be allowed to take in refugees. Again and again there was talk that Germany should not go it alone. After the catastrophe on Lesbos, Chancellor Merkel, Minister of the Interior Seehofer and representatives of the SPD have now agreed on a different approach. The more than 1500 refugees from Moria are said to comprise a total of 408 families, among them already recognized refugees who were stuck on Lesbos despite their asylum status due to Greek asylum policy and the still upheld “Dublin rules”.

In reality, of course, the problem is much greater, because the conditions in the Greek “reception camps” on the islands were and are not only catastrophic on Lesbos, but as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on September 16, also on Chios, Leros, Kos and last but not least on Samos. In the local camp Vathy there are also almost 7000 people housed. About ten times its capacity. The fact that the possible repatriation of migrants whose asylum applications had been rejected – as agreed in the so-called EU-Turkey deal – did not come into effect was, as the FAZ dryly notes, not primarily due to Turkey. Instead Greece did not even build up the resources on the islands to be able to properly examine the asylum applications.

Thus a fatal development took its course, which primarily increased the suffering of the refugees. The FAZ reports alarming conditions. A woman, who has been there for six months with her husband and her small child, tells of her rescue from the sea by the Greek coast guard – “but above all of the torture afterwards: of a housing container with beds without mattresses, of queuing for several hours every day for meals in heat, rain or cold. Of an impassive police force that does not intervene when the weaker ones are beaten or robbed. By a single doctor for several thousand people – and above all by the uncertainty of how long all this will remain their own living environment”. In the camp, frustration grows, competition between different groups whose origins are not always compatible – after all, they come from war zones – and of course desperation breaks out violently, in demonstrations and protests against the guards, and mostly against each other. How could it be otherwise? The inhabitants of the nearby Greek towns also demonstrate, and they too no longer always remain peaceful.

The mayors of the islands demand in vain government solidarity on the mainland, Greece demands, mostly in vain, solidarity with Europe, and even a hardliner like Horst Seehofer meanwhile bursts his collar when he thinks of Austria, and explains in the Spiegel interview: “I am disappointed by the attitude of our Austrian neighbors not to participate in the reception of a manageable number of people in need of protection from Greece. (…) If we do nothing, we will strengthen the political fringes”. Well, the political fringes have long since reached the Vienna Chancellery.

Cofag yourself

European Diary, 24.9.2020: Minister of Finance Gernot Blümel takes the chance. The Viennese election campaign is more important anyway than the emergency aid for the suffering economy. And since the distribution of this aid is not very smooth anyway, it is good to have a scapegoat for it: Brussels.

And the EU Commission would have every reason to put the stick in Austria’s craw more clearly than it does. At the moment, constructions are flourishing that promote corruption – or at least “friendly services” – in an almost systematic manner.

Instead of regulating the disbursement of 15 billion in aid money for companies through the tax office, and thus under public control by parliament and the Court of Auditors, the federal government has set up a “Covid-19 Financing Agency” as a limited liability company. Cofag is intended to support the ailing economy with fixed cost subsidies and bridging guarantees and is financially positioned accordingly by the federal government. “In accordance with § 6a para. 2 ABBAG Act, the Federal Government will equip COFAG in such a way that it is in a position to provide capital and liquidity support measures assigned to it under § 2 para. 2 no. 7 ABBAG Act up to a maximum amount of 15 billion Euro and to meet its financial obligations”. The advantage of this construction is obvious: a GesmbH is after all not obliged to provide information to parliament.

Florian Scheuba has a biting comment on this in the newspaper Standard: “Not only members of the opposition can thus no longer annoy with annoying questions such as ‘Who gets how much tax money and why?’ Applicants can also save themselves the request for justification as to why their auxiliary request is rejected, because Cofag advisory board members are bound to secrecy. Is the Court of Auditors the last hope? No, because even its requests for accompanying control can be rejected by the agency with a hearty ‘Cofag yourself’. Here, then, an opaque darkroom is being created for future wrangling. The latest events surrounding an 800,000 Euro contract between Cofag and a PR agency, which was initially kept secret, provide an idea of how dark it will be. “The money does not flow into our own PR, but rather into the support of our homepage or the answering of media questions,” says Cofag Managing Director Bernhard Perner.

Let’s see how many media inquiries there will be – in view of the well-known critical press landscape in Austria.

“Peace treaty”?

