Luxembourg now holds the EU presidency.

by - Wed Jan 05, 2005 10:34

"let us see if you can be silent for just one minute"
said the exasperated teacher to many of you as kids.

"let us see if you can be silent for just three minutes"
silent as the watery grave.

May the victims rest in peace.

by iosaf mac d- Sat Jan 15, 2005 18:21

has outlined the objectives of the Luxembourgish presidency -

the ending of trans-national crime allied to the fight on terror and solutions to the causes of migration at both ends.

thinking as "european" and not "we're not getting enough down our way why are the few euro corps companies going and relocating in poorer regions where they're thinking about voting the nazis in again coz they've got no jobs".

"Our hearts should be in those places where the cameras are no longer present, or have never even been,"

rationalising Lisbon. not *solely* in terms of competition, mediocrity and non european business values...

sorting out SE Asia....

coming to some workable reasonable relationship with the NAFTA (USA canada and Mexico) and Japan on things like the current global capital banking system which is utterly shite.

sin é.

you know the hymn sheet.
you know which bits you sing.
and when you have to- hit your drums, sound your pipes, pluck your strings, and jump up and down.

you also need to remember its taking a bit longer to get to the full harmonic beauty of the great Beethoven & Shiller ode of peace and joy then you would have thought but Europe won't be built in a day.

by i mac d. Mon Jan 17, 2005 11:01

in 2001 of a then total population of 357 million, the European Union regularised 14 million migrants.

in 2004, on the 1st of May the Union expanded to 450,000,000 approx citizens.

a Green paper has now been published on establishing a common migration policy for the Union.

It is meeting with resistance especially amongst those countries which have not, I repeat NOT, accepted their European responsibilities as regards migration.

At present the majority of migrants are being regularised in the following states -

Spain, Italy, France, the UK and Germany.

The Zapatero government announced at new year that it is regularising after much pressure and campaigning approx 800,000 "sin papales" before the end of Spring.

In addition the Zapatero government has announced that suffrage will be extended to migrants by at least 2007 allowing those who have been officially resident in the state for five years to participate in elections (beginning with municipal) and thus integrate properly and equally in the society and country and state to which they have chosen to move, and demonstrated they can live in.

The Zapatero government has through it's minister with responsibility for such things, indicated that 10% of the population is a workable figure for absorption of migrants.

That means ( if the Zapatero government is to be trusted ) we have room for 45,000,000 migrants in Europe.

In priniciple borders are immoral.
No man is illegal.

In practise migration can destabilise some communities and fan the embers of extremist beliefs and xenophobia. It is utterly unfair that states such as Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the UK are left to host the vast majority of migrants who demonstrate a will and ability to integrate to the Union, adopt European values and enrich the diversity of our societies.

It is time for other often "richer" states to play their part. Ireland has room (according to the very simple Zapatero government hypothesis) for almost 400,000 migrants. Ireland as any reader of the Irish independent knows, is better off than the USA. the Irish may do well to reflect that as the Taoiseach is in China, the most populous nation state on earth is sending migrants globally and in Ireland we can not say they have met solely with tolerance or a "cead mile failte!". This has to end.

Equally the countries of the north must move to accept their fair quota of migrants.

At present for various reasons, the parties of the "left" in central europe are campaigning against Shengen on the grounds that it will mean increased migration to their states. This is exceedingly ironic.

"all together now".

