tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32197376735751010282024-03-14T02:11:34.497+01:00Growth, jobs and moreŽiga Turk blogging about issues of European politics, growth, innovation, creativity, communication technology. Includes posts originally published at BlogActiv, DigitalPost and few others.Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-58604142671206061042022-11-24T13:14:00.001+01:002022-12-08T10:54:39.636+01:00Bye, Bye Blogger<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7RCfAFVzSQvaAl9C5HZRTJTTE2PVkVbaIU95t-RSWF5rnFXetIAChqfqUK5GpkEngLZE3iql9mI5ueU0JzSNtl_j5GEuizcMWDFfV-vFQkDoLbCES-hJEIztkXAb6D_37kWY6ZT4z9stIfMD26Ciq7WofPzrBo9DyBdCGL-1dpheMwmC7NZuBKCzYdw" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7RCfAFVzSQvaAl9C5HZRTJTTE2PVkVbaIU95t-RSWF5rnFXetIAChqfqUK5GpkEngLZE3iql9mI5ueU0JzSNtl_j5GEuizcMWDFfV-vFQkDoLbCES-hJEIztkXAb6D_37kWY6ZT4z9stIfMD26Ciq7WofPzrBo9DyBdCGL-1dpheMwmC7NZuBKCzYdw" width="240" /></a></div><br />I started this blog, on Blogger, exactly 15 years ago. It has been a solid platform, but not much has been happing lately. In the meantime my English writing also appeared on ...<p></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.martenscentre.eu/article-author/ziga-turk/">Wilfried Martens Center</a> Blog</li><li><a href="https://www.euractiv.com/authors/iga-turk/">Euractiv </a>and Blogactiv (defunct)</li><li><a href="https://zigat.medium.com/">Medium</a></li><li>Wszystko Co Najważniejsze <a href="https://wszystkoconajwazniejsze.pl/autorzy/ziga-turk/">(All That Matters Most</a>)</li></ul><div>... and a few other places. Blogger was a place for "everyting else". And for backups of stuff that could vanish elsewhere.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am now moving it to <a href="https://zzturk.substack.com/">Substack, here</a>. </div><p></p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-86243377978387427712021-08-27T14:31:00.000+02:002021-08-27T14:31:40.277+02:00Updated! Synchronizing Moon+ Books on Android <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9j1G17eaKJRz-MeeZ3wzFkOlsODKiLFDUQU0padnJvLokgXhnYzrUpBgKjzUmMgHg=h900" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_9j1G17eaKJRz-MeeZ3wzFkOlsODKiLFDUQU0padnJvLokgXhnYzrUpBgKjzUmMgHg=h900" width="179" /></a></div>
I do a lot of reading on my Android devices, phones and tablets. After a long search I selected <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flyersoft.moonreader">Moon+ Reader</a>, the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flyersoft.moonreaderp">Pro</a> version. The killer feature was the way bookmarks and underlining is handled. I mostly read non-fiction and like to mark important passages. And I want to be sure my marks are available forever. After I am done with a book, I create an <a href="https://evernote.com/?var=1">Evernote </a>clip from my marks and comments. With Moon+ this is done with a single click.<br />
<br />
I did most of my reading on my Nexus 7 tablet, but when my phone was getting bigger I realized it would be nice to do some reading there as well. And it would be even nicer if I could synchronize the books, notes etc.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><h3 style="text-align: left;">Synchronizing book files</h3>
Moon+ provides functionality to sync books (.epub, .pdf ...) to cloud, but they are just pushed to cloud and this is the end of the story. They will not end up on your other device. So you need to do it like this: <br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Create a backup of the Moon+ main folder. Just in case. Many android file manages let you create a .zip file from a folder. Do it. </li>
<li>Get a <a href="https://db.tt/J9d1vhE">Dropbox </a>account and set it up. Or something similar.</li>
<li>On the device (old device) where you already have Moon+, open Moon+, go to Settings, and do a backup.</li><li>Set Moon Reader to use the same folder on the new device as on the old one.</li><li>Restore the backup on the other device.</li>
<li>Get <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ttxapps.dropsync">Dropsync App</a> or <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.tacit.android.foldersync.lite&hl=en&gl=US">FolderSync</a> and install it on both devices. The free version will be just fine since you will be syncing only one folder.</li>
<li>Set up two-way syncing across devices.</li>
</ol><div>This will get all your book files on all your devices. The above is important for .pdf files as the highlights made while reading originally formatted .pdf become part of the .pdf file.</div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Synchronizing highlights, notes and comments</h3><div>Moon Reader has a built-in option to sync this but is not very reliable if the devices are not on-line while reading. It will sync notes and highlights as displayed in Moon, ruin the dates when the highlight was made. This will not affect how the .pdf file looks.</div><div><br /></div><div>If things are not synced, reboot both devices, make a new highlight, and hope it is synced.</div><div> </div>
</div>
Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-75381256328111311512021-07-30T12:06:00.003+02:002021-07-30T12:09:25.323+02:00Rescue Operation<p>I noticed two outlets I was publishing at, the Blogactiv and the DigitalPost <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_404">went 404</a>. Thanks to the <a href="https://web.archive.org/">Internet Wayback Machine</a> and my email archive I was able to save the content and move it here - with original dates.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN8Q2wY1bHt6wZT3kk3WgNhlIYjtEfnhK_OsuM33YxXYtCIHAugHSaLw3D6iI290sxcZbD4phN5mOMKT1rt_qeDgxrN4XxLJQXVMVelRRavShk4ZM4fnBMmLYaa6Y4WjKiJD01XTZs3siW/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1732" data-original-width="880" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN8Q2wY1bHt6wZT3kk3WgNhlIYjtEfnhK_OsuM33YxXYtCIHAugHSaLw3D6iI290sxcZbD4phN5mOMKT1rt_qeDgxrN4XxLJQXVMVelRRavShk4ZM4fnBMmLYaa6Y4WjKiJD01XTZs3siW/s16000/image.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><br />Blogactiv (2007-2020)</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT81ZDrDLyCLElPrjXJbRZgUqtk41_GYpqZbsuiIEJatPopCtoyrpEoyTcx9ejcvt-6j7LaKvnvlDFeJAhq_PEi5ng9NlXEZE3r-ANOco-Xu5XbU0ZmEna6v-Uidi4-zdXt_4iA5z4k75f/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1782" data-original-width="993" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT81ZDrDLyCLElPrjXJbRZgUqtk41_GYpqZbsuiIEJatPopCtoyrpEoyTcx9ejcvt-6j7LaKvnvlDFeJAhq_PEi5ng9NlXEZE3r-ANOco-Xu5XbU0ZmEna6v-Uidi4-zdXt_4iA5z4k75f/s16000/image.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><br />DigitalPost (2015-2017).<br /><br /><br /><br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-37141368871809534192018-12-18T17:11:00.001+01:002021-07-29T17:13:33.970+02:00Tackling "Fake" News Matters<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">This is the cover/motivation letter to the application for the</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125160357/https://ec.europa.eu/commission/news/next-steps-against-fake-news-2017-nov-13_en" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #999999; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">High Level Group on Fake News</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">. It was successful. It tells a story why tackling fake news matters to me.</span></p><hr style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;" /><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In 1984 (yes, the year made famous by George Orwell) I was the editor of a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125160357/http://pc.sux.org/indexMMSlo.html" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">micro-computing magazine</a> in what was then socialist Yugoslavia. With a colleague we traveled by train to London to a computer fair. Crossing the western border included a long wait, inspection, payment of a hefty tax and dealing with rude police and customs officials. We were still students, young, full of optimism and we were dreaming up plans how <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">we will, in the future, get rid of borders using telecommunication equipment</strong>, electronically connect to the computers on the other side, get some data, process it at home, and sell the service abroad. No stupid Yugoslav customs official, no borders would stand in our way.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Ten years later I was able to do just that. I crawled the sites which at that time enabled the downloading of legal, freely available software and created a<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125160357/https://www.google.si/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwivnfrJ09DYAhUNmbQKHRi2DH0QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.zturk.com%2F2013%2F11%2F&psig=AOvVaw1s2m6j2h6hkIdvxEsL6IY_&ust=1515785610082615" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;"> search engine</a>. Users from all over the world were using a service in Slovenia to find software which they would then download from the US or Finland or Germany. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Open and free internet allowed a guy from Slovenia to be globally competitive.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Yes, by that time Slovenia became independent. In the meantime, in June 1991, Slovenia declared independence and a short war with Yugoslavian army followed. We did not yet have the internet at that time, but we had modems and were connecting to bulletin boards where people exchanged news, opinions, ideas. One such network was DECNET for users of DEC computers. Another was Bix – the information exchange of the computer magazine Byte. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">On those platforms we were waging an information war on what was really happening in Slovenia and Yugoslavia.</strong> Mainstream media did lion’s share of convincing the global public opinion on the just cause of our struggle. However, those of us who were spreading the truth* on the forerunners of social media also made a tiny contribution.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Ten years after the cyberspace borders fell, Slovenia joined the EU and Schengen, and there were also no more physical borders.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">I am mentioning these early experiences because they shaped an <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">opinion I am still holding dear – that open computer networks and free exchange of ideas are something truly valuable</strong> and that these liberties – to innovate, to think, to speak, to publish are worth protecting. I have lived in a country that actually had a ministry of truth and I now live in the EU where there are <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">no borders, not on rivers and mountains, not in the minds of its people</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Perhaps these early experiences influenced my work in politics – in 2012 as minister responsible for information society – I pressed for <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">implementation of network neutrality legislation in Slovenia</strong>. On European scale, at the Council of Ministers, I supported European solutions in that direction. It is important that all traffic on the Internet is treated the same way; that Internet remains open for innovation of new startups and new services. Before and after my venture into politics I was studying that as a researcher in the field of <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Internet Science</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">What does this have to do with fake news? <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Throughout history the powerful would want to control the flows of information in their societies.</strong> There is an emerging danger that the good intentioned fighting of fake news would put more tools of control into the hands of those who already are powerful – the governments and big social media companies. Each separately or both together could control which voices on the internet are heard and which are not. This is at least as dangerous as are fake news.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">finding the balance between the right to free speech and right to reliable information</strong> we should strive for two things – (1) <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">content neutrality</strong> which would require the social media platforms to treat all content equally and not abuse their platforms to push one or the other political agenda. And there has to be more (2) <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">individual responsibility</strong> built into those services – users and platforms should have an incentive to use real identities which lead to responsible persons in case of defamation, lies, libel, fake-news, illegal content etc. At the same time, anonymous accounts which might be fighting oppressive regimes should remain an option as well.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Finding a balance between free speech which includes <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">the right to disseminate fake news and the right to reliable information</strong> will not be easy. In my career I was working both on technical issues related to text mining, natural language recognition and socio-technical issues such as internet science. I have hands on experience with publishing on the internet in the era of freedom and publishing on paper in socialist Yugoslavia where a ministry of information was making sure fake news was not spreading.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Looking back at some of my research it is interesting to compare the early work on the impact of internet and social media on democracy and what we discuss today. In the pilot phases of the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125160357/http://espas.eu/orbis/espas/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">ESPAS </a>project I contributed the chapter on information technology. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">In the period of Arab spring and “color” revolutions, the Internet was seen as a source of good and a tool to fight bad regimes</strong>. Now that some of the power of the Internet has been exploited in the West, we are beginning to see its dangers. But it depends on how we <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">choose</em> to see it.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Post factual reporting, fake news and populism point to issues that are not fake but real and need to be addressed. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fake news are symptoms not causes.</strong> If the politics chooses to treat the symptoms of the disease we may forget about the real issues. At least this is my opinion and perhaps you want the HLG to be pluralistic in that respect. A have been outspoken about that on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125160357/https://twitter.com/zigaturkeu" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Twitter</a> and on various digital media (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125160357/http://www.thedigitalpost.eu/author/ziga-turk" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Digital Post</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125160357/https://medium.com/@zigaturk" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Medium</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125160357/https://www.martenscentre.eu/search-by-term?qterm=blogpost+author+ziga+turk" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Martens Center</a>).