The Irish government officially confirmed that the referendum for EU Treaty will be on 12 June. The most recent poll says:
- 38% ‘yes’ for EU Treaty
- 28% ‘no’
- 34% ‘don’t know’
This a is a major challenge for the new prime minister, Brian Cowen, who’s under enormous pressure to secure a “yes” vote.
Also Denmark is likely to have two referendums on EU treaty op-outs: a referendum in September to remove the derogation from judicial and defence co-operation and a subsequent referendum on the euro, the government hoping to scrap the opt-outs and have the country participating fully in the EU.

The Article 13a of Treaty of Lisbon provides for a European External Action Service (EEAS) to be set up to assist the High Representative of the Union in his / her duties and cooperate with the diplomatic services of the Member States. This EEAS will be composed of officials from relevant departments of the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers and of the Commission and staff seconded from national diplomatic services.

As expected, the matter rises a lot of questions, as seen in today’s EurActiv article.

According to National Statistics Institute, in 2007 Romania’s trade deficit deepened to more than 21.5 billion euro, this means 44.3% increase compared to 2006. During this period, the total value of exports grew by 13.7%, while imports increased with 24.9%.

One of the reasons seems to be the goods temporarily introduced in duty frees and customs and also the introduction of the general commercial system for intra-communitarian goods (Intrastat). In this systems the goods are registered only at the moment when they pass the frontier, and not when they circulate within the free area, as before in the Extrastat National Statistics Institutecommercial system.

The European Comission reacted promplty, criticizing the Romanian government’s budget strategy and gave us some recommendations. Which will problably not be followed, since we have an election year ahead of us.

Before the end of this year, the European Union should have a President, elected for 2.5 years.
One of the most pronounced names for the job is that of the former British prime minister, Tony Blair, supported by the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy.
But two other French leaders - Edouard Balladur (the former conservative French prime minister, close to Mr Sarkozy) and Valérie Giscard d’Estaing (former French president and the father of the now defunct EU constitutional treaty) expressed their opinion that Europe’s first president must have majority support from his home country, which should be a nation that respects all its European commitments. Something that Britain might not be doing for the time being.

“Tony Blair cannot be president of Europe,” writes Edouard Balladur in Le Monde . Despite his declarations of good intent, for 10 years, Mr. Blair did almost nothing to put an end to Britain’s special statu, with its opt-outs in the fields of justice and home affairs, non-membership of the euro - area and of the border-free Schengen zone. Moreover, says he, Mr Blair is far too close to America to build an independent Europe.

I might add that if Tony Blair would accept the post, he will have to give up his job at J. P. Morgan, an US-based investment bank (with a salary of around £2 million per year). He would also have to drop his diplomatic role as a Middle East envoy on behalf of western nations.
Besides, Mr. Blair is the subject of an war crimes investigation on the deaths of Iraqi citizens killed during the armed invasion and occupation of Iraq (strange that the mass media did not cover this issue according to its importance, but that’s my opinion. And an ‘innocent’ question: will Basescu follow? since he is the strongest and most vocal Romanian supporter of the Iraqi invasion. Yeah, let’s move on).
There is also an on-line petition agains Blair’s nominalization at www.stopblair.eu, and if we remember the “cash for honours” scandal, we undestand why Mr. Blair is not suitable to become the first EU president.

Other two possible candidates are the prime minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, a declared believer in a ‘United States of Europe’ and Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister. For now.

Something tells me that the recent outburst of the communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom will have some consequencies, at least the debates regarding the election of an EU president will be a little more transparent than before.

In March 2008, the 17-year old winners of the “Juvenes Translatores” (27 - one for each Member State) contest will be invited for a three-day visit to Brussels and they will receive a certificate from the European Commissioner for Multilingualism, Mr. Leonard Orban. The list of the 27 students is published on the contest website.

The Romanian winner is Radu Florea, a highschool student from Galati.
Here you can find the text he translated at the competition. Nice job!

One of the most enthusiastic European officials, the communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom has said she is fed up with the “reign of old men” in Brussels.

“An inner circle of male decision-makers agree behind closed doors on whom to nominate to EU top jobs,”

“It is incredible that only men have been mentioned in the discussions, and that it is all discussed behind the scenes”

“It is very bad for public opinion. The people see male politicians scheming behind closed doors, and that old men choose old men, as always”

“Just look at the ‘family photos’ at the EU summits. It’s almost all only men that are lined up. Gee, humanity consists of fifty per cent women!

Wow, she’s angry! Of course she’s right, but what should we, the common people, think about the shiny programs of the EU against the women discrimination, since the women are discriminated at the very top of the EU?

The European Commission published the report “Communicating about Europe via the Internet: Engaging the citizens”.
As the report mentioned, the objectives of the EUROPA website are to:

· respond to the needs of people with a broad and/or professional interest in EU affairs;
· help people looking for a particular service, or for information on their rights or EU policies;
· communicate the views of the Commission to the widest possible audience;
· allow people to express and exchange their views and opinions throughout Europe;
· help create a sense of European community as a supplement to the national sphere.

The fact that they intend to contact some of the most active websites dealing with EU issues, to explore “possible Web partnerships” and developing a “network of civil society and public and private websites that promote contact with or between European citizens and stimulate debate on EU policy issues” might be a good thing. The discussions on European issues can thus become more accessible to the citizens - I believe I’m not the only one bothered by the new developed “wooden tongue” (those who experienced the former communist ‘propaganda machine’ know what I mean), that the phrases, clishes and expressions repeated over and over again end up by being empty of any sense etc.
I don’t know how they will select the website to cooperate with, I really hope there will not be only those ‘pro-EU’, that the websites that also have sometimes critics on EU Institutions actions (not necessary eurosceptics - but why not? this would be a real debate) will not be ignored. Otherwise the internet can become something else, not just a source of information.

Today French President Sarkozy will arrive in Bucharest and have some meetings with Romanian President, Prime-Minister and Parliament. But no economic agreement will be signed, due to the Romanian corruption problems.
Of course, there were no corruption issues when he made some very important deals with Libya. Must be the uranium, they say it has strange effects.
Two best friends:

EU regulators will drag again Microsoft into court. Reason:monopolistic practices, again.
This time the focus is on two essential areas for Microsoft: Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office suite.
Having in mind the result of last EU vs Microsoft case in European court, it is quite possible the concern will have to pay a significant amount (significant even for them) and “make substantial changes”.

European Digital Rights Initiative (EDRI) just started a blog on EDRI’s activities (N.B. the first message was published by Bogdan Manolea).
As there is written on their website:

European Digital Rights was founded in June 2002. Currently 28 privacy and civil rights organisations have EDRI membership. They are based or have offices in 17 different countries in Europe.
Members of European Digital Rights have joined forces to defend civil rights in the information society. The need for cooperation among organizations active in Europe is increasing as more regulation regarding the internet, copyright and privacy is originating from European institutions, or from International institutions with strong impact in Europe.
Some examples of regulations and developments that have the attention of European Digital Rights are data retention requirements, spam, telecommunications interception, copyright and fair use restrictions, the cyber-crime treaty, rating, filtering and blocking of internet content and notice-and-takedown procedures of websites.

Speaking of which … there are more and more talks on Romanian blogs about recognizing the ‘jurnalist status’ for bloggers, about ‘organizing the Romanian blogosphere’, ‘rules’ to be adopted etc.
Maybe this is not a bad thing, but I wonder how many of them do realize that this means setting limits, boundaries, monitoring, controlling, filtering … censorship …so much with the ‘absolute freedom’ on the internet. And who will be the Big Brother?