= You are European.
= play your part.
= accept the diversity and wealth of our peoples,
welcome migrants, and through them offer their countries of birth an educated future.

by iosaf ma c d - "messrs van jan" Fri Jan 21, 2005 23:47

english language speech by the EU Luxembourgish presidency foreign minister to the assembled bods and journos and well fed of theHerzliya Interdisciplinary Centre, Israel.
telling them quite politely as it happens that our role in their peace process, is not that of superpower but rather as an external actor, and so on.
read it (=do!) @ link
http://www.eu2005.lu/en/actualites/discours/2005/01/20asselborn-po/index.html
**************************

Prime Minister Junker of Luxembourg has met with Chancelor Shroeder of Deutschland (big man doesn't say much) to discuss the loosening of the finanicial pact which means a right royal headache for finance post-graduates (the Herr Dr.Dr.Dr.Dr. Prof Grunschnaube crew) who had got used to the XX century practise of screwing the poor.
Now this doesn't mean the lowering of interest rates tomorrow and making your mortgage cheaper, (aint that good news, coz ye don't have a mortgage ¿do you?) but it does mean that member state growth can be encouraged and poorer states don't have to jump through so many hoops to stay within the blaa blaa monetary union thingy, and that means inflation (a technical expression for globalised capitalised effects that make the bread at your supermarket increase in price quicker than your wages) won't go to "getting paid for by the wheelbarrow of worthless notes again. Of course the SWP will cite this as further evidence of the conspiratorial badness as will equally the extreme right cite it as the judeo-masonic conspiracy @ work,
but like sometimes keeping things from getting worse before they can be made better is *desirable*.
The Chancelor of the unified German Federal Republic (big man doesn't say much) is facing criticism from the finance post graduates throughout europe (Herr Dr.Dr.Dr.Dr.Dr. Prof. Grunschnaube crew) for changing their globalised gospel. They've threatened street demonstrations and boycotts and t-shirts. Ah well, "capitalism won't reform it will destroy itself" as George Soros said, and we all trusted him and his business practise and acumen - didn't we?
read it @ link (in french to stop the yankee dixie doodles panicing for their NYSE market opening monday morning)
http://www.eu2005.lu/fr/actualites/communiques/2005/01/21juncker-schroeder/index.html

by iosaf mac d. Tue Feb 01, 2005 01:50

as of today 1/2/05 Cubans will not suffer economic or diplomatic or other trans-national penalties from the 25 states of the European Union.

They are still blockaded by Gloria Estafan who has a building almost as big as the old AT&T monster government offices which doubles as a studio in Florida.

The suspension of sanctions is a temporary thingy and let's all see what Fidel Castro will do next.
The unkind amongst the right wing of Europe and silas the sunken mariner will say "oh well you've no excuse now for the poverty do you Fidel?". The fanatics amongst the left type old communist style swp and ltd co will say "see we told you all along".
Meanwhile many cuban youth will just go on being cuban youth, listening to the same music as you, doing some of the same drugs as you (but a lot less MDMA, for in truth MDMA never really reached the island or Gloria Estafan and its mostly coca cola the type young fine gael don't want to see banned stuff).
They do dance well though.

Let's see how it goes.
Diego Maradona has not yet issued a statement.
I like Cubans btw, I still nurse happy memories of meeting a few who had stepped off the aeroflot stopover at Shannon on route to Soviet Russia for a walkabout and became welcome Irish citizens, back in the days b4 Mc Dowell of course. - Am I showing my age?
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/31/news/union.html
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?ID=36734
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4223397.stm
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-01/31/content_2532669.htm

by Lu Wed Feb 02, 2005 22:44

check it out. there is newswire as of yet but the umbrella of concerns and lines is well presented.
For the moment protest action is concentrated in neighbouring Germany, France and Nederlands and sneaky Belgium.

Condoleezza Rice will attend meetings with the Luxembourgish presidency of the EU on Feb 9 and Feb 10 2005.