European Diary, 15.9.2020: Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the Foreign Minister of Bahrain Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayan signed a so-called “peace treaty” this afternoon in Washington in the presence of Donald Trump. Masks are not worn. The White House still does not want to bother with such things like Corona.

The signing was preceded until the last hours by cabbals between the Israeli governing parties on the question of who may sign the treaty at all. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is under indictment, needed permission from the foreign minister of the rival party Kahol Lavan.

The wording of the “peace agreement” – between three states that are not even at war with each other – remains a mystery. So far only rumors about its content have been spread. What is clear, however, is that the treaty apparently clears the way for a number of major weapons deals, including the delivery of American F-35 fighter jets to the UAE, which significantly enhance its strategic role on the Gulf.

Allegedly the treaty would also open the way to a “two-state solution”. But what the Trump administration understands by such a “two-state solution”, Israelis and Palestinians, as well as the astonished global public, already experienced last year: a patchwork of Bantustans under Israeli control. So a first class funeral. The fact that the Arab monarchs in the Gulf region do not even rhetorically care about any “peace solutions” or the interests of the Palestinians is basically not a new insight.

The annexation of large parts of the occupied West Bank, especially along the Jordan River, and with it the final and definitive rejection of any “Palestinian state”, has, of course, been postponed for the time being, and not only for the sake of better optics. This postponement is entirely in line with current Israeli interests in not shifting the so-called “status quo” too quickly in the direction of a violent “one-state solution” – without reconciliation with the Arab population and without their having equal rights. For, as is well known, there are a great many problems lurking along this path.

Even if Netanyahu has to promise this step again and again to his radical right-wing partners in order to secure their decisive election support.

Behind the new pact are not least of all common security interests, by which is meant not least the retention of power by absolutist rule in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Behind the scenes, this cooperation between Israelis, Americans, some Gulf states and also some Palestinians, such as the former “security chief” of Fatah Mohammed Dahlan, has been going on for years, and has long since become no secret.

Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, sees in the absolute monarchy of the Emirates a “progressive democracy”. What conclusions this allows for his own understanding of Israel as a democracy is also no longer a secret.

One of the few real surprises is rather how much some people are blinded by this coup, with which both Netanyahu and Trump want to distract from the catastrophic consequences of their policies for their own people. Israel is now in lockdown again starting Friday. The paragon of pandemic control has become the leader into crisis. The US should also be back in lockdown by now, up to 1000 people still die every day in the richest “greatest” country in the world.

But European newspapers such as the NZZ are undauntedly celebrating the agreement between Israel and the UAE as a historic step towards “peace”. Nevertheless, the Israeli soccer club Beitar, traditionally associated with the right-wing populist parties and proud to be the only Israeli professional club that has never fielded an Arab player, is now negotiating with new investors: a group of sheikhs from the Arab Emirates. Even Jewish right-wing radicals know (as an old German pop song details): “because only the sheikh is really rich”.  


Brexit 2.0

European Diary, 14.9.2020: The British House of Commons decides on the unilateral termination of the Brexit Treaty requested by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as part of the so-called “Single Market Act”. The fact that both British laws and international law are thereby broken seems to be of no concern not only to the Brexit Government but also to the majority of the House of Commons. The main argument is the indeed precarious status that Northern Ireland will receive in the new set of rules that Johnson whipped through parliament as a big deal not even a year ago. In a customs union with Ireland and the EU – and a customs border with the rest of the British Kingdom. At least when the negotiations for a comprehensive free trade agreement between the UK and the EU are in trouble. His predecessors John Major and Tony Blair are now “horrified”, but the exit-drunk majority doesn’t care anyway.
Once again, it is clear what price the Brexiteers are apparently willing to pay for their nationalist revolt against European unification. The laboriously achieved, yet precarious state of peace in Northern Ireland is now in danger of being deliberately sacrificed. The fact that Johnson likes to play with fire is well known. But most of his tories now follow him like lemmings. All it takes is a few absurd conspiracy theories that are becoming increasingly popular among right-wing populist leaders: the EU is planning a “food blockade” between Northern Ireland and the rest of the Kingdom.
The Brexiteers grotesquely overestimate Britain’s possibilities to play itself up as an international economic and trading power outside the EU under the protectorate of the USA. This will take its revenge when it is already too late. As it stands, in the next few years Britain will be less concerned with its great, in reality rather ailing economy than with the centrifugal forces that Brexit releases, from Northern Ireland to Scotland, and eventually in London. To which the answer is likely to be nothing more than nationalistic furor.