</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">I had several jobs in the academia and in politics over the past ten years where I was learning how to reconcile different opinions; as minister in two Slovenian governments, chairing HLEG on GEANT, member of HLEG on H2020 and now HLEG on Open European Science Cloud.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In a more general sense, a fantastic learning opportunity has been the position of Secretary General of the Reflection Group on the Future of Europe (2009-2011). It was chaired by Felipe Gonzalez and included eminent Europeans such as Lech Walesa and Mario Monti. In the final report titled “Project Europe 2030” we wrote, inter alia:</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">“In the coming years, the EU will need to pursue an ambitious agenda. It will need to bring the EU, its Member States and its citizens closer together; renew Europe’s economic and social model at a time when internal and external forces challenge its sustainability; <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">create the knowledge society by empowering the individual</strong>; make the most of changing demographic patterns and immigration; turn energy scarcity and climate change into opportunities for societal and economic development; strike the right balance between freedom and security; and contribute to shaping the world so that Europe’s values and interests are safely taken care of”</em>.</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The point on <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">empowering the individual</strong> to freely and responsibly use modern technology, to strike a <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">balance between freedom and security</strong> and to contribute to shaping global policies according to <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">European values</strong> are a good <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">guidance for the HLG on fake news</strong> as well.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: center;">***</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Fake news have been a popular topic recently. Many actors have vested interest in “fighting” it. Some <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">politicians</strong> would like more control over society. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Old media</strong> see an opportunity to get support for fighting on-line competition. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Social media</strong> would like to do make money on one hand and, sometimes, would enjoy the role of political king makers on the other. In addition to providing valuable service, some see <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">fact checkers</strong> as a kind of ministry of truth 2.0. On the other hand, quality information remains important.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">I have grown up valuing freedom, openness and European integration. As a member of the HLG I would make an effort to <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">keep the internet a tool for democracy and a force of societal good</strong>: of equality and pluralism, of freedom and responsibility.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">* The other side would call it fake news.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-20615852766222696742017-10-05T09:22:00.010+02:002021-07-30T09:24:27.822+02:00Time to Make Content Neutrality into Law<h4 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #f05a24; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 500; line-height: 27px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Nowadays, the main issue are not monopolies, not pricing levels. The issue is free and open space for innovation and the exchange of ideas. A law on internet content neutrality would ensure it.</span></h4><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The previous battle in the <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">war for a free and open Internet</span> was about<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> net neutrality</span> — equal access for all to the plumbing level of the Internet. The next battle is about <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">content neutrality</span> — equal access for all to the content level of the internet. Content neutrality is more important than net neutrality. It is not about what speed is available to what service but about what voices are heard and what are suppressed. It should be made into a law.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Net Neutrality</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">I was one of those ministers in charge of information society that pushed hard for enshrining net neutrality into Slovenian law and into EU directives. We had some success. While the net neutrality hardliners would not be entirely satisfied, provisions have been made that ask for internet service providers and telecommunication companies that deal with the lower (plumbing) levels of the internet to treat all traffic equally. And not, for example, give faster lanes to Netflix and slower to YouTube, faster to CNBC.com and slower to CNN.com. A policy has been set up that is making sure that the <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">competition among the service providers remains open and fair.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Content Neutrality</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">I define content neutrality as such policy of internet service providers that <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">treats content of all users equally.</span> User content is what a user of a service hosts or publishes to the service. Such as videos, writings, tweets, domain name address-books …</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">A non-net-neutral internet would discriminate the speed of access to two different services, for example Facebook and Youtube. A non-content-neutral internet would discriminate between different YouTube videos, different Facebook posts, different hosted blogs, different apps in the AppStore, different services running on its cloud, different names in the domain name service … If such a discrimination is not based on technical attributes such as size, processing intensity etc. but is the <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">discrimination based on the meaning of the content</span> then it would constitute a breach of content neutrality. </p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;">Content neutrality ensures an open and fair competition of ideas.</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Real world examples</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />A real world analogy to <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">net neutrality </span>would be a highway authority that would offer trucks of one company priority lanes over trucks of another company. Or a post office that would be delivering packages sent by Amazon faster than the packages sent by a small independent merchant. Or an electricity company that would deliver electricity to household A but not to household B.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">A real world analogy to <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">content neutrality</span> would be a highway authority that would be inspecting the cargo on the trucks and allow milk to be transported, because it is good and healthy, but trucks with soda would have to turn around, because some believe drinking sugary drinks is bad for people. Or a post office that would deliver promotional material in favor of candidate A but refuse to deliver material for candidate B. In fact, the Spanish post office just did something like that with mail related to the Catalan referendum on independence. An example would be an electricity company that would deliver electricity to all except those that use it to electrocute animals because the CEO of the electricity company is a vegan.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Host’s dilemma</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The real danger is not that some services or some content or some foods or some activities are prohibited, the real danger is that the companies providing the infrastructure — the hosting of the content or services — are arbitrarily deciding what they will host and what not. Much like the post office deciding it will not be carrying mail if it does not like what is written in the letter. Content neutrality means that all mail and all email is delivered regardless of the content. Net neutrality means that an email from Gmail travels as fast as email from Yahoo Mail. This example should make it clear <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">how much more important content neutrality is than net neutrality.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">While some infrastructure service providers have already stared the practice of not treating all content equally — the notorious examples include de-platforming alt-right content on YouTube and denying Gab app on iTunes and Google Play — I do not believe that the infrastructure providers have much interest in policing the internet for inappropriate content. After all it is not highway authorities that are trying to catch drug traffickers on the highways. It is the police.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Policing content is an added effort and nuisance for the Googles, Facebooks and Godaddys of the world. It opens them for all kinds of pressures and litigation. It is not their business, it is not their expertise, they should not have that authority. Currently they are caving in to pressure from interest groups and politicians that would like to have some content suppressed without the effort of going to court.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Some companies are implementing voluntary codes of conduct. I do not believe this is a solution: serious offences and illegal content should not be left to voluntary measures. Legal content should not be subjected to any kind of measures. </p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;">Arbitrary suppression of content means the end of the competition of ideas, the end of democracy, not to mention the end of open and free internet.</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Policy Recommendations</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Politicians should relieve the infrastructure providers and hosting services from the obligation to police their platforms and for the responsibility for the content someone has put there. And more. Infrastructure providers should be <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">required to carry any legal content</span> regardless of its perceived meaning.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Voluntary <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">codes of conduct should be about conduct</span> and not about content. Shouting from the audience in the middle of a theater performance can be and is prohibited. People that do that are thrown out regardless of what they shout! But the company providing electricity should not decide if play Hamilton deserves its electricity or not. The law enforcement and the courts should police the cyberspace, not the voluntary militias like the Anti Defamation League, nor the algorithms of the infrastructure providers, nor the Wild-West vigilantes.</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">Some argue that internet companies should be </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">regulated as utilities</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"> and some of what has been suggested above would definitively be solved if they are treated as a utility. But that would be two wide. Digital world is different than the world of utilities of the 20th century. The issue are not monopolies, the issue are not pricing levels. The issue is free and open space for innovation and the exchange of ideas. A </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">law on internet content neutrality would ensure it.</span> </p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: right;">Originally published at the DigitalPost.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-15968312379615494932017-09-12T11:53:00.005+02:002021-07-30T11:56:04.679+02:00How the ‘fake news’ crackdown could end up with almighty social networks<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">For me personally,
the most enjoyable moment in that whole “fake news” commotion has been the
re-discovery of the concept called truth by the progressives. Finally the
pudding of post-modernism relativism was made available for eating. And it did
not taste well.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">However,
fake news and related phenomena, such as echo chambers and social bots, are a
matter of concern for the entire political spectrum. Politicians and media feel
challenged or even threatened by it. Some are even suggesting that in order to
save democracy we need to regulate social media just like the printed press.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The issue
boils down to the balance between the right of free speech and the danger of
false information. There is a growing tendency to make the danger look bigger
and the issue of freedom of speech smaller in order to achieve balance and thereby
justify more governmental control of the social media at the expense of freedom
of speech.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The
advocates of tighter regulation of social media base their argument on a couple
of wrong and unproven assumptions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">The first wrong assumption is the gravity of
the problem.</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> It is
simply not as bad as that “<i>The
functioning of democracies is at stake. Fake news is as dangerous as hate
speech and other illegal content</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">It is not
as dangerous as hate speech and it is not illegal. Functioning of democracy is
not at stake if two elections made “wrong” decisions. Good arguments gave been given that fake news
did not have a serious impact on either the US elections or Brexit. And even if
they did. Politics has always played dirty. Information war, lies, deception,
false promises are fair game.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">The second wrong assumption is that possession
of truth is possible.</span></b><span lang="EN-US">
Most of the stories in mainstream media are supposed to be fact-checked and yet
this does not prevent bias or falsehoods. What would be fact-check on a story
claiming Iraq does <i>not</i> have WMD in
2003? If would be labelled fake news and suppressed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The belief
that “<i>the lack of trusted bearings
undermines the very structure of society</i>” shows a deep contempt and distrust
in the citizens as if they are unable to form an opinion without an authority.
