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  The landslide winner of snap elections in Slovenia is the “Party of Miro Cerar” that six weeks before the elections did not even exist. Its members and candidates are rather unknown, its policies are unclear. It is named and lead by a law professor and legal consultant with zero track record in executive politics. Strongest opposition party SDS with its leader jailed after an unfair trial just three weeks before the elections came in second. Half of the parliament belongs to two brand new political parties. The results are a culmination of economic, financial, social and political crisis in Slovenia and, one can always hope, a step towards its resolution. From poster child … Slovenia was a poster child of the former communist countries. It achieved independence almost without violence that tragically marked the breakup of Yugoslavia. Even before 1989 it had open borders, elements of market economy and substantial exports to the West. Its independence was a success story. It joine...

For nearly six years the alleged bribery in the case of procuring Patria armored vehicles from Finland has been the No.1 topic in Slovenian political discourse. It has had a strong impact on elections in 2008, 2011 and 2014, because the accused is Janez Janša, key political figure in Slovenia, leader of (usually) the opposition and former prime minister. But lacking convincing evidence against him this is no longer the case of alleged bribery. The case is increasingly about the rule of law and democracy in Slovenia. Known unknowns and known knowns No, I was not there when they were buying the Patria armored vehicles and do not know what was really going on. Was anyone bribed or were there business-as-usual consultancy fees, markups, margins etc? No, I did not read the 20,000 pages of the Slovenian legal case nor the additional 7000 documents that were used in the procedure in Finland (and where  all accused of bribery were acquitted ). And no, I was not present at any of the court ...

  Lecture at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at John’s Hopkins University, Washington DC, May 28th, 2014. Full version with introduction in  PDF . Some people compare Europe to a bicycle. In order to maintain its balance, a bicycle has to keep moving. And in order to be stable, Europe has to keep moving. At least this is what we are led to believe. No other country or continent so often contemplates is future as Europe. The Future of Europe is a subject of visions, reflections, and strategies as well as political maneuvering among its institutions. Civil servants in Brussels can either be occupied with  day-to-day execution of policies , deepening the common market, distributing structural funds, passing directives, regulating anything from vegetable sizes to Google …  or with a grander task of building “an ever closer Union”. Trumping peace, prosperity and democracy It is not easy to find a sequel to the success the Union had – with bringing peace, prosperity...

Not far south of Brussels is the village of Waterloo. In the museum of the battle there is one painting that should touch the heart of even the most cynical Eurosceptic. It depicts the French cavalry attacking one of the diamond-shaped British infantry positions. The field in front of the diamond is so thickly covered with bodies that the horses are unwilling to charge, refusing to step on the corpses. The historic achievement of the European Union is that it brought lasting peace, prosperity, democracy and respect of human rights to a continent whose nations waged wars with each other for centuries. Only in the last two centuries blood was shed in the Napoleonic wars, Franco-German wars, Balkan wars, and Crimean war, not to mention the massacres of the First and Second World Wars. Since 1945 most Europeans have been enjoying the longest period of peace in its history. In a sense the European Union put an end to a thousand year old problem on how to divide the Lotharingia part of the C...

  One of the topics discussed at the   ESPAS  conference in Brussels this week was about the implications of rapidly rising average longevity in advanced countries for the pension and social security systems. The short answer to that question is simple: our pension and social security systems cannot deal will as many old people as demographers are predicting. But the problem is not unsolvable – we simply need fewer old people. And this is not an impossible task if we dare to re-frame the issue. There is a lot that we know about ageing and longevity. Each year our life expectancy increases by three months. What we know is that all the people that will be old in 2030 are alive today. Even people who will be old in 2070 are alive today. And, I would dare say, some people who will be old in 2130 are alive today. Singularity University considers the infinite life span, in addition to infinite energy and infinite machine intelligence the three elements of singularity that will ...

I went through a painful iTunes experience. Had to. I try to avoid iTunes as much as possible, but since I wanted to update iOS version on my iPad, it was not possible to avoid it. The bottom line is that it sucks as a device management tool. Here's why: iTunes is not a device management tool It is a media management tool. It was made to put music and videos to iPod which started as an MP3 player. Some say it sucks there as well. I don't care. I copy photos as files, I transfer music with MediaMonkey and use mail and Dropbox to manage documents. iTunes is patched to be a device management tool with key functions obscured by the media-optimized interface. Sync doesn't One of the most scary checkboxes in the Apple universe is the " Sync Apps ". User is warned that if selected, all apps installed by the user on device will be removed. And they are. The trick is that before one does that, it makes sense to " transfer purchases ". So that after ...

Plenty has been written about Monti’s taking charge of Italy. But there is another dimension in his appointment. A wise man will be joining the The European Council. Mario Monti was a member of the Reflection Group on the Future of Europe, also known as the Wise Men’s Group of Felpie Gonzales. I have been observing, admiring and learning from “il professore” for almost two years. Not only were his proposals intelligent. Wise was the way in which they were put forward and diplomatic the ways in which he was building support for them. His main theme at the time was a grand bargain: more single market in exchange for tax harmonization. This was back in 2010 when the debt numbers were small. Today, behind the round table of the European Council, he will need to build alliances for an even grander bargain: More solidarity in resolving the sovereign debt crisis in exchange for less sovereignty of the member states, and, here comes the carrot, greater overall economic growth. The indebted per...