The Financial Times reports that top German government members such as Chancellor Angela Merkel and Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier are concerned about job losses should Opel fail, but also fear that a bail-out for the carmaker would lead to similar requests from other industries.

An Associated Press report published in the Washington Post says that EU Commissioner Verheugen supports a bail-out for Opel to avoid job losses and a possible ‘knock-on effect down the line’ should one car maker disappear. Verheugen claims Opel’s troubles have “arisen solely from the credit crunch in America.” He adds: “I want to be unequivocal on this: it is the parent company in the United States [General Motors] that has made the mistakes.”

U.K. carmakers and traders also asked the British government for financial aid and tax breaks to ease their transition through the new economic environment, according to a November 18 report by John Reed in the Financial Times. The report suggests that the plea is also aimed at putting pressure on Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling to scrap proposed increases in vehicle excise duty, based on the level of a vehicle’s emissions of carbon dioxide. The Guardian and the Times of London also report that British carmakers see their industry as being sound but seek credit loans to maintain liquidity and investment as the wholesale markets are squeezed.

The Guardian’s David Gow offers a seething commentary from Brussels headlined ‘Banking baddies get help but Europe’s car industry is left to languish.’ He argues that ‘The European Commission, the chief guardian of the EU’s competition rules, is happily turning a blind eye to “moral hazard” and allowing a host of governments to rescue banks that were the architects of damage to themselves and the wider economy. At the same time, it is getting sniffy or even downright hostile with governments shaping up to save hundreds of thousands of jobs for car workers.” He nevertheless quotes EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes as pointing out that the car and banking sectors are not comparable: ‘If your financial system is not working any more, then it’s over. That was our incentive to give medicine to its blood circulation.’

An Associated Press report by Raf Casert, ‘France Calls for EU to Ease Up on Bailout Rules’ says Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, chair of the 15-nation Eurogroup, believes that European attitudes toward on automaker bail outs could be influenced by decisions made by the U.S. Congress on whether or not to help the Big Three. Hamburg’s Bild newspaper quoted Juncker as saying that ‘Europeans couldn’t just stand by idly if the U.S. government were going to spend billions of dollars to help Ford, GM and Chrysler in the United States.’

Links:

Financial Times:
UK carmakers ask for aid as sales see sharp decline, November 19, 2008

Guarded reaction to €1 Billion Opel credit guarantee plea, November 19, 2008

Companies request 40 billion EURO soft loan from EU bank, November 19, 2008

The Guardian:
UK Motor groups seek urgent help from Darling and Mandelson, November 19, 2008

Banking baddies get help but Europe’s car industry is left to languish, November 19, 2008

Associated Press:
France calls for EU to ease up on bailout rules, November 19, 2008

Same headlines EU official: Help justified for Opel, industry, November 19, 2008

The Times of London:
Uk carmakers seek government funding aid, November 19, 2008

 Hillary is not the right woman for the job, The Times of London, November 19th 2008

Chief foreign commentator Bronwen Maddox argues that Barack Obama would be making a huge mistake if he appointed Hillary Clinton Secretary of State because the two would be likely to disagree, sometimes quite strongly, but he would be unable to fire her for political reasons. “There is an old principle that you shouldn’t hire someone you can’t fire.” Maddox says that Clinton would do an excellent job in the position, but “she wouldn’t help Mr. Obama as president. She wouldn’t flatter him; she wouldn’t really defer to him; she might challenge him, even though she couldn’t actually upstage him.” Nor would Clinton necessarily be happy in the job. What’s more, “the rapturous reception that Mr Obama has received in much of the world is based on his promise of change. He says that he is the face of a new America; does he really want to be represented by one of the most familiar faces of the past? Or by anyone who will compete with him (and eclipse Joe Biden, the Vice-President and a foreign affairs specialist)? “

 Why Obama is suddenly so close to Clinton, Der Spiegel, November 17th 2008

Gregor Peter Schmitz reports that Democrats are divided over the possible nomination of Hillary as Secretary of State. Some in the U.S. media argue that Clinton should not accept the post because she would simply be rushing from crisis to crisis. Others say the position would be a good springboard for a new presidential candidacy. What is clear is that Clinton would bring a new shine to a State Department that has for years been neglected. Schmitz also notes that the job would finally reconcile the party after its divisions during the primaries. There would be problems with the nomination, however, such as Bill Clinton’s questionable financial activities, policy differences between Hillary Clinton and Obama, and the question of whether Clinton really wants the job. Schmitz concludes by saying that the Obama campaign seems to have learned a lesson from the Carter administration’s failure to understand that, in order to conquer Washington, you need to have insiders such as the Clintons on your side.

 Obama wants Hillary, but is wary of her husband, Liberation, November 19th 2008

Philippe Grangereau reports that Barack Obama seems to want Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State (or, much more improbably, Secretary of Defense), but that he is still wary of her husband. He cites U.S. media sources as saying that an important obstacle remains the desire of the President-elect’s transition team to be sure that Bill Clinton’s lucrative activities will not present a conflict of interest. The former President’s Clinton Foundation has raised more than $500 million, mainly from foreign donors, but Bill Clinton has always refused to divulge his list of donors. The Foundation has been criticized for lack of transparency and Bill Clinton has been suspected of “having acted without too many scruples.” Grangereau also questions the ‘newness’ of the Obama team, noting that several of its members are former Clinton advisors.