by - Fri Feb 11, 2005 14:51

The EU Lux. pres has today after considering the meeting on common migration policy of the 24/2 to further seek a common migraton policy for the 25 state EU and is suggesting the sharing of electronic data to facilitate this. The ZP pressie of Spain has offered to amnesty to many hundreds of thousands of migrants (approx 800,000) but is also threatening both employers who break the new laws with imprisonment and migrants who break the new laws with expulsion. The enforcing of the new laws in Europe's state with the most paperless migrants will mean strain on the economy, and accordingly the EU shall continue to assist the Spanish economy with regional development funding. It is unacceptable that mafia profit from the misery of non Europeans, in either bringing them here by boats, hidden in trucks or otherwise. It is unacceptable that mafias continue at trans-national level to employ in near slave conditions migrants. It is unacceptable that European citizens continue to exploit migrants by using them as cheap labour undercutting normal worker rates of pay and thus cheating their local, national and european economies and fellow citizens. It is unacceptable as the under-development and exploitation of the countries where migrants come from by European and other business interests compounded by their local government policies.

http://www.eu2005.lu/fr/actualites/communiques/2005/02/11schmit-jai/index.html

No person is illegal.
Papers for everyone.
make it simple.
10% is workable.

by merrovinginvanjan - "we are all here for a reason, you, I, persophone, Smith, Oracle, the twins, Neo..." Wed Apr 27, 2005 12:14

They welcomed rumania and bulgaria to the Union.
C/F http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69555
The photo they issued was of a big hug, not a handshake, not a slimey smile, a big big hug.
Because even if according to the economic theory of FF,FG and PD's in Ireland, neither state ought be welcomed on fiscal grounds, the Luxembourgers are not nouveaux riches and recognise their responsibilities to their brothers and sisters.
In which spirit they are also now talking very seriously to the Croatians and Turks, because the time has come to share the cácá milis, which clever people like the Irish Tigers helped give a yeasty rise to, and give it to the victims of war and tyranny with whom we share this continent and the legacy of constantine. Because the future is about sharing, and ethics, and not about getting a nicer house or a bigger car. The community you belong to is not the corporation you work for, it is not the car you were given, or the mortgage you can afford, it is the street where you walk, it is the bed you lie on to die and get your apendix taken out.

They also locked the neo-liberal globalised horns with China (coz the horns haven't gone away you know) on what is known as the textile question, this is because quite a few states (the french/german axis leading them) are worried about the cheapness of textiles produced in China.

The word "sweatshop" comes into this.
The phrase "China shows us clearly the limits of globalised free market thinking now, as it did in the mid 1830s, and rather than pursue this jaded [;-)] fight, we ought abandon the materialist dogma now" also comes to mind.

.:. € $ % + *

I will now point you in 2 directions -
one is the commercial press and €U on the China textile question, and some of the corporations who make the clothes you buy on your high street which are made in the 3rd world and then a few years later get airlifted back to the 3rd world as "aid" (because Bono of U2 asks you to do this)-

http://www.eu2005.lu/en/actualites/communiques/2005/04/25cag-chine/index.html
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=105&sid=5720304
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4419177.stm
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1503&ncid=732&e=1&u=/afp/20050425/ts_afp/euchinatradedispute
http://www.brandchannel.com/features_webwatch.asp?ww_id=218
http://www.mango.com/index.htm
http://www.nike.com/main.html
http://www.riverisland.com/

the other is Yomango, which is an organisation that attempts to invent new systems of thought which by their repetition open new worlds in which to live, the childhood ethic question "is it ok to steal food if you are starving" ought never be forgotten, and "yomango" is spanish slang for "I steal" as well as being a take on the clothing multi-nat.corp Mango. you can read some texts there in english (there's a button to the right) and think about the sustainability of your high street clothing system that employs *you* in precarity, others in "slavery", and continues to argue that our current system is moral. The photo is of a "sewing" machine, a wonderful invention by a Mr Singer, which was ripped off back in the days when patent laws were not so strictly inforced, and allowed for hundreds of millions of people (mostly women) to repair, mend and fix clothing, and even "earn a little extra".


your choice.
always was.

against the system of control in the cathedrals of consumerism "i steal" is inside you, a label, a look, a life style!

by "are you sure you don't want a cookie?" Wed Apr 27, 2005 12:20

but i wanted to goto yomango,
but there was no link, just a blank wall,
they must have changed something.