In the past this was the Church, then the state and in the future it will be the
“fact-checkers”. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">How wrong! Truth
is not established by an authority. We are approaching truth in a confrontation
of ideas and arguments. This should be preserved without limitations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">The third wrong assumption is that those in
position of truth can be impartial.</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> The war of ideas will simply move from debating
the ideas on the Web to the meddling with the “fact-checking” authorities. Who
nominates them? Politicians? I am sure they would be happy to. Or will they be
“experts”? The “reporting” of hate speech is, as we speak, left to the
organized soldiers on the internet and bots. The fight is increasingly not
about ideas but about how to get Twitter or Facebook close, silence or demote accounts
that spread “wrong” arguments.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">The fourth wrong assumption is the attitude
towards free speech.</span></b><span lang="EN-US">
Advocates of regulation of social media claim that “<i>freedom of speech is not limitless. It is enjoyed only within some sort
of framing, such as ‘enhancing the access to and the diversity and quality of
the channels and the content of communication</i>”. This is wrong. Freedom of
speech is limited with other freedoms, not by nice-to-haves diversity and
quality! They say that “<i>it would be rather
naïve to guarantee totally unrestricted freedom of speech to those whose
long-term aim is to destroy democracy and its freedoms altogether.</i>” Then
the whole idea of the freedom of speech is naïve. If it is not hate speech, if
it is not a credible call to commit a crime, if it cannot be privately
prosecuted as libel, it has to be free.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">The real problem<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In the
effort to exaggerate the problem on one hand, and to water down the issue of
free speech on the other we are missing a bigger issue. And that is the danger
that the authority to control thought and speech is outsourced to the industry.
There is also an emerging danger that the “big-social” (Facebook, Twitter,
Google, Snap …) will abuse its power to shape public opinion and to form, in
bed with big government, a controlled cyberspace environment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">To make big-social
fight the fake news, they would be treated as newspapers. If they are
newspapers they can legitimately lean to one or the other political side, as
most newspapers do. This would then allow Facebook or Twitter to actively
promote certain political parties. If they are forced down that road, image how
much worse the echo-chamber problem would get, when the other side organizes
their own social network. We will have, for example, the left on Twitter and
the right on Gab!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I am
convinced that is important that the big-social offers a neutral and impartial
platform for the exchange of ideas. If anything this is something to regulate -
in the direction of content neutrality, transparency of algorithms and of decisions
whose accounts are to be disabled or punished in some other way for bad
behavior. Internet promised to be an open space for the exchange of ideas.
Let’s not ruin that! Let the big-social offer communication platforms and let’s
not drag them into policing what people think!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">All that
the legislators should demand are that the platforms are available for free and
open exchange of ideas. Not “<i>voluntary
code of conduct</i>” and not for big-social to “<i>have their own guidelines to clarify users what constitutes illegal
hate speech</i>”. What is illegal hate speech should be defined by law and
enforced by courts. Censorship should not be outsourced to social media
companies. If we go down that road we may end up with the alliance of the
big-government and big-social to create a controlled and biased cyberspace that
would dwarf the worst Orwellian nightmares.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">Freedom of fake news<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Freedom of
speech includes freedom of fake news. Existing laws for hate speech, libel and
copyright infringement should be used against the authors not against the big-social.
Measures are needed to strengthen individual responsibility and not to ask the
big-social to police the internet. Real name policy should be promoted by
labelling content that has real name and thus responsible authors. This is also
a cure against the future threat of AI and bots interfering in places where
humans socialize. Verified accounts are a good step in this direction.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p>The disease
of politics are fake politicians, fake policies, fake statistics, fake
promises. Fake news are just a symptom. We should be treating the disease. And
the best way to make a distinction between the bad and fake and the good and
real is through a clash of ideas. The future of our civilization depends on
preserving the internet as an open space for a free exchange of ideas. Any kind
of ideas. </p><p style="text-align: right;"><i>Originally published at DigitalPost.</i></p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-29337780096214367032017-02-09T11:48:00.008+01:002021-07-30T11:50:47.659+02:00Why a crackdown on fake news is a bad idea<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white;"><span lang="EN-US">One of the
promises of the internet has been that it will bring about better democracy (</span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Prospect-Internet-Democracy-Michael-Margolis/dp/0754675149"><span lang="EN-US">here</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> and </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Internet-democracy-walled-Guardian-ebook/dp/B0085MJ484"><span lang="EN-US">here</span></a><span lang="EN-US">, for example). Even before the web was invented,
Vannevar Bush, the creator of the hypertext concept and the Memex machine
expected science and information will lead to a better society (</span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Science-Democracy-Oxford-Studies-Philosophy/dp/0195165527"><span lang="EN-US">source</span></a><span lang="EN-US">). Since 1990s, when those ideas started to
materialize, everybody saw that the internet is vastly increasing the access to
information and the ease of connecting people. The conventional wisdom has been
that better informed citizens would be making better political decisions and
that the more connected people will also be forging a more tightly connected
society. This would both lead to e- (for electronic) or i- (for internet)
democracy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">Peak eDemocracy<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">In
retrospect, it would appear that the <b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">peak eDemocracy</span></b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> optimism was reached in 2008</span>
with the election of Barack Obama as the president of the United States. His
was one of the first campaigns where the internet played a major, some would
say decisive, role. Facebooks revolutions, Ukrainan and Arab Springs reinforced
the hope in the positive change that information technology can bring to the
world. Social media like blogs, Facebook and Twitter were the heroes of the
day. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Revolutions were won
on Twitter and dictators toppled on Facebook.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">And then
Brexit and Trump won. No longer are the social media the heroes of the day. On
the contrary. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The internet
is now blamed for results that were not what the main stream media and the
intelligentsia recommended.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">There is an
old saying that on the internet no one knows you are a dog. On Facebook no one
knows your news company has a skyscraper on Manhattan or offices on Fleet
Street. You could be a teenager in Macedonia or an independent writing for
Breitbart News or an anonymous blogger. The internet would carry your messages
in exactly the same way as if you were a “proper” media. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Social Networks would disseminate
news based on enthusiasm of readers’ recommendations, not based on pedigree.</span>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">Brexit and Trump<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">For the
first time people’s opinions were largely shaped by their peers not by
professional opinion makers and thought leaders. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">We, the people, were the gatekeepers</span>, not the main
stream media. Greener’s Law – don’t argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel
– was proven wrong. It is a version of a saying you don’t argue with children
or the journalists. The first would in the end throw a stone into your window,
the journalist would always have the last word. Trump was able to wage a
frontal war with main stream media and was able to win it. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">On the Internet, the last word
has the social media.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">Ending up
in the losing side, the main stream media invented excuses and concepts such as
fake news and post truth. It had the opposite effect. People were reminded, on
the internet, that it was the old media that has been biased and openly
colluded with one of the sides in the UK referendum and US elections. News from
main stream media was labelled “fake news” too, just as was from the new media.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">Internet as a threat<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white;"><span lang="EN-US">For the
main stream media and main stream politics the internet suddenly fell of grace
– it is not a tool of human rights and democracy any more. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Free and open internet is not
seen as an asset of our democracy but a threat.</span> Politicians,
particularly in Europe, are speaking openly about the threat that Facebook and
other social media are for democracy. They are calling for the regulation of
social networks (</span><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/germany-fining-facebook-500000-fake-news-posts-zuckerberg-2016-12"><span lang="EN-US">Germany</span></a><span lang="EN-US">, </span><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ffe4994a-ec8f-11e6-930f-061b01e23655"><span lang="EN-US">France</span></a><span lang="EN-US">, </span><a href="https://euobserver.com/foreign/136503"><span lang="EN-US">EU</span></a><span lang="EN-US">). They
would like to ban fake news and make sure that only the properly verified
content can be spread by the users. It is tragic to see how happy the internet
companies are to oblige (</span><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/75796bce-d9dd-11e6-944b-e7eb37a6aa8e"><span lang="EN-US">Facebook</span></a><span lang="EN-US">). Instead of standing firm and not letting any
form of censorship interfere with the free exchange of ideas on their networks.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">The
established politics and media cannot afford that democratic procedures – with
the help of social networks – bring about a wrong result again. In 2017 there
will be very important elections in France and Germany and the anxiety is
understandable. But <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">calling
results of a democratic election or a referendum wrong is the essence of a
failed understanding of democracy</span> and of the impacts of internet on
democracy. That it causes wrong results. That democracy reaches wrong
decisions. What happened to the maxim that “in a democracy the people are
always right”?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">Friction free democracy<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.azquotes.com/quote/606860"><span lang="EN-US">Bill Gates famously said</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> that the essential contribution of the
Internet is that it reduces friction in the economy. That it brings buyers and
sellers closer together and is providing more information about each other. The
same that was said about the economic market can be said about the political
market. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">There is less
friction between the will of the people and politics. There is more information
about the people and about politicians.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white;"><span lang="EN-US">It would be
wrong to re-introduce friction – with measures that are essentially censorship
by some kind of an Orwellian ministry of truth. In Germany an organization
called </span><a href="https://correctiv.org/"><span lang="EN-US">Correctiv</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> will be telling what is the Truth and what is
not. In France a </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-facebook-idUSKBN15L0QU"><span lang="EN-US">panel of old media</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> representatives will be doing the
same.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">I have no doubt
in the good intentions of all that. As I have no doubt that the social media
companies are playing along not because of good intentions but because of
business interests<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">. I am
just afraid that it will backfire. Backfire massively. And the stakes are simply
too high.</span> The very existence of the European Union is hanging by the
thread of the French elections. And with the existence of the European Union
the existence of European Civilization. It can’t be protected by former
superpowers individually.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">Use the level playing field<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">Instead of
shaping the internet according to their wishes, the main stream media and main stream
politicians should make a better effort to convince people. The internet is open
to them too. They will need to do better than calling someone a fascist or a populist.
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">The net should be used to
debate issues not exchange labels and hashtags.</span> It should be used to
argue. To speak to people’s fears and dreams. This is not populism, this is
democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">Will we get
a wrong result? When asked if the French Revolution was a positive or a negative
event in history, chairman Mao answered that it may be too early to tell. This
may be a post truth story but it helps introduced my point. Which is, it may be
too early to tell if Brexit was wrong. I think it was a mistake. But I also
think blaming the internet for it is a mistake as well. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">And drawing policy decisions from this wrong
diagnosis would lead to even graver mistakes.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">The
internet is making democracy more challenging and open. Having friends and
support in main stream media is not enough anymore. People, not just journalists,
are gatekeepers and they need to be convinced. So let’s stop bashing Facebook, let’s
stop blaming Russian hackers, lets scrap the ideas for censorship of social
networks. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Let’s stand for
the freedom of speech with includes freedom to fake news!</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">The so
called populists thrive on “us” vs. “them” narrative. People have sympathy for
the underdogs. They elected Trump and chose Brexit against the better advice of
the dominant speech in the main stream media. If that domination spreads to the
social media as well, the job of “populists” would only be easier. Whole
internet cannot be controlled. Somewhere they will read how unfair the battle
of their David against the enemies’ Goliath is.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white;">Fake news neutrality<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><span style="background-color: white;">Out
societies need more trust. And that means trusting people that they will be
able to distinguish between true and fake themselves. And trust the idea that
true can win over fake without tilting the playing field against the fake.