Hillary Clinton candidate for the job of Secretary of State, L’Express, November 14, 2008

L’Express, a leading French weekly magazines, says that that appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State could help to calm tensions inside the Democratic Party, following the anger that erupted among Clinton supporters after Obama did not offer her the vice presidency. But it adds that if Clinton took the job, she might conduct tougher foreign policies than those Obama promised during the election campaign, for example over the need to keep U.S. forces in Iraq.

A British Lesson Auto Bailouts

November 17, 2008, The New York Times

 ‘This marks a new dawn for the curvy cucumber and the knobbly carrot.’

The regulations were scrapped for 26 different types of fruits and vegetables, but left ten other types including apples, peaches, pears and strawberries regulated.  While the article mostly seems to suggest that the regulations were absurd, it does note that 16 countries were against dropping the regulations – implying that doing so would lead to ever more complicated national standards for vegetables which could hinder EU wide trade.  Harmonizing trade regulations throughout member states is a primary goal of the EU.

Further Reading:

‘Reprieve for curvy cucumbers and crooked carrots as EU bends rules’ November 12, 2008, The Times of London

‘The Cucumber Laws that Drove a Nation Bananas’ November, 16, 2008 The Nation, United Arab Emirates

The International Herald Tribune had the bright idea of asking six writers to identity what they most admired about President George W. Bush and would miss when he leaves the White House in January. Not all six were by any means Bush fans, but they all praised certain aspects of his character, often his basic human decency. Bush’s admired qualities ranged from his moral clarity, his bipartisan successes as Governor of Texas, the love he inspired in his staff, his good sense in marrying the less conservative Laura Bush, and his unique contributions to the English language with Bushisms such as “misunderestimate,” “Hispanically,” and “arbo-treeist.”The six contributors were Paul Burka, senior executive editor of Texas Monthly; Robert Draper, a correspondent for GQ magazine and Bush biographer; former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer and his successor Scott McClellan; Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief of the Slate Group and author of “The Bush Tragedy;” and Curtis Sittenfeld, author of the novel “American Wife.” Published in the IHT on November 4, the piece is a very nice read.

Bush was Treated “Disgracefully”

A more strident tone was taken by investigative reporter Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, who wrote in the Wall Street Journal November 5: The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything. He remains despised by the left while continuously disappointing the right. Yet it should seem obvious that many of our country’s current problems either existed long before Mr. Bush ever came to office, or are beyond his control.

Research contributed by Transatlantic Media Network intern Cecily Boggs

Blog author Georg Watzlawek suggests that in German journalism there are ‘(at least) two taboos’ - endorsing political candidates and predicting election winners before the results are final.  He says that by endorsing Barack Obama, the Financial Times has compromised its journalistic independence. It seems, however, that when it comes to his own German blog, all rules are out the window as Watzlawek does indeed endorse Obama.

Research contributed by Transatlantic Media Network intern Cecily Boggs

While it is interesting to recall the successful steps that Sweden took to deal with its crisis, it’s not clear that the serve as a viable model for the United States.

‘Stopping a Financial Crisis, the Swedish Way’, The New York Times,’ September 23, 2008

‘Swedish model points the way’, The Financial Times, September 22, 2008

He juxtaposes the American soldier in Georgia, who speaks only English and stays in luxurious hotels with the supposedly folksier Russians, who speak with the Georgian man on the street (in their own language, Russian) in order to demonstrate that Russians are better able to penetrate and understand the cultures of their neighbors. Because the histories of the countries are so intertwined, their religions the same and knowledge of Russian is widespread in Georgia, Grischokowez argues that the recent war is better characterized as a civil war.

Grischokowez, either by accident or design, fails to point out that the reason the peoples of Russia’s neighboring countries share so many cultural and linguistic similarities to Russia is not that they have cheerfully, and voluntarily embraced the culture of their much bigger neighbor, but rather that their countries were militarily impressed into the Soviet Union and the Tsarist empire before that.  As a playwright, Grischokowez travels throughout the Former Soviet Union, from the Baltics to Central Asia.  Certainly, he must have noticed the museums in Riga and Tallinn of the ‘Soviet Occupation.’   Those countries do not see Russia as a close friend but rather as a colonizing enemy.  In 2006, the Georgian government also opened a museum of the Soviet Occupation in Tblisi.

Museum of the Occupation, Riga, Latvia
Museum of Occupations, Tallinn, Estonia
Museum of the Soviet Occupation, Tblisi, Georgia

Finally, Grischowez expresses deep skepticism about American claims to support democracy in Georgia (and suggests many Americans confuse the country with the U.S. state).  He claims that Americans perceive Saakashvili as a character in a game called Georgia while Russians are involved, heart and soul.  The question remains, to what end are the Russians truly involved ‘heart and soul’ and do they understand the meaning of independent countries? It seems that Grischokowez makes an interesting point about the violence between places that share so many common features, but what he misses is the dangers posed to the international system by these kinds of wars.

This short essay, part observation from a motel window, part finger-wagging at America, and part book review, maintains that there is bad news and good news about the alleged U.S. contribution to a global energy and environmental crisis. The bad news, writes columnist Ben Macintyre, is that Americans’ love affairs with their cars is heavily responsible for “a global ecological nightmare;” the good news that American expertise, ingenuity and cash can find solutions that make economic and business sense.

The first clue, however, that the author is not very familiar with America comes when he expresses surprise that “a diminutive, middle-aged woman” should be driving a bright-red pick-up truck, with a “Support our troops” bumper sticker, in military-friendly North Carolina. (Although columnist Macintyre describes the truck as a “monster,” it is actually classified as a compact, family-friendly vehicle.) So it is perhaps inevitable that the column conforms to typical European stereotypes of Americans as car-crazy, gas-guzzling polluters, who are also somehow responsible for the disgraceful boom in car sales in China, India, Russia and elsewhere.

Switching abruptly to the “good news,” Macintyre approvingly quotes the message of “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” a new book by Thomas L. Friedman, to the effect that the “raw power of American patriotism” can be harnessed to solve a problem that their cars have largely caused. But Macintyre seems unaware both of the huge amount of research already under way into energy-efficient cars in the United States and of the latest political developments. In claiming that environmental issues “have hardly touched the U.S. election,” he is apparently unaware that the bitter, highly publicized clashes been Democrats and Republicans over offshore oil drilling stem from differing views on protecting the environment.

It would have been more interesting and original (from the European point of view) to examine the mass flight of Americans from gas-guzzling Sports Utility Vehicles since oil prices went through the roof, the prospects for alternative fuel types and other forms of transport, and the reasons why Americans still need cars to traverse big distances in a way that inhabitants of a congested Europe do not.

For many months, Iran’s nuclear ambitions have taken center stage in both American and European news and analytical reports.  On September 15, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released what has been described by the Financial Times as ‘one of the most damning reports it has yet published on Iran’s nuclear programme.’

According to the Financial Times:

The IAEA also reported that Iran had raised the number of centrifuges enriching uranium by 500 to 3,820 since May and was testing an advanced model able to refine nuclear fuel two to three times faster, in continuing defiance of UN resolutions. A senior IAEA official said that the agency would press ahead with attempts to get Iran to hand over information needed to explain intelligence material showing it had once linked its nuclear programme to the testing of high explosives and to the modification of a missile cone in a way suitable for a nuclear warhead.

This story was reported widely in Europe, but inexplicably seemed to be ignored by the U.S. media.

***September 10, the leading French daily Le Figaro reported that, with international attention focused on the crisis in Georgia, the Israeli government feared the international community was forgetting the threat posed by Iran.  Based on our review this week, the Israelis are perhaps not totally incorrect, at least with regard to the American media.

Here is a sample of some the European reports:

Israel fears that the Iranian threat is being forgotten
Le Figaro, September 10, 2008
•    With the crisis in Georgia escalating, Israel fears that the international community is forgetting the threat posed by Iran. The article reports that the Israeli government is divided on how to address the issue.

According to IAEA Iran has not stopped its enrichment activities
AFP report in Liberation, September 15, 2008
•    The IAEA reported that Iran had not ceased its enrichment activities and the United States is threatening new sanctions if it does not stop.

Iran is blocking nuclear inquiry, says UN
Financial Times, September 15, 2008
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1238bd08-8347-11dd-907e-000077b07658.html
•    According to the IAEA, Iran has been secretly gathering more intelligence on uranium enrichment, while increasing its nuclear program. Because of the Georgian crisis, the Security Council is unlikely to pass further sanctions and thus the United States has been unilaterally increasing sanctions against Tehran.

The IAEA accuses Teheran of continuing uranium enrichment
Le Monde, September 15, 2008
•    The IAEA has now declared that “until Iran has “given proof of such transparency (in its nuclear program) (…) the IAEA will not be capable of assuring in a credible fashion that Iran does not posses non-declared nuclear materials and that it is not pursuing secret activities” in this domain.’ The article continues to report that Iran has dismissed the IAEA’s allegations as “fabricated” and “without foundation”

Iran provokes the West
Der Sueddeutsche Zeitung, September 15, 2008
•    Because Iran has not cooperated with the IAEA, and is presumed still to be expanding its nuclear program, the German government will implement sanctions.

IAEA accuses Iran of lack of cooperation in nuclear dispute
Reuters Deutschland, September 15, 2008
•    Despite IAEA warnings, Iran has persisted in not making its nuclear program transparent. Currently investigations are at a standstill, and though the UN Security Council has offered a deal to resolve the problem, some western countries, such as the United States, have already implemented stricter sanctions on Iran.