benelux

Since 1944, the governments in exile of the Kingdom of the Belgium and the Netherlands and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg had agreed to a customs union until superseded on this day in 1958 when the three nations ratified the Treaty of Brussels that integrated further the signatories both economically and politically.
This bolstering of cooperation and transparency ran parallel to the European Communities (all of whom were also founding members—the so called Inner Six along with West Germany, France and Italy) created by the Treaty of Paris of 1952 that established the pooling of industrial resources and would eventually serve as the model for the successor European Union. The tight group considered opening membership in 1960 to the Outer Seven—Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal (Spain still under dictatorship) Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom—the latter being particularly keen on joining as the Suez Crisis of 1956 (see previously here, here and here) with its intervention efforts undercut by the USA had shown Britain that it was no longer all-powerful and could not thrive without allies. Fearing that UK membership would become a Trojan Horse for American interests, France vetoed Britain joining for seven years until Georges Pompidou succeeded Charles de Gaulle as French president—with reassurances—accepted their application and began negotiations, the community finally expanding in 1972.

gmt+1

In accordance with the provisions of Article 50, after forty-seven years of membership and a contentious three-and-half years of vigorous and at times unseemly and embarrassing debate, the UK will leave the European Union at 11:00 pm local time. The UK quits the EU with a standing invitation to rejoin, as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen concluded her speech to assembled MEPs during the last plenary session before Brexit Day with a quote from British poet George Eliot: “‘Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.’ We will always love you and we will never be far. Long live Europe!”

megxit

Though still the duke and duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will no longer be styled his and her royal highness and remit the public funding that had gone into renovating their chosen residence and forego future tax-payer support in light of their decision to step back from their public duties and spend part of the year in North America.
This month—with quite a few days on balance remaining—has already been quite a year already so there was precious little bandwidth available for these developments on top of everything else. It is difficult to forecast what this semi-abdication means for the couple and for their family—seeming untenable that one could partially recuse oneself and equally fought to be a gainfully employed private person without commercialising one’s name. It is also quite incredulous that this news and the intrusive and racist way it unfolded is taking sufficient oxygen out of the room so that there’s far more acute fatigue over Brexit and the Johnson cabinet’s commitment to withdraw from the European Union at the end of the month.

backstop, full-stop

Retaining a comfortable majority of votes in favour on the bill’s second reading, the newly constituted Parliament of Boris Johnson (previously) has passed a Brexit arrangement, essentially the same framework (albeit with a few key adjustments) as the one rejected numerous times proposed by Teresa May, just with the comfort of couching this disaster with mansplaining, which looks to guarantee that the UK will leave the EU by 31 January 2020.

general election

as I testified previously, with regard to the requested white house call and white house meeting, the answer is yes

Per my previous post indeed, we’re wondering if that minor (comparatively) diplomatic gaff that involved first diminishing and dissing the European Union at the beginning of the year before quietly re-credentialing the supra-national organization was not some sort of premonition, previsioning of how the testimony of his own ambassador to the EU (the slightly amnesic and fellow billionaire hotelier appointed by Trump himself) might lead to downfall of the whole regime, pulling all his creatures of the court under with him. The undeniable implication that all were party and privy to the motivations behind Trump’s conditional and transactional foreign policy, driven on self-interest alone, leaves the administrative completely exposed and defenceless. Just as superior orders (Befehl ist Befehl) is not an exculpatory argument, placing wrong-doing out in public does not make it right or more palatable.

rabbit redux

Reminiscent of those murderous bunnies found in the marginalia of medieval manuscripts and ever successive cottontale congress thereafter, Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit, Lewis Carrol’s White Rabbit and the Killer Bunny guarding the Grail, artist YiMiao Shih plumbs UK politics with a tapestry in the tradition of Bayeux reimagining pivotal moments as Rabbrexit.

do or die

On what was guaranteed to be Brexit eve on All Hallows Eve (that date pushed back to the end of January 2020), after being rejected three times by the House of Commons, the Prime Minister secured a snap poll for a general election in mid-December, now under debate in the House of Lords.
Members had roundly rejected calls to move beyond gridlock through holding another vote given the way that particular stratagem had backfired for his predecessor and netted a hung parliament until Labour leadership (previously) conceded that they would support this “once-in-a-generation” event. The last election held that late in the year and close to the holiday season was on 6 December 1923, causing the fall of the Conservatives and allowed Labour to form a government for the first time.

spring forward, fall back

About a week ago I recall expressing my feeling of gratitude for not having to seasonally adjust the clocks (though mostly this is accomplished automatically and effortlessly with only our dumb and disconnected timepieces needful of our attention) not remembering properly how the change takes place so late in October, which I suppose only speaks to the disruptive and disorientating nature of the practise in the first place.

Though pleased with the outcome of the European Union referendum regarding the end of daylight savings time and leaving the seasons to the tilt and shift of the planet (albeit it was one of those non-partisan issues that everyone can support—reportage I think one might find on that new news channel spin-off that pledges to be Brexit-free), I was a bit disappointed to first be disabused and then to wake up to the confusion of the clocks, although for the last penultimate time.  For those who’ve known nothing else (despite complaints), we wonder how baked-in it is in terms of both programming and posture.

super saturday

Convening on a weekend, which is not usually done as business and the markets cannot react to changes in government policy and not the Commons had not sat since the Falklands conflict, Parliament met to hopefully hash out Brexit once and for all—or not, after the prime minister secured a slap-dash deal to leaving the European Union that for some was less palatable than the terms his predecessor set forth that failed to pass on multiple occasions. Whether this arrangement will be ratified is far from clear as are the next steps, setting up a scenario for perpetual and Sisyphean debate.

potut pottuina

Overshadowed by his magnificently telling tantrum, the Trump’s White House did manage to open up a second front in his ongoing trade wars with the US Trade Representative, a Trump appointee, announcing that the World Trade Organisation will grant the US the right to levy tariffs on around seven billion euro (one percent of US-EU trade) on European exports—wine and cheese, in retaliation for the EU’s privileging its domestic Airbus over international competition.
We can’t say that the US has been subsidising its native industries in the same way for the past decade and a half of this squabble or whether it’s quite a fair ruling—though it highlights the asymmetry of government support and interventions and how diverting subsidies from staid business models in transport and agriculture would help drive greener and cleaner innovations. Further implication might be the UK becoming even more willing to crash out of the Union with no deal and into an unequal partnership with the States.  The EU is expected to respond in kind—though direct countermeasures are not allowed, WTO rules have no jurisdiction on boycotts.

you wouldn’t like me when i’m angry

Whilst former Prime Minister David Cameron characterises Johnson’s faith in leaving the EU only qualified and continues on this trajectory to preserve his political career, just ahead of a Monday lunchtime meeting with European Commission president regarding the Irish border for which all and sundry have pretty lower expectations and the British Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality (prompted by accusations by the Scottish court) of proroguing Parliament, the Prime Minister, digging in, compares himself to the Incredible Hulk during an interview with the widely-circulated tabloid The Daily Mail.
“[Bruce] Banner might be bound in manacles, but when provoked he would explode out of them,” he said, channeling the immense though chaotic and destructive strength of the comic book character. “The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets.” EU officials counter that the comparison belies a lack of maturity, even by Trumpian standards, more pitiable than intimidating. The UK will reject further Brexit delays. Hulk smash!

quadriga

With the Queen’s leave, after the longest session since the English Civil War, Boris Johnson suspended Parliament until just two weeks before the date that the UK is scheduled to depart the European Union.
Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow resigned in protest, his last sentiment being that ‘we degrade this Parliament at our peril,’ a resounding rejection of Johnson’s argument for the extended recess, reasoning that the break was a time for reflection and reformulate legislative agendas and calls for a general election to break the impasse—also denied.  Like during a furlough, committees cannot convene or conduct official business without being in violation of their suspension, paralleling the law passed making Brexit contingent on a deal or otherwise risk being in contempt, which the prime minister is fully cognizant of and only serves to remind how tragic this whole squandering of time and resources and all encompassing has been.

paneuropäisches picknick

Held on this day in 1989 the peace protest known as the Pan-European Picnic in the border town of Šopron (formerly Ödenburg), Hungary on the Austria border sponsored in part by the former Archduke of both nations is considered by many to be the final death-rattle of Communism, presaging what was to follow in Central Europe, signalling the end of accommodation for protracted situations like Romanian refugee camps in Hungary or the East German encampment at the Prague embassy. Borders were eliminated for a space of three hours during the exchange and many took advantage of this window, with border guards given orders not to interfere. Presently, few signs remain of the walls that separated east from west.

yellowhammer or backwards-planning

Though the existence of no-deal contingency plans have been suspected since April and cabinet officials are trying to downplay their significance—excusing them as an outdated draft, the recent leak (that they’d characterise as sabotage) of reports contain rather dire predictions that are really revealing and revolutionary should a fraction of them come to pass as forecasted in the event of such a departure for the UK from the European Union.
The report identifies bottle-necks and supply-chain disruption to food and medical supplies and a meltdown of logistics. Military forces (a complimentary programme called Operation Redfold to be operated out of the prosaically named Pindar citadel and bunker, so named after the poet‘s house was the only structure spared destruction after Alexander the Great had the city of Thebes razed, owing to his verses that sang the virtues of king’s dynasty) are on standby to assist civilian authorities in quelling anticipated protests and uprisings.  Potential (leaning towards inevitable) fuel scarcity is particularly pernicious for the cascading effects it will have on the overall economy.  

the matter of britain

Former Prime Minister Teresa May made the executive decision to rule out withdrawal from the European Union—not excusing her window-dressing a fools’ errand and Pyrrhic victory—absent an agreement on terms of future trading relationships and remained steadfastly committed to this goal knowing that forestalling negotiations could result in the dissolution of the United Kingdom.
Now with a new prime minister and no closer to reaching a deal, first ministers of Scotland and Wales are respectively calling for another independence referendum (Boris Johnson is stating that he will deny the country the chance to re-visit this once-in-a-generation vote and that the question is a settled matter) and threatening to stage crippling protests over the negative economic impact that will render domestic sheep and their agricultural industry in general unmarketable. Northern Ireland, which like its sister countries with the exception of England voted in favour of remaining a member of the EU, has raised the spectre of reunion with the Republic of Ireland over the economic impact of Brexit and the very real possibility that leaving may necessitate the unwelcome return a physical barrier on the isle—a sentiment fuelled also by the prospect that London may need to impose direct rule on the region in the interim. Closing the border in violation of the Good Friday Agreement would also threaten the trade deals with the US that the UK has banked this whole ordeal on. Winning is sometimes easy, whilst governing is the real challenge.

fondant

To highlight the absurdity that may follow the enforcement of Article 13, the EU mandate that hosting services monitor use-submitted content for possible copyright infringement or lack of attribution—presumably policed by algorithms and upload filters—once the sharing of memes or children’s birthday cakes decorated with proprietary characters might be outlawed—proscriptively—artist Fabian Mosele, having studied the tolerances and triggers of such systems, has created a series of contorted and abstracted frosting works. We especially liked the Captcha-style piping. Much more to explore at the links above.

corso forzoso

Though the idea of bringing back the lira has been in circulation by members of both factions of the governing coalition since at least 2005 and at earlier times of economic crisis and scarcity of specie, a sort of Notgeld, called miniasegni, were used to make change—anything from postage stamps to bus passes, Italy is now responding in a unique and novel way to European Union demands that it pass budget reforms and bring its deficit in line with members’ tolerances in suggesting that a parallel currency be introduced.
Provisionally naming the government backed bonds, IOUs to be traded as legal tender mini-BOTs, miniature bills of treasury, the government wants to issue internal financial vehicles that can be used to pay tax bills and distribute pension payments—with businesses having the option whether or not to accept payments in these terms. While in the short term, the introduction of mini-BOTs may rally public confidence in a partnership government that in part was elected on a platform of universal basic income (disappointingly winnowed down to a job-seekers’ allowance) and avoids austerity measures, such a move would result in inflation and more odious debt.

europawahl

Though Angela Merkel’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, did lighten up on their messaging somewhat, having taken this particular poster out of circulation early on after the campaign began in mid-April, the notion that freedom is not a guaranteed matter of course and that elections have consequences still is a crucial one.  Representation is important and illiberal forces are counting on your political disillusionment and disenfranchisement to forward their agendas. If polling has not already taken place where you live, please get out there and vote.

number 10