It’s cut a bit long, but the video above is worth a watch. I like the concept of a direct and consensus based decision making process, but…

What are the Occupy Wall Street lot, or the Indignados for that matter, calling for? In the backdrop of that video, I can see placards for every lefty cause imaginable, and in the clips of the General Assembly, they just seem to be saying “Let’s occupy Wall Street”, which is quite an ambitious demand, especially since they are already occupying Wall Street.

I have nothing against direct action; as part of the mechanism for citizens to get their voices heard, it is vital, but I always feel more than a little dismayed when direct action is portrayed as the only mechanism for change in politics. Think about it: direct action often means calling for someone else to do something. Close involvement in the political process, getting representatives elected, pushing policies, means making those changes yourself, not being at the mercy of someone else.

By all accounts, the present British Government should love it dearly as well. In a world in which soft diplomacy counts increasingly, the power of a station spreading—from the shores of the Pacific, to the heart of the Sahel—such a positive image of Britain, cannot be underestimated. This makes it so perplexing that a government which has been acknowledged as having a certain amount of foreign policy nous*, should neglect the immeasurable value which the World Service brings to the country and the world, in its decision to transfer the funding of the station from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to the BBC itself, and to demand budget cuts.

The World Service has already been through a down-sizing, when large parts of the station’s cultural output were lopped off in favour of a more news-focussed schedule a few years ago, but despite that, it has somehow managed to retain its greatness as a radio station. Geographically castrating the service will do nothing to help this, and I can only hope that the ingenuity of the staff will keep the unique character of station alive, even if it loses the estimated 30 million listeners as a result of the cuts.

*Not that, as this post should attest, I agree with this Government on much, including foreign policy.

“Why” you might ask, “is a greeny EU politics blog telling me to look for a piece of music I’ve never heard of, by a Colombian pop star?” Well, it is precisely that the song is not available in Britain, while it is available here in Belgium (and indeed around most of the rest of the continent). Does it not seem just a bit wrong that I can only buy this song with my Belgian bank account and address? If I try in the UK, no luck; the Dizzee Rascal infused hispanophone pop will have to wait.

Call me an idealist with a questionable taste in music, but I thought half the point of the diplomatic motorcades, Council of Ministers hoo-haas, European Commission, and all that which blights and brightens life here in Brussels, was to “establish an internal market”. If the music industry is still segmented so distinctly between countries, then surely, this cannot be called an internal market?

Now, my first instinct (once I had laboriously procured the Loca Freemasons Radio Edit), was to think that this sort of prohibition must be contrary to the treaties of the EU! How can the maintenance of strict, nationally demarcated markets for a whole industry possibly be allowed under EU law? Sadly, since it doesn’t seem that any governmental involvement to perpetuate the divisions exists, it looks like it is quite possibly legal.

But—and if it wasn’t already clear enough, from the fact that I have spent my evening with a copy of the treaties and European Court of Justice cases, that I’m a bit of a politics/legal geek, it will soon become apparent—I couldn’t leave it there.

Now, it does say in a Regulation that breaches of the rules on the internal market can be caused by people as well as governments, so there’s scope perhaps for the licensing bodies which enforce the national music market divisions to be breaking the rules. But this does all rather rely on a definition of what music is.

Not that I’m asking whether you could place a legal definition on whether the disturbingly bouffanted warblings of JedWard can be defined as constituting music; rather I mean, when I click ‘Buy’ in iTunes, what precisely am I buying? Is it a product (under one set of EU rules), or merely an intellectual property right to use and copy the music in a restricted set of circumstances (under another set of rules)?

In its terms and conditions, iTunes calls itself a service, and talks of me buying “a licence for digital content (“Products”)”. Amazon MP3 also mentions my “right to use the Digital Content”, once I’ve handed over some cash. So it sounds like, as far as the online stores are concerned, I’m buying a licence to intellectual property, which doesn’t count as buying a “good” under European law.