Let’s trust in the power of true and the weakness of fake enough to <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">keep the internet and the social
networks “fake news” neutral and open to all</span>.</span></p><p style="text-align: right;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i>Originally published at DigitalPost. </i></span></p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-79333296311370315292016-12-05T17:14:00.001+01:002021-07-29T17:15:24.288+02:00Slovenia Celebrates End of Crisis with New Holiday<p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: right; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; padding-top: 10px; text-align: justify;">At risk of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210227181141/http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/eurogroup/2016/12/05/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">non-compliance</a> with<b style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </b>Stability and Growth Pact, running a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210227181141/http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu/countries/slovenia_en.htm" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">budget deficit</a> during an expansion cycle, unable to fix public healthcare, unable to do a pension reform, unable to address the public sector’s trade union requirements, but <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210227181141/http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu/countries/slovenia_en.htm" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">growing at 2.2%</a> … the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Government of Slovenia is celebrating the end of the great depression</strong> that lasted from 2009-2015 by introducing a new holiday – January 2nd.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">January 2nd is not actually new. Most regimes in the former Eastern Block introduced two work-free days for New Year so as to replace Christmas which was banned. Similarly they introduced two work free days for May 1st – for a good measure of social justice after cancelling Easter.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">May 2nd still is a holiday in Slovenia but January 2nd was cancelled at the peak of the crisis in 2012. It is now being re-introduced so that the working people of Slovenia “could have a proper rests after the exhausting New Year’s celebrations”.</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">Twitosphere suggested that the name of the new holiday would be</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210227181141/https://twitter.com/search?q=mirovdan&src=typd" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">Mirovdan </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">– the Miro Cerar Day. Mr. Cerar is the current prime minister hoping to boost his popularity with this “not populist” proposal.</span> </p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-49150370857276248812016-11-18T17:16:00.000+01:002021-07-29T17:17:17.902+02:00Congratulations, Mr. Trump ?<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">Trump won. Surprising for some, shocking for others, even apocalyptic. Nevertheless, European leaders send congratulation letters. They quite interesting at</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;"> </span><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">what they say</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">. And even more interesting at</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;"> </span><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">what they don’t say</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">French President <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hollande</strong> congratulated Trump, because that is a decent thing to do and “<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">natural between two democratic heads of state</em>” and pointed to the common foundations of the two countries</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">“<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">democracy, freedom and respect for the individual.</em>“</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">German Chancellor <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Merkel</strong> was more specific:</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">“Germany and America are bound together by values: democracy, freedom, respect of law and respect of people regardless of their origin, the color of their skin, their religion, gender, sexual orientation or their political beliefs. On the basis of these values I am offering to work closely with the future President of the United States, Donald Trump”.</em></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The European institutions did – as usual – a compromise between the French and the German solution. President of the European Council <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tusk</strong> and president of the European Commission <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Juncker</strong> pointed out that the cooperation between Europe and the United States is rooted in the values that we share:</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">“<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">freedom, human rights, democracy and faith in the market economy.</em>“</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Those who followed Trumps escapades in the campaign will quickly find the link between what was lectured in the congratulation letters and Trump’s raunchy campaign messages. Tusk and Juncker considered it necessary to draw attention to US-EU trade and refused to call TTIP dead. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">For each of the values listed in Merkel’s letter one could find criticism of Trump’s so-called fascist messages about Mexicans, blacks, Muslims, women</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">All four of them, and many, many others not quoted in this article, recited what are considered our common values. Indeed, such is the accepted wisdom: we may be different in EU and US, but respect for these values is the common denominator that binds us together, and which enables peaceful coexistence. These <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">values</strong>, so the narrative goes, are <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">universal</strong>. Failure to comply with these values suggests the breakdown of the liberal global world order and leads to chaos and war. One newspaper went so far as to call Angela Merkel the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">last defender of the liberal world order</strong>.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10.5px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;">Its not about Trump!</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This article will argue that:</p><ul style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 10.5px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">European leaders have <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">learned nothing</strong> neither from Brexit nor from Trump.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">That they have failed to recognize that the underlying values of the “liberal world order” are <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">broader than what they claim</strong>.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">That in order to <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">preserve the liberal world order</strong> we must embrace other values and principles in addition to those lectured to Donald Trump.</li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;">That particular responsibility for this have <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">centre right politicians</strong> like Ms. Merkel, Mr. Tusk and Mr. Juncker.</li></ul><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">This article will not</strong> argue about Trump’s rhetoric or his capacity for the job of the President of the United States. This article is not about Trump; it is about the common ground of Western societies. What it is getting from Trump is just a wake-up call.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10.5px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;">Cracks in the progressive consensus</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Perhaps the most important and deeper message of Trump’s victory is that the values Merkel, Hollande, Tusk and Juncker listed, and which we take for granted, are not the values on which the modern society rests. They are important values and should be cherished. We should all strive for “<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">freedom, human rights, democracy and a market economy.</strong>”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">But these are <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">not the only values</strong>. There are other. Empirical evidence for this is that Trump and Brexit were speaking to some other values and succeeded.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Not understanding that there are other values out there explains the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">inability of public intellectuals to explain what happened in the US or the UK</strong> without resorting to phrases such as post-truth politics and claiming that the winning majority in the UK or US is uniformed, stupid or even mean. Life would be easy if they were. But they are not.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10.5px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;">Science of values</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The scientific explanation for the blindness of mostly progressive media and public intellectuals is in Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory. It claims that people often decide intuitively and not necessarily rationally. That we base our intuitive decisions on six different moral foundations: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. The progressive commentariat only has a feeling for the first three of the six foundations. Many people – particularly the “deplorables” – additionally have an instinct for loyalty, authority and sanctity.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In his campaign Trump was successfully addressing loyalty to America and the need for authority of American leadership. His running mate Pence was addressing feelings for sanctity of American Christians.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This is perfectly illustrated by a post-electoral tweet by Donald Trump addressed to protesters rioting in the streets against him:</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">“<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working together as one people under one God saluting one flag.</em>“</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">To those of us living in a <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Platonic progressive cave and used only to politically correct shadows projected on our TV screens</strong> these words have an uneasy ring to them. They sound almost like “ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Führer”. But the latter is just a warning what happens if the centrist democratic politicians fail to base their policies on the entire spectrum of moral foundations.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><img alt="" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125163613im_/http://www.casnik.si/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/trump-600x374.png" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: middle;" /></p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10.5px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;">Conservative discontent and responsibility</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Of course, people in Germany and the US do not belong to the same nation, they do not direct their patriotism at the same country, but nevertheless, patriotism is a value they have in common. We do not share the same country, the same culture, the same civilization, the same God. But we share feelings for belonging and identity, like we share love of freedoms and justice. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Not only are common values universal, there are also values that, though not common, are universal.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">But it is not usual to talk about them. In a letter to Trump, nobody wrote that our common values are “freedom, human rights, democracy, faith in the market economy and also <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">loyalty to our culture, love for our homeland, respect of our traditions and religions”</strong>. Progressive universalism pretends that the second part (after the “and also”) does not exist. Or that it exists only in its dangerous extreme that should be swept under the carpet, labelled politically incorrect, demonized or even banned.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This is the point at which <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">conservatives should disagree</strong>. They should argue to broaden the common foundations of our liberal societies with respect for traditional values and recognition that identification with our communities, nations, states, culture and religion is positive. The <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">socialists</strong> will not do it, the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">liberals</strong> will not do it, and be assured, if the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">conservatives</strong> don’t do it, someone will. And then it will not be benign, it will not be balanced with the other values.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">balance of values is a unique contribution only conservatives can make</strong>. So far, unfortunately, the center-right missed the opportunity to do so.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10.5px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;">Imagine!</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Both Trump and Brexit have a message for the ailing Union of ours. To paraphrase Trump:</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">“Imagine what our European Union could accomplish if we started working together as one people under one God saluting one flag.”</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Indeed, in Europe we are not one people, but we are a single culture. Indeed, some claim not to have a God while others may pray differently. Indeed, we have two flags, national and European, not just one.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Indeed.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">But if we are unable to address people’s instincts of belonging and channel some of those towards Europe, Europe will not survive.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-29730804647111763892016-10-25T17:17:00.000+02:002021-07-29T17:18:25.833+02:00The EU Still is Attractive!<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">There are few good news coming from Brussels these days. The pundits are still wondering if Brexit will happen, hoping it would not and wondering at the same time how hard it will be. CETA negotiations are an embarrassment for the EU. They showed that not only one single country but one region in a small member state can block a trade agreement. To make matters worse, common market and trade policy used to be a least contested and best functioning EU policy area. Agreement on migration policy is non-existent. The Euro crisis persists. Turkey is cooling in its EU membership ambitions.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In all this doom and gloom it was so refreshing to see that the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Union remains attractive at least to some</strong>. Recently I took part in an event in Belgrade, Serbia, that gathered the government officials and civil society deliberating how to speed up the accession negotiations and how to better prepare Serbia for it.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Most striking was the enthusiasm of young people – students who were showing short viral YouTube videos (on chapters <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210227191625/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HTCjk6JGFs" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">11</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210227191625/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ-9T36qS6Q" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">19</a> i <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210227191625/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6rg41z4i-Q" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">23</a>) what the EU can mean for their peers. It was great to see that the youth of Serbia is so pro-European. Very clearly Europe is in their future. The event was organized by the Deutche Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit and the Serbian <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210227191625/http://eukonvent.org/eng/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">National Convention on the EU</a>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The latter is “a permanent body for thematically structured debate on Serbian accession into the European Union, between representatives of the governmental bodies, political parties, NGOs, experts, syndicates, private sector and representatives of professional organizations”. It has a numerous following and an impressive working plan that includes “shadow” expert groups on various negotiation chapters that will have to be addressed by Serbian negotiators. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">EU accession is clearly not a program of the governing elites</strong> but also of the NGOs and the young.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">I am not sure about the attitudes of the older generations but I not a pessimist. On the same day there was a celebration of World War II liberation of Belgrade. The number of vintage communist flags was much, much smaller than what we are used to seeing in Slovenia. But the elderly sealed Brexit in the UK. In Serbia they look towards Russia, who is a reliable partner of this also Slavic and also Orthodox country.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">There is nothing wrong with that, Russia is a European power, but <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Brussels would do well to recognize and value that there are European countries still enthusiastic to join</strong> and who are demonstrating that the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">EU still is attractive</strong>. It is one of these things that could disperse some of the gloom so evident in these rainy autumn days in Brussels.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-51300944141311198292016-09-15T17:18:00.000+02:002021-07-29T17:19:48.194+02:00A European future of Europe?<p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: right; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; padding-top: 10px; text-align: justify;">The key problem of Europe is ontological. We are not sure what the European Union actually is. Is it a free trade area, a giant NGO based in Brussels and doing good for Europe and the World, or perhaps a country in the making? The compromise answer, popular in Brussels, is that <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Europe is a project</strong>. The project is something that is not static, which is being developed, and has not yet reached its final form.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10.5px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;">Brussels vs. Bratislava</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">As long as Europe is a project, it is possible to talk about the future of Europe. As long as Europe is a project, it can be illustrated as a bicycle – standing upright until it moves forward. Euro crisis, migrant crisis and Brexit have slowed down this bicycle or even reversed its direction. One cannot drive a bicycle backwards. This is in fact the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">problem to be addressed by the leaders of the EU Member States this week in Bratislava</strong>. How to get the bicycle going again.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">They will, as many times before, debate the future of Europe, more precisely the future of the European Union. The point of this writing is that <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">if the European Union has an ambition to be more than a free trade area or a non-governmental organization, if it will be getting attributes of statehood, it needs a solid foundation for that</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Many agree that the EU should move in the direction of an ever closer union. And everyone agrees that a solid foundation is needed. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The disagreement is in what is the essence of this foundation.</strong> One disagreement is between the right and the left. The right sees the EU founded on the common market. The left sees it founded on social justice and solidarity.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This article is about another kind of disagreement. I will argue that <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">the future of the European Union can not be based on an ideology,</strong> neither left nor right; that ideology can not be a foundation of a union with an ambition to get some attributes of a country.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10.5px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;">Ideas vs. Feelings</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">I understand <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">ideology as a rational system of ideas</strong> – product of an enlightened human mind. Examples of such systems of ideas are socialism, free maket, environmentalism, multiculturalism, framework of human rights and the rule of law etc. Ideologies are the results of reflection. Many are good, some are also bad.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin: 10px 0px;" />That ideology can not be the foundation of a country is the main message of Samuel P. Huntington’s (of Clash of Civilizations fame) book “Who we are”. He argues that <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">countries based on ideology failed</strong>. For example Czechoslovakia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Author’s former home state of Yugoslavia was held together by the socialist ideology and the ideology of brotherhood and unity of nations. Similarly, Czechoslovakia and the USSR.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Alternative to ideology are <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">feelings, instincts and culture – </strong>everything that is pre-rational, subconscious, which is not the result of complex intellectual exercise, but people simply have it in their blood and genes. Those moral foundations provide, according to Jonathan Haidt, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">the basis for group cohesion and are the basis of nation states</strong>. These foundations include kin, religion, language, history, nation.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Therefore, Slovenians, Croats, Serbs, Albanians, Montenegrans, Macedonians and Bosnians wanted to live in different countries. Stronger than the cohesive effects of the socialist ideology, Yugoslav common market, free movement of people within Yugoslavia and common currency, stronger were the disintegrating feelings based in language, history and religion. In Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union too, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">instincts trumped ideology, common market and common currency</strong>.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10.5px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;">Elites vs. the Rest</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This superiority of stone age instincts over intellectual achievements is <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">hard to swallow by intellectuals</strong> and other reasoning people. It seems impossible that in the 21st century pristine senses of tribe and nation prevail over the achievements of the human mind, such as free market, common currency or social justice. But only to intellectuals. Most people do not bother trying to understand the reasoning how “good” is to have the widest possible community to achieve social justice (or free market). <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Ideologues of both central left and central right have a common problem.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Majority of people take a shortcut and listen to their instincts. These instincts tell them, that Germans will not pay for the social justice in Greece, while they may be willing to tolerate taxes to achieve social justice in their German homeland. These instincts tell them to charge customs on imported goods if this helps save German jobs. It does not help much if intellectuals explain that open markets (or social justice) are good for all. Somewhere deep down, people feel something. And <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">there is a limit to how far and how deep political elites can run counties against such feelings</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">divide between the reason of the elites and the instincts of ordinary people explain Brexit, Sanders, Trump</strong> and the whole host populist movements in the EU member states. In good times, most people tolerate or largely ignore ideology. The elites may be convinced by the rationality of the arguments even in bad times. But not the rest.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">It is intellectually appealing to base the future European Union on common market, human rights, social justice and solidarity but, in my reading of Huntington, it will not work.</p><h3 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10.5px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;">Geography vs. Civilization</h3><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">If the European Union should become a closer union – and I think in some areas it must become stronger – then this will not be possible only on ideological, rational, enlightened foundations, no matter how much are the intellectuals are fond of them. More Europe is necessary for the protection of external borders, maintaining security, ensuring free market and the rule of law. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">But the foundation should be the European identity: who we are, how we are, and how we are different from that which is not Europe</strong>. Elements of this identity are religion, civilization and culture.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">A closer Union can be accepted by the European citizens if this Union is seen as a guardian of European culture and civilization.</strong> Or, if is sounds more politically correct, European “values”. It can be only as much closer as much intuitive awareness of European civilization exists within Europeans. Multicultural Europe seems a good idea to those who are not part of European culture and to the enlightened minority that hopes noble ideas can trump basic human instincts.</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">In reality, however,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;"> </span><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">Europe founded on ideology is bound to fail</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">.</span> </p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-26865987003480611902015-11-18T17:19:00.001+01:002021-07-29T17:21:17.204+02:00Remember Paris!<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">Indeed, huge majority of Muslims are not terrorists. But majority of perpetrators of terrorist acts in Europe since 2001 are Muslims. That fifteen million European Muslims generate more terrorist – including the thousands that travel to join ISIS – than half a billion of Europeans shows that their</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;"> </span><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">integration in Europe, especially in France, is failing</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">What can’t Europe do?</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq did achieve little but regrouping of radical Islamists into a different organization. Bombing the Middle East to stone age will not achieve much either. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">We should stop the migration flows and improve the border controls.</strong> This would make sense at least until we learn how to better integrate Muslims into our societies.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">But what about all those who <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">already are in Europe?</strong> Again, I do not believe much can be achieved by violence. Fencing off Muslim ghettos or sending young jobless people to labor camps is unjust, inhumane and stupid. Policing and security checks are just the last line of defense.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Battles with Islamists may be won with weapons, the war not.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Maybe we need more social workers for Muslim neighborhoods. More basketball and football fields. More and better teachers at schools. More jobs and/or higher welfare. Maybe. I am not so sure, because these services are quite extensive already.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Win the culture war</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Recently it became politically incorrect to claim that at least in the last five hundred years, the European civilization has been by far the most successful one on the planet and with clearly superior achievements to its neighbors across the Mediterranean. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Calling that Eurocentrism does not make these claims false</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Europe did not achieve that because of some kind of racial or genetic superiority. We did not have better hardware, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">we had better software</strong>. The fight with Islamic extremism is a fight of two softwares – one that enabled the most successful civilization on earth and the other that – if used dogmatically – was keeping whole nations in the middle ages.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">It simply needs to become more attractive to be a member of European civilization. It should become “in” not to be a member of a local gang of immigrants, but part of the civilization that built the Champs Elysées, Tulleries and the Arc de Triomphe, Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Church of Saint Sulspice and the Eiffel Tower, the civilization that has painted the artwork in the Louvre and Orsay, be a part of a country that gave humanity Joan of Arc, Louis Pasteur, Marie Courie and Claude Debussy.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">How does this compare to the achievements of the countries that Muslims came from? <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Politically incorrect question?</strong> Here is a politically incorrect answer: at the climax of their power they added minarets to the largest building on earth at the time – Christian church of Haiga Sofia. And not much else. OK, I am exaggerating. The Arab Science in the Middle Ages had quite a few achievements but was held back in the ivory towers. Western Science changed the world.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Why are we Westerners unable to <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">share the pride</strong> in the achievements of our brilliant civilization to the immigrants? Why not all of them want to become a contributing force of this?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Muslim youth could participate in the construction of the largest aircraft and the fastest trains in the world, instead some are planning to bomb them. Europe had an open border for a long time, they were welcomed, and yet so many remain strangers.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">But not with relativism</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Perhaps this is so because some of the Westerners lost faith in themselves, lost the pride in their own achievements and roots. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Yes, I am talking about you who were appalled by the deliberate political incorrectness and Euro-supremacism</strong> of last couple paragraphs.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">How to give an African or an Arabian a wish to become part of this great civilization, if some Europeans prefer to deny their fathers, religion, civilization and its achievements? How can becoming a European be attractive if values that are immanently European are labelled “universal human values”?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">No, comrades, Liberté, égalité, fraternité are not universal human values. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, neither. These are Western values. Fabrique en France, made in the USA!</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin: 10px 0px;" />As long as some are ashamed to be European we can’t expect immigrants to wish to become a part of our society and culture.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This society is secular in principle with enough of <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">room for Muslim faith, culture and identity</strong>, but without genital mutilation of women, arranged marriages of minors, gender inequality, stoning of gays and bloggers etc.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">If being European is not able to inspire, then it is only right that Europe is occupied by a culture which can. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The vacuum created by relativism, conceptual entropy and cultural capitulation will be filled with something. Anything, including Salafism.</strong> The sooner the better. There will be fewer victims.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Remember Paris 1789</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">But if it matters to be European, then <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">European must be our response to the atrocities</strong>. Civilized not barbaric, determined, not wishy-washy, proud not shy. Guilt is always individual and never collective. Their way is to kill the innocent, our method is to process the suspects. Sharpy, strongy and fairly.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">If we want to win the war of culture the last thing we should do is abandon our principles and values.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">As long as it is proven otherwise, everybody, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Muslims and non-Muslims, are free and equal</strong> first-class citizens with all their freedoms, rights and duties. Equal they are and equal we have been, maybe because 2000 years ago someone said that we are all children of God. And definitively because it was in Paris in 1789 where someone wrote: “People are born free and with equal rights.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Not only if we forget what that means but also if we deny who and in what tradition invented this, in both cases, Europe as we know it, is dead.</strong></p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-22940982061054865182015-10-30T17:24:00.000+01:002021-07-29T21:46:44.862+02:00Internet after Net Neutrality Regulation: The best is yet to come<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">People argue. Some argue to prove that they are right. Others argue to make things right. For the time being, the argument about net neutrality is over. The Regulation does not go neutral all the way, but it would be</span><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;"> wrong to claim that this was a defeat for net neutrality</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">just for the sake of proving how right the advocates of harder net neutrality provisions were.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In the days after, the Internet is full of panicky messages how terrible the Internet is going to become. How after the passing of the Regulation company such-and-such will now act so-and-so and this would be just terrible for everyone.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The first thing to be said is that if the Regulation was rejected, company such-and-such could be doing so-and-so anyway. As they were able to do so before Tuesday. With the exception of The Netherlands and Slovenia, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">protection of net neutrality in Europe is now stronger, not weaker</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">From here onward there are two options.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">1) Activists can use the argument of company such-and-such as a proof that they were right. That Internet will be turning into living hell, congested, full of paywalls and commercial service. That, as the doomsayers and fearmongers were saying all along, the Internet as we know it, is dead. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">This is exactly the interpretation that the part of the industry that was against net neutrality wants to prevail. Do you really want to help them?</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">2) On the other hand we can argue that company such-and-such should not start behaving so-and-so. Absolutely not. That the Regulation is not as toothless and that it explicitly prohibits it. That it is, even without the amendments, perfextly clear.<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin: 10px 0px;" />That, for example, “optimized service” (Article 3, paragraph 5) does pop into existence because a telco will give priority to some service’s traffic, but that it is vice versa. And that the “optimized service” should not be available through internet access in the first place. Like digital TV you may have at home.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">In summary</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Now it the time to fight for the interpretation of the clauses <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">as adopted</em>. Before Tuesday it made some sense to panic about how weak they are. After Tuesday we need to read them in the way that advances net neutrality.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Indeed even in the most “neutral” reading the clauses will not satisfy the purists, but I remain convinced that the Frank Sinatra quote still applies to the Internet. “The best is yet to come”.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-50889637806331613232015-10-16T17:24:00.002+02:002021-07-29T17:33:20.693+02:00Slovenia: Bad Bank Going Badder<p> <strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">In about tweet: Slovenia created a “bad bank” to solve the banking crisis. It hired Scandinavians to run it independently of old boys’ networks. They got too independent and were sacked.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">As a measure for saving its failing banking sector, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Slovenia in 2013 established a “bad bank”</strong>, officially called <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125181858/http://www.dutb.eu/en/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Bank Assets Management Company</a> (BAMC). The BAMC purchased some 1.6B€ worth of non-performing assets from the banks which were also recapitalized by the government with some 4B€. Total cost of the operation is over 5.5B€ which is a lot of taxpayer money for a country with a population of only 2 million.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In 2013 Slovenian government <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">hired few foreigners – independent of the local business milieu – to manage BAMC</strong>. Their independence proved unpleasant, to say the least.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The next government lowered their salaries mid-term, hoping they would quit. They did not. Possibly they found other means to remunerate their work. Possibly not. Then BAMC was investigated by the local Court of Audit and the local Commission for the Prevention of Corruption. Both institutions have been exploited for political battles in the past. Ironically, while having problems with the local watchdogs, the BAMC was certified internationally by <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125181858/http://www.ethic-intelligence.com/experts/9715-bank-asset-management-company-strengthens-anti-corruption-compliance-certification/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Ethic Intelligence</a> for its program to prevent corruption.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In the beginning of October a media campaign was launched that claimed that the foreign executives of the BAMC did not adjust their salaries to the government regulations. All national dailies and TV stations, without exception, played along in unison in a populist exploitation of envy and xenophobia.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Last week the centre-left <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">government fired Chairman of the Management Board</strong> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125181858/https://www.linkedin.com/pub/lars-nyberg/25/607/344" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Lars Nyberg</a> and CEO Torbjörn Manson claiming it “lost confidence” in them<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Old boys’ privatization<br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin: 10px 0px;" /></strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In the root of the matter was the privatization as it unfolded in Slovenia. Often it would have the form of the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">management buyout</strong> – the people who were managing the company would get a loan from the state owned bank to buy the company and then pay back the loan from the profits that the company was making.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">There were two problems with this approach. Firstly, many would get the loan simply because they were part of the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">old boys network</strong> that controlled the Slovenian economy and banking ever since Slovenia was still a Socialist Republic.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">And secondly, the economic crisis of 2008-2014 did hurt the businesses. They simply did not generate enough profit any more for the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">repayment of the loans</strong>. It could be that the crisis in Slovenia took such a long time precisely because of the unwillingness to admit that the old boys were are about to loose much their wealth and most governments were trying to postpone that.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Enters “bad bank”</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Many such assets were transferred to the “bad bank” which was trying to make the best of that property; <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">the best for Slovenian taxpayer</strong> and not for the owners or managers of the failing companies.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The trigger for the events described seems to have been the case of the Sava Holding Company. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125181858/http://www.slovenskenovice.si/sites/slovenskenovice.si/files/article_attachments/lars_nyberg_miro_cerar.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">A must read is a letter by Lars Nyberg to the Prime Minister</a>. If the reader has failed to look at author’s CV on <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125181858/https://www.linkedin.com/pub/lars-nyberg/25/607/344" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">LinkedIn</a> earlier, now could be the time. This is his conclusion:</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">In the Sava case, given what I have seen and read, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">I feel a smell of corruption in every corner</strong>. Is this really what you meant in your campaign when you talked about fighting corruption? Is this the direction in which you want to lead Slovenia?</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Indeed this seems to be the direction. Old boys seem to be taking over the BAMC to preserve their property and the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">capture of Slovenian state</strong>, economy, media and politics.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The direction got an even sharper image just a three days after the letter. On Thursday police special <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">investigation forces raided the BAMC headquarters</strong> looking for “irregularities in salary and consulting contracts”.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The third Scandinavian at the top of BAMC team, Janne Harjunpää, is giving up as well, telling Slovenians to fight their own battles, that he is not their Che Guavara. This interview for Slovenian television is in English and starts at 0:52.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125181858/http://4d.rtvslo.si/arhiv/prispevki-in-izjave-odmevi/174365525" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="Capture" class="aligncenter wp-image-310 size-full" height="145" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125181858im_/http://zturk.blogactiv.eu/files/2015/10/Capture.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin: 5px auto; vertical-align: middle;" width="278" /></a></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Key quotes:</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px;">We are working on some high profile cases. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Apparently we have stepped on some very big toes.</strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px;">…</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">Mr. Nyberg is a very senior person who has seen a lot, is the former vice governor of the Swedish National Bank, he was the adviser of Barroso, he has been everywhere. I have a reason to think he <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">has a very precise nose</strong>.</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The political left, including the government, believes that after all this the “bad bank” will be better. Spelled with a “t”. The right mostly believes it will be worse. The title of this piece is a compromise in spelling it.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">PS. BAMC will be hiring. Newspapers are reporting that the government wants the top of the “bad bank” to be independent.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-84112854502151895792015-06-01T17:33:00.001+02:002021-07-29T17:35:04.998+02:00Net-neutrality in the Times of Crisis<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">In the context of the Telecoms Single Market (TSM) package the European Council and the European Parliament are revisiting the issue of net neutrality. Net neutrality is a principle of internet traffic management that says that</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;"> </span><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">all internet traffic should be treated equally, regardless of the content, sender or receiver</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">As responsible minister I introduced the net neutrality principle into the Slovenian Telecommunications Act in 2012, making Slovenia the second EU member state to <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">guarantee the Internet to remain an open and equal opportunity technology</strong>.</p><hr style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;" /><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Road to serfdom</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Neutrality is a principle used in public roads, for example, where the same speed limits apply to rich and poor, and same fees are charged weather a lorry is carrying computers or gravel. We do not believe that the road administration should be getting a cut of the profit that is made by those that transport goods from one end of Europe to the other. Because high priced Gucci bags are on a truck that passes under the Mont Blanc, Gucci is not expected to share its profits with the operator of the tunnel.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Yes, there are exceptions like the ambulances. And there are exceptions like was the trafficking cigarettes from Montenegro to Italy. The operators of the fast boats used to smuggle cigarettes got a cut of the profits. To carry illegal cigarettes was more expensive than transporting tourists. I do not mind an occasional ambulance, but not that internet architecture would <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">borrow business practices from the mafia</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Infrastructure as a public utility is a solution we have since we dismantled feudalism. In medieval Europe it was so that in order to pass certain rivers or mountain passes, the fee was not proportional to the weight or size of the load but to its value. Merchants were charged what they could afford to pay not what it cost the city to maintain a bridge.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">That same principle applied to the internet, so they argue, would stimulate growth and investment. As if the arrangements in the middle ages resulted in superior roads, state of the art rafts and bridges. On the contrary.</p><hr style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;" /><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">No bandwidth crisis</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Perhaps the greatest poet of the Middle Ages Dante Aligheri wrote: “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis”. We could paraphrase that into:</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18.75px; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain net-neutrality in times of bandwidth crisis”.</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">True. But <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">there is no bandwidth crisis</strong>. Yes, they wish it would be. Businesses like scarcity. Without scarcity power profits are harder to make. But there is no scarcity of bandwidth.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">I did my first service on the internet in 1994. It was a search engine for free software. Entire Slovenia, at that time, was linked to the Internet with a bandwidth of 256 kbit/second. This is the speed at which your mobile phone connects to the internet in some backcountry where 3G or 4G are not available.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Was that scarce? Yes, if you look at it statically, no if you take a dynamic perspective. The bandwidth has been growing over the decades exponentially and there is no technical reason it would not continue to do so in the future.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">If some control freak would try to address the scarcity issue in 1994 I am sure my service would not be considered a priority. As would not be a priority a bunch of other things people do on the Internet. But the net was neutral at the time and the local ISP simply doubled the capacity every now and then.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In fact <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">more investment into the internet backbone can be expected if the model continues to support net neutrality</strong> simply because traffic demands would be higher.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"> </p><hr style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;" /><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Shortsighted and local-patriotic</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">A painful fact for Europe remains its inability to create a Google, Facebook or Apple. And the response seems to be, if we can’t create such companies, we will sue them. Or bend legislation against them. Or we will destroy net neutrality so that our telecoms could tap into the profits of Google and Facebook. At the same time we will protect European culture by giving a fast lane, for example, to European movies and a slower one for American movies.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Had this been the policy over the last 25 years <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">there would be no such thing as the internet but 28 different Minitels</strong>, peddling the local services to the local population.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Had Internet not been neutral, we would not be complaining about roaming today as we are. In addition to complaining about 28 different prices for data traffic we would be complaining about 28 different regimes to access each of dozens of different services.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">To date, Europe was unable to create a digital single market. But at least the internet forced it to have single digital infrastructure. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Breaching net-neutrality opens the doors to further Balkanization of the digital in Europe.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"> </p><hr style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;" /><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Davids vs. Goliaths</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The fight for net neutrality is the fight between Davids and Goliaths. The Goliaths are not just the national telecoms that politicians tend to be patriotic about, but big American companies. They too could benefit immensely if the net neutrality principle is abandoned.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">If we do not keep the internet open so that innovation can happen at its edges, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">European SMEs will stand an even lesser chance</strong> of ever growing into a Google or Facebook. The Davids are the small companies where innovation comes from. They are good at innovating not lobbying.</p><hr style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;" /><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The goal – artificial scarcity</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Economists are very clear about this. If net neutrality principle is dropped, ISPs and telecoms will be able to create an artificial scarcity of bandwidth. Artificial, because in an industry driven by the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">exponential growth under Moore’s law</strong>, scarcity is not an issue.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Artificial scarcity is something business like the most. Unlike real scarcity that can be addressed with innovation, artificial scarcity is addressed by legislating, under the table dealings, privileges, quotas and other medieval practices.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Artificial scarcity benefits those with market power.</strong> It benefits the existing big players. If Google scares you, imagine, for example, how scary a Google – Deutsche Telekom oligopoly would be to those in the Deutche Telekom’s area of market dominance.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The minute fast lanes are introduced, the innovation and investment in internet infrastructure would slow down. What everyone will try to do is benefit most from the scarcity of the bandwidth. The internet, as we know it – an engine of innovation and a force for equal opportunity – will be over.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Even <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">the libertarians should understand that artificial scarcity in the hands of big business is a bigger danger</strong> than some rather straightforward regulation such as net neutrality.</p><hr style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 0px; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; box-sizing: content-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; height: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; margin-top: 21px; text-align: justify;" /><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">What politician are you?</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Tim Harford wrote, that</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">“a politician who is in favor of markets believes in the importance of competition and wants to prevent businesses from getting too much scarcity power. A politician who’s too influenced by corporate lobbyists will do exactly the reverse.”</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Less net neutrality means more scarcity power.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In the next days and weeks we shall be able to see who is who in the European politics.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-74029970156383930712015-05-05T09:25:00.004+02:002021-07-30T09:26:53.617+02:00More Hayek, less Schumpeter in European digital policies<h4 style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #f05a24; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Google probe seems to prove that the EU is way too focused on fighting old wars. However, if it wants to put in place a system where innovation thrives it must care less for the existing IT industry and do more for those that do not exist yet.</span></h4><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Already during the early 1990s – in the <span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20151016133504/http://aei.pitt.edu/1199/1/info_society_bangeman_report.pdf" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Bangemann Report</a></span> – the information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been politically understood as a strategic development priority of the European Union.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">ICTs were high on the agenda of the Lisbon Strategy whose goal was “to make Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy in the world”.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">In the Europe 2020 Strategy, the Digital Agenda for Europe is one of the seven flagship projects. Its overall aim is “to deliver sustainable economic and social benefits from a digital single market based on fast and ultra fast internet and interoperable applications.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Schumpeter: Profit is result of innovation<img alt="imageedit_3_3072764512" class="alignright wp-image-2284 " height="375" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20151016133504im_/http://www.thedigitalpost.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/imageedit_3_3072764512.gif" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="262" /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">European policies in the field of innovation are based on the Schumpeterian assumption that innovation is the key driver of economic growth and entrepreneurial profit. The latter is a politically wise compromise between the leftist idea that profit is result of worker exploitation and right-wing argument that profit is the result of voluntary and mutually beneficial transactions between two parties.</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #29aae1; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 200; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Joseph Schumpeter believed that investing in knowledge and innovation pays off. Therefore, public policies should create incentives for the enterprises to innovate and more should be invested in knowledge, innovation and any digital-related activity. Such idea in Europe enjoys large support.</span></h3></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The resulting policies include funding or subsidising research and innovation through Framework programs such as Horizon 2020, tax breaks for firms that innovate as well as protecting innovation through copyright protection, patent law etc.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">A kind of protection are also the regulatory and competition procedures that the EU has been regularly filing against high-tech companies that seemed too powerful at the time.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hayek: Open innovation to everyone<img alt="imageedit_7_4435674075" class="alignright wp-image-2285 " height="330" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20151016133504im_/http://www.thedigitalpost.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/imageedit_7_4435674075.gif" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 20px 30px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="270" /></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Schumpeter was not alone in believing in the power of innovation. Another Austrian economist understood the importance of innovation but identified a complementary issue – that the challenges are numerous, that ideas in a society may be dispersed and that as many as possible should get the opportunity to innovate, not only those that are already doing it.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">This idea – that the knowledge is “in the open” – became fashionable with the emergence of the internet, the open systems, the open source software, the open scientific publishing and the open innovation. But it was there since the 1930s under the general label of open society.</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px;"><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #29aae1; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 200; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Hayek would understand how important it is to build infrastructures that give opportunity to innovate, do not monopolize innovation, do not limit innovation to existing players and allow innovative companies and business models to emerge, grow and succeed.</span></h3></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">He would understand that excessive copyright and intellectual property protection harms innovation. While it is to some extent an incentive for innovation, when applied too strongly, these protections make patent portfolios a tool for limiting competition.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Scientific excellence, business impotence</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">When one compares the high quality of European education systems and excellent science on the one hand and the digital industry’s impotence on the other, the explanation is exactly in the balance between Hayekian and Schumpeterian view on innovation.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The innovation and entrepreneurial system in the US is open to new entrants. Many Europeans are going across the Atlantic with their ideas. The start-up culture is flourishing in the Silicon Valley and is well supported by the legal, business and financial mechanisms.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">On the other hand Europe is unable to create a company that could compete with IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google or Facebook. What the EU seems to be capable of doing is just binging them to court. Whichever company happens to be the biggest has problems with the EU competition officers. In this respect Google is the new Microsoft.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">But Microsoft and its media Player, Internet Explorer and Windows operating system were not dethroned because of the regulatory actions of the European politicians who are always eager to justify their existence by doing something “for the people”, “for European industry” and “against multinationals”.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Too slow to innovate, too slow to legislate</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">It is simply in the competitive nature of the digital economy that the playing field is levelled every few years. And a company can come from anywhere and become a major player.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Microsoft did that to IBM with personal computer operating system and desktop applications that included the infamous Media Player and Internet Explorer. Google changed internet search and advertising. Apple redefined the mobile phone. Facebook invented the social media as we know it.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Unfortunately it is not entirely true that these companies come from anywhere. They do not come from Europe. And no matter how hard the EU makes life harder for them … the next Google will not come from Europe because of that.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Media Player was succeeded by iTunes. Internet Explorer was not succeeded by Opera but by Chrome and Firefox. Actually what the EU tried so hard to regulate is today a commodity nobody cares about.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Browsers and media players are a thing of the past, apps are in fashion today. It is very likely that when the EU is done with picking on Google, we will be finding our stuff on the Internet through recommendations on social networks such as Facebook. And Facebook will be made obsolete by something like Snapchat.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Here’s why the EU seems to be fighting old wars. A lot of civil servants will have something to do and a lot of lawyers will make money in such legal procedures. Eventually the consumer will be better off too. But because there will be other companies innovating, not because of any legal action.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">More Hayek, less Schumpeter</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Competition in the digital world is fierce. It is made worse by the fact that every few years the whole scene is disrupted by something totally new. The EU should focus on putting in place a system where such innovation would thrive in Europe and will be brought to market and to Wall Street from Europe.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">To do so it must care less for the existing IT industry and the existing big science that takes advantage of the EU programmes. It should do more for those that do not exist yet, that do not have lobbyists in Brussels and who are not the usual suspects for getting public research money.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">It should unify and relax intellectual property regulation. It should do more for business start-ups and SMEs in science and innovation. Not to mention the common digital market. In short, there should be less Schumpeter and more Hayek in the European innovation and digital policies.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Or, in the words of the Bangemann report:</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">“<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Actions must be taken at the European level and by Member States to strike down entrenched positions which put Europe at a competitive disadvantage: it means fostering an entrepreneurial mentality to enable the emergence of new dynamic sectors of the economy; it means developing a common regulatory approach to bring forth a competitive, Europe-wide, market for information services; it does NOT mean more public money, financial assistance, subsidies, dirigisme, or protectionism</em>”.</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Titillium Web", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">What is depressing is that this report is more than twenty years old.</span> </p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-69899348461669361482015-02-03T21:47:00.001+01:002021-07-29T21:48:37.741+02:00Greece: its not about the austerity<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">Greek elections were not about the end of austerity and debt-write off. This was just an election narrative that captured the hearts of the Greek electorate and, surprisingly, dazzled large majority of the pundits, commentators and economists in Europe.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">As good as it gets</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">As financial analysts are explaining, countries like Italy, Spain, and Portugal are spending larger share of their GDP to service their official debt than Greece. Much of the debt has already been written off or “hair cut”, a lot has been reprogrammed, postponed, the interest rates on the European loans are quite small. The troika is not requiring any substantial new austerity measures anyway. Much of what Syriza claims it wants has been done already.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125171747/http://www.ceps.eu/book/grexit-2015-primer" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">words of Daniel Gros</a>: “… in the end, the difference between a government that has never made good on its promises to pay and a government that promises not to pay might not be that large.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">If not much will change with respect to debt and austerity, what was this election really about then?</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Economy?</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The problem of Greece is that it is not competitive, exports are sluggish and foreign investors are avoiding it. There is much to be done to make the country friendlier to entrepreneurs. This may include liberating the markets from the capture of tycoons and family networks that prevent fair competitive capitalism. It also includes a more efficient public sector.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The elections were hardly about this either.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Instead of a debate how to achieve that Greek economy would earn more, the elections were a mix of national and social populism. Like any populists, Syriza exploited natural and (in fact positive) instincts of compassion and patriotism.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">National and social populism</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The national populism was manufacturing an outside enemy in Europe and particularly Germany. The social one was spreading hatred towards capitalists and was promising hand-outs that the Greek citizens should be getting. Cheaper rents, cheaper oil, higher minimum wage, even more employment in the public sector …</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">National and/or social populism has proven a receipt for populists, anarchists and radicals to get to power. Generally few people fall for it. But under special circumstances, like war or major crisis, it works. As we have learned the hard way in the 20th century.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">What is also needed is wishful thinking by democrats. A conviction that what populists say is what they really want. Like ending the humiliation of a country and all will be well; abolishing a treaty; some other small concession.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Economists (equipped with a hammer they too tend to see all problems as nails) are already proposing a compromise between what Syriza wants and what the EU and the creditors need to stick to.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Power. To the “people”</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The real danger of Syriza and other populist left and right wing parties is their ambition for revival of ideology that has been proven wrong in the 20th century. Its essence is a disrespect for the human rights, the individual, her life, freedom and property.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The fight against domestic and foreign enemies in the noble name of social justice and patriotism was just a pretext, a side show, a slide show, to capture the hearts of the voters. Let’s not mistake this with the real agenda of the radical left – which is capturing of power and ruling the country, perhaps Europe, according to their ideological agenda. The agenda is to shape a “radically new post 2008 world”.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Center, left and right</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The radicals and populists may not be alone in this. Tony Judt once wrote that the Western European social democrats were always envious of their Easter European communist comrades. The latter could exercise the leftist agenda without the trouble of elections and without checks and balances of democratic society.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Today,<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"> traditional European left has a choice to make</strong>. Are left wing populists and radicals an ally or a competitor? Should they celebrate their success and join them in their struggle for a “better” world. Or see them as an enemy of democracy and liberty and therefore incompatible with modern Europe.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">While the left may be inclined towards <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">appeasement</strong>, the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">center right must confront populism with reason</strong>. That there are no free lunches. That hard work pays. That opportunities are there to exploit for everyone. That jobs are created by entrepreneurs and the role of the state is to make sure there is fair competition among them.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">That <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">solidarity</strong> is important too and it <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">is not just an internal affair of each member state</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Revival of populist and radical utopian regressions, not the debate about more or less austerity, is the story behind the curtains in Greece and beyond. Debating austerity and hoping for an economic compromise is a discussion about a smokescreen. Not entirely irrelevant, but definitively not central.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: right;">First published at <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125171747/http://martenscentre.eu/blog/greece-it-not-about-austerity" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Martens Centre Blog</a>.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-58514356162272072042014-12-27T10:04:00.002+01:002015-01-03T15:56:16.010+01:00Photos workflow on Android<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiao2jV_1slffNv6O-8h8p1c9PfYB5__nCMtBFexX9zEiVbj5BT3_NgKSC26TrIHcn4zI2ATwI0zit89RlmFrxcJddv5UK9T45mqGrsaUFTZPV7rYtjO2JNOSwfg1PvWt2gEHdtLrzIoV7Y/s1600/Capture.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiao2jV_1slffNv6O-8h8p1c9PfYB5__nCMtBFexX9zEiVbj5BT3_NgKSC26TrIHcn4zI2ATwI0zit89RlmFrxcJddv5UK9T45mqGrsaUFTZPV7rYtjO2JNOSwfg1PvWt2gEHdtLrzIoV7Y/s1600/Capture.PNG" height="236" width="320" /></a></div>
I recently switched from iPhone to a Xiaomi that runs Android. Taking photos is one of those things one uses the phone for and that too had to change.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This was my iPhone workflow</span><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Take photos in <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/camera+/id329670577?mt=8">Camera+</a>. </li>
<li>Review, delete or edit photos in Camera+.</li>
<li>Save to camera roll (long process that may required manually preventing iPhone from sleeping).</li>
<li><a href="https://db.tt/J9d1vhE">Dropbox </a>then pushed the photos to the cloud (again, quite a pain, because iPhone may decide to go to sleep while doing it).</li>
<li>Pick up Photos on a laptop, move them to a non-Dropbox folder. After all I do not have an unlimited <a href="https://db.tt/J9d1vhE">Dropbox </a>space.</li>
<li>Use <a href="http://www.ghisler.com/">Total Commander</a> to rename them and assign the time and date of when the photo was taken as the file name. Reason: one never knows when a photo editing software would change the times embedded in the jpeg. Camera+, for example, changes the file modification date but not, luckily the EXIF dates. </li>
<li>Use Picassa for final editing and organizing photos into native Windows folders. Photos are too important to be committed to a single tool. Like iPhoto or Windows Live Galley. Files and folders of the operating system are here to stay for decades.</li>
<li>The final destination is synced on a <a href="https://copy.com/?r=J19qVy">Copy </a>cloud for backup purposes. The main reason is that Copy is much more generous with free space than Dropbox.</li>
</ol>
<span style="font-size: large;">Here is my new Android workflow:</span><br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Take photos with stock camera app. In my case the MIUI camera app.</li>
<li>Review, delete, edit photos with <a href="https://support.google.com/plus/answer/3453521?hl=en">Google Photos</a>. It comes with Android, has a very efficient GUI and filters are as good as any other tool. From time to time I may use <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.worldiety.athentech.perfectlyclear&hl=en">PerfectlyClear </a>(to deal with exposure problems), <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.picsart.studio&hl=en">PicsArt </a>(if in artistic mood) or <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iudesk.android.photo.editor&hl=en">Photo Editor</a> (perspective corrections). Beware of photo editors that modify EXIF information and replace the info about when and where photo was taken with where and when it was edited (such as PicsArt)!</li>
<li>Let <a href="https://db.tt/J9d1vhE">Dropbox </a>push the photos to the cloud. Works like a charm on Android.</li>
<li>Use <a href="https://db.tt/J9d1vhE">Dropbox </a>(on another device perhaps) to delete duplicate versions of the same photo (edited, original, the one published in Instagram ...).</li>
<li>Continue on laptop as above.</li>
</ol>
<div>
The main post processing job with mobile-phone photography is choosing what photos to keep. The fewer the better. The workflows above are such that allow for ample opportunities to delete.<br />
<br />
If you have a tip or suggestion, feel free to leave it below.<br />
<br />
<i>Updated jan 3rd, 2015: Ditched CyanogenGallery. GooglePhotos is just as good.</i></div>
</div>
Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-45752120423751083452014-12-17T16:16:00.000+01:002014-12-18T20:42:46.051+01:00Saving Battery on Android <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://cdn.wonderfulengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Android-Battery-Optimization.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cdn.wonderfulengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Android-Battery-Optimization.jpg" height="170" width="320" /></a></div>
Android is quite liberal when it comes the use of battery power and tolerant towards apps that may want to run in the background. There are many apps claiming to save battery. But a few simple tricks using just the standard settings work as well. What is really important, however, is understanding how your phone or table work.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">While Awake</span><br />
<br />
There is not much you can do about conserving the power while you actively use your device. It just has to respond to whatever you are doing - reading books, browsing Facebook, snapping photos, watching videos or playing 3D games. There are a few things you can still do:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>keep <b>screen brightness lower</b> rather than higher. Just to keep the screen bright can use a half of all the power. If you have an OLED screen, make your backgrounds black. Standard LCD displays use a back-light that indiscriminately lights the whole back of the LCD panel and than the LCD just makes sure what gets through. OLED actively lits every pixel if it needs to be lit.</li>
<li>use <b>hardware acceleration</b> to display graphics if your device gives you this option.</li>
<li><b>optimize WiFi power</b> (in the advanced wifi settings).</li>
</ul>
Still, for active use, the device will drain 5-20% of the battery per hour. Reading books being perhaps the least power hungry and playing 3D games the most.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">While Sleeping</span><br />
<br />
This is actually where you win or loose the battle for a greener world. It all depends on how deeply the device will sleep while it is in your pocket on idle on the desk. The longer and the deeper it sleeps, the less it would do for you during that time. Like notifying you on that important update on Facebook, syncing the photos you just took, reminding you of a meeting in your calendar or an important mail from your boss.<br />
<br />
Properly sleeping, a device may use less than 0.5% per hour. There are three kinds of things that are preventing sleep:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Background processes</b> on you phone. Like that app that is recording how fast you run. Or that app connecting every few minutes to check new mail. Strategy: make sure that the stuff that you don't need is not running.</li>
<li><b>Syncing</b>. A bit like the above except that it is linked to accounts and partly managed by Android system. Strategy: do not sync while sleeping.</li>
<li><b>Antennas</b> catching signals from the outside, via 4G, 3G, wifi, bluetooth, GPS, NFC ... If someone calls you, the phone has to wake up. Should it also wake up if someone just liked your Instagram photo? Strategy: listen with an antenna that does not use much power and to events that matter.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Lets look at each of the three.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Background Processes</span><br />
<br />
If it installed it may run. If it runs it draws power and, more importantly, may keep the device awake. Unlike Apple, Google lets misbehaving apps into the Play Store.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Go to settings - apps - running and see if anything is running that you installed, tried and forgot about. Uninstall the bastard.</li>
<li>Remove any screen widgets that you do not need.</li>
<li>Remove live wallpapers. If it is "live" it draws power.</li>
<li>From time to time kill all processes running on your device. There are apps for that (e.g. <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cleanmaster.mguard&hl=en">Cleanmaster</a>) but you can also do it from settings ... apps ... running.</li>
<li>Prevent apps you do not want in the background all the time from staring in the first place. There are apps for that too (Cleanmaster does that too).</li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Syncing</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you go to settings - accounts - (an account like Google) you will find if it syncs or not. And of course you would want your contacts, mail etc. to sync. What you may not want is that the syncing happens in the background. I mean what is the point waking the phone up if you changed a contact's email address on another device. It would suffice if the syncing happens when you use contacts.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Since we do have our devices in order to be in sync with what is going on in the world, I suggest you set things up so that they sync. But get an app that will stop syncing when your battery is low, overnight etc. I like <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.hubalek.android.reborn.beta&hl=en">Battery Widget Reborn</a>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Antennas</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
The whole point of mobile devices is that they are mobile yet connected. They communicate with antennas but all are not created equal. Remember those old Nokia phones where the battery lasted a week or two? You can make your Android last that long if you turn it from smartphone to dumbphone.<br />
<br />
The reason why a dumbphone could last so long on a single charge is that that part of the phone hardware was designed with energy use in mind. The 2D/3G interface in your phone is talking to the cell tower every 120 milliseconds. And only if the towers says "I have something for you" (like a call, SMS or push notification over internet protocol) that component wakes most of the phone, starts the processor etc. etc. to fetch the data and process it. Like play that MP3 for the received SMS.<br />
<br />
The way these signaling works, how antennas are linked to the rest of the phone and how the physics of different frequencies is related to the power needed to communicate on that frequency, this is the summary:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Listening to 2G is least power hungry.</li>
<li>3G is worse, 4G even worse.</li>
<li>WiFi is, by quite a margin, the worst. Half of the hardware has to be lit up to listen if there is a packet sent your way over WiFi.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>So here is perhaps the most important advice in this article:</b></div>
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>turn off WiFi while sleeping</b>. This may increase the data bill a bit. But generally not much data transfer happens in the background anyway.</li>
<li><b>turn off "search for WiFi"</b>. You do not want your phone discovering WiFi networks while you drive through town. