How Are Sausages Actually Made?

"The result is almost impossible to read or understand. And that is entirely intentional. Many things happened at the summit. But perhaps the most important was that the EU finally abandoned the idea that it wants ordinary Europeans to understand what it is doing" - Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times on the new "Reform Treaty" of the EU. Rachman claims that the original Constitutional Treaty was an attempt to clarify what the EU really is, but that people of the EU does not actually want to know it in the end. At least not in France and the Netherlands. In Finland we will never know since our wise parliament made the desicion for us(the only thing we know is that according to the Eurobarometer we are among the most eurosceptical countries in the EU).
Well, Otto Von Bismarck once said that normal people should not know how sausages and politics are actually made because then they would loose their appetite...

I have been following the summit lazily from a distance, laying on a beach in Barcelona concentrating mainly on my sangria. The result seems to be what most of the "big leaders" wanted. Britain succeeded in eliminating the charter of fundamental rights and France removed the commitment to "undistorted competition" and Germany and Merkel were happy with having at least something. The problem is, as I was thinking while sipping my sangria, that this treaty will not help solving the fundamental problem of the EU which is to make it transparent and understandable to the citizens. The citizens should have a stronger say in the democratic processes of the EU. The idea about a European wide referendum on a revised constitutional treaty in 2009 that has been put forward in some debates would in my opinion have been a more honest way of dealing with this treaty. It would have forced a debate among the citizens on the EU in every member state.The argument presented by some, like the Finnish MEP Alex Stubb, that the EU would have collapsed without a treaty right now, is not true. If the EU eventually will collapse it is because it does not have the support of people living in it. And that support can only be built by involving the citizens in an actual debate on our European Union.

Socialdemokratin behover fornyelse

Regnigt i Madrid. Kom hit igar efter att ha varit i Bryssel ater igen. Bryssel var lite battre denna gang, fore motet pa torsdag at jag en god croissant pa ett trevligt cafe medan den for Bryssel ovanliga solen sken pa mig.
I Madrid ar det som sagt regnigt. Staden kanns dock bra, har inte gjort sa hemskt mycket forutom last Hundra ar av ensamhet(helt fantastisk!) och promenerat lite omkring med nagra vanner.

Laste idag pa Yles websida att sdp:s partiordforande Eero Heinaluoma verkar fa utmanare pa nasta partikongress. I den alltmer personfixerade politiken ar ordforandebyte sdp:s anda changs att vinna foljande val...Heinaluoma ar visserligen en erfaren politiker med manga meriter, men det ar klart att hans konservativa betongsocialdemokratiska image inte ar den ratta i dagens lage. En yngre, ideologiskt modern kvinna kunde vara den ratta att lyfta sdp ur oppositionstrasket. Problemet lar bli att det i politiken ibland ar svart att bryta radande maktstrukturer trots att alla vet att det skulle behovas. Att misslyckas med att utmana etablissemanget leder latt till en politisk isolation och den egna karriaren inom partiet kan tyvarr stanna upp ganska hastigt. Detta ar inget unikt problem for socialdemokraterna i Finland. Till exempel i Frankrike har socialisterna stora svarigheter att omdefiniera sin politik och ta ett steg framat. Det ar dock en odesfraga for mainstreamvanstern i Europa att losa. Som det nu ar sopar hogern golvet i valen genom att anvanda vansterns retorik och vanda den mot dem. Traditionellt har vanstern setts som forandringskraften, men for tillfallet framstar det snarast som om vanstern ar konservativ och visionslos medan hogern ar den progressiva kraften.

Brussels Is Not Beautiful

It is a sad fact. The first time I was in Brussels I got a bad impression of the place, but somebody told me that it was just normal, that you have to visit it many times in order to like it. Well, now I have visited it quite many times and I still find it unpleasant. This week, the Commission kindly offered me a bus tour around the city, and I thought that I would finally see all those nice things I somehow had missed on previous visits. But no. Brussels seemed even more ugly than before. The thing is that everything in the city seems dirty and a bit dodgy.

The purpose of my visit was the European Youth Week, organized every 18 months by the Commission. The political substance was not really impressive. If the Commission really wants to bring people closer to "the EU", and to make people feel more European, civil society has to be taken seriously. This means involving NGO's in the decision-making processes to a greater extent, which this youth week does not do.
Anyway, I met many wonderful people and had a good time. Stimulating discussions about life, death, talking cats and forza italia politicians. And I must say that life is good because of the unexpected things that can occur when you don't expect them...at least not in Brussels, the least exiting city I know in Europe(apart from Frankfurt, of course)