Thanks to this contractual nicety, the inclusion of private actions in the list of things which can cause obstacles to the internal market might not be justified in this matter (I’m certainly not  lawyer, just good at quoting case references), but assuming it is justified, would a concerted effort to segment the market for music downloads count as a violation of EU law? Well, assuming that my trashy Colombian pop download is a ‘service’, then quite possibly, yes; though the distinctions which need to be made here are far beyond me.

Of course, I’m in no position to engage a lawyer and bring a case to the ECJ, if it could even get that far (my non-lawyerlyness can’t be stressed enough), but to have a single market for media across the EU would be of massive benefit to European Citizens. Imagine not having to download pirated copies of songs by The Dø that you hear and love when listening to Studio Brussel over the Internet in the UK. Imagine being able to legitimately watch the latest episode of Come Fly With Me or Spooks when you’re sitting in a student flat in Holland.

Ok, so most Europeans don’t have quite the same cross-border tastes as me, but the prohibition on enjoying the music I want to listen to, and the films and TV programmes I want to watch has got to be as much against the principles of a single united Europe as you can get.

One solution to all this mess of barriers would be to simply ignore the idea of buying a licence for the music I listen to; plenty of people already do so, and thus free themselves of the boxing-in that media industries inflict on their customers. The thing is, I want to pay for the music I listen to. Maybe Madonna doesn’t need the few cents I send her way when buying a song, but the cost of developing, recording, and distributing music has to be covered somehow. Anyway, despite the fact I don’t sell any of it, I do produce content (this blog, my photos on Flickr, etc.), for which I appreciate my right to determine how other people can use it (most of it, but not all, is licensed under Creative Commons).

There is some hope, in that the EU has recognised the problems presented by a fragmented market in online music, but whether anything will be done… I don’t think it too likely. Maybe, whenever it eventually becomes an option, this would make a good subject of a Citizens Initiative.

If there are any legally minded people who’d care to enlighten me on the many points where I’m sure my attempts at legal thinking have gone disastrously wrong, then feel very free to use the comments section.

Finnish lake image from daneen_vol on Flickr. The Shakira statue image is in the public domain. Fishing rod image from tsmall on Flickr. Graphic  is licensed under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 2.0) which applies only to this image. The copyright to this article is reserved, and it should not be considered to be licensed as the rest of this site.

I’m sometimes drawn to ask whether political leaders are capable of coping with more than one thing at once. Extreme poverty, conflict, environmental crisis, the end of cheap energy; these are all floating around us, demanding solutions. Yet the biggest political efforts, and the largest investments, are made in the propping up of a financial system which is proven to be catastrophically flawed. I’m not naive, the financial system is an integral part of our way of life, and its reformation into the totally green ideal that is envisaged in the various iterations of the Green New Deal will take time; short term action to keep the whole lot going was largely justified and required, but the air of crisis which is hanging around it all is leading political leaders to think that their excessive and overblown measures to ‘stop the ship from sinking’ are just that. Such delusions keep political energies and capital from the other problems where such things are badly needed.

2011 is the year when action is needed. Action on climate change, with a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol as an essential outcome of the talks in South Africa in December; action on making the economic system we are saddled with into a green and sustainable one, which will work for people well into the coming decades; action on generating sustainable energy to replace the old fashioned fossil fuels we rely on now; and action on cutting the gap between the richest and poorest, and removing the barriers to development for the poorest countries.

So, when my 2012 New Year’s post arrives, lets hope the vast chasms in development and quality of life, reported last year on this blog, will have narrowed to some degree, and that what honest debate 2010 gave rise to has translated into strong and worthwhile action.

Happy New Year, may 2011 be good to you.

I could never quite bring myself to proclaim, “anyone but Barroso”, last year when the post of Commission President was being considered—what with the implications that I’d plump for Wilders or Griffin instead—, but still, I really can’t say that I think he’s any good.

When I think of Barroso, I think of the grey concrete and soulless boulevards of the European quarter of Brussels. He is a civil servant and a bureaucrat; I can’t summon any idea of what he stands for, and, perhaps more importantly, where he wants to take the EU. Maybe this could be seen as a good thing, for the EU to have a settled time to get used to its new system with Lisbon &c., but while the EU is doing the equivalent of breaking in a new pair of shoes, where does it leave public perception and opinion of the Union?

Various blogs and newspaper articles have suggested that the post-war idealism of peace in Europe, brought about by the unity between nations, is meaningless to most people of my generation. Frankly they’re right. I still think it is one very positive contribution of the European project, but it isn’t something that can motivate people to accept what is still an oddity in most people’s conceptions of what a state is, and where laws come from.

Ultimately I wasn’t surprised by Barroso’s first State of the [European] Union. It was as much of a feast of buzzwords as many have predicted, and it didn’t really seem to say anything astonishingly new or push forward a continuing vision of where the European project is going. Perhaps it will prove a worthwhile contribution to the political process of the EU, with a growing acceptance that the citizens, and thus their representatives in Parliament, are prime, with the executive reporting to them, but I have little faith that this isn’t just going to end up like the sort of mechanical and contrived show that so much of EU politics and governance manages to perform. The fact that the compulsory attendance of MEPs was discussed before, with members being infantilized by a requirement to press voting buttons to confirm their presence is perhaps testament enough to the unnatural character of such an occasion.

Image from the European Parliament on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons licence.

I don’t know what the ultimate result from this election will be yet, and I never like to trust polls when the declared results are as tight as they are right now, but I really hope that, somehow, a centre-left coalition, led by PvdA (Labour) can emerge. After the last few sets of national elections in Europe producing centre-right, or just outright right, governments, please let the Netherlands be the exception.

“The story ends there,” … “I don’t want to hear anyone commenting on them. Nobody is authorised to comment on the gays. You will spoil things.”

President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika

“The president has demonstrated that he is a caring father, a considerate and tolerant president. We wish him good health in his everyday endeavours as he continues leading the country to
respecting human rights and to economic prosperity,”

Statement from Chimbalanga and Monjeza

Homo Malawi verlaat verloofde voor vrouw [Gay Malawian leaves fiancé for woman]

Headline on NOS Nieuws

How nicely the story of the two gay Malawian men who were sentenced to 14 years hard labour has wrapped itself up. After being pardoned by the “caring father” who is the President, and after turning out to be straight after all, the sensitivities of the national culture need not be offended any longer.

I feel very uncomfortable with the way that this issue is being brushed under the rug. Chimbalanga and Monjeza are only two people, but with absolute certainty, there are thousands more in Malawi, and millions across Africa who are just like them, and who have to face their daily existence being frustrated due to a combination of excessively conservative morality, and imported laws from 19th and 20th century European empires.

Lets hope that next time something like this happens, the outcome will show some actual progress for LGBT rights.

First off, isn’t it a bit odd to see at least one member of the European Movement as a Secretary of State in a Tory dominated cabinet? Perhaps I’m just putting too much emphasis on the European side of things. Anyway, my initial reaction to the BBC News footage of Cameron was, “could’ve been worse”, followed by noting that he’d opted for a plain microphone with no lectern (call me cynical, but was this his first theatrical step as PM?).

Policy-wise though, all I can say is that this government will be bad for Britain, and bad for Europe. Like the Irish Green’s coalition with Fianna Fáil, I think the Lib Dems will end up tarnished by their senior partner, hurting their chances in future elections, and thus removing any chance for them to show that, contrary to all evidence, they have some back-bone. The proposals for a referendum on AV are pointless; AV is pointless as an alternative, because it doesn’t do what an alternative electoral system needs to do, which is make Parliament more representative of the citizens. So, well done to the Liberals for capitulating on the one thing I wanted Liberals in government to do.

More in my sphere of concern is the impact of the new government on Britain’s place in Europe, and the effect that a Eurosceptic government in one of the big states will have. The Conservative’s insistance on calling for powers to be repatriated in some areas, and trying to put a brake on other areas will probably not hurt the EU too much. It’s a big thing, and it can comfortably withstand an uncooperative government or two. It will however hurt Britain. Enough Europeans (by which I mean people involved in Euro-politics) already complain about our intransigence, and that ill will towards the UK will probably only increase. It’ll be interesting, though perhaps uncomfortable, to watch how this affects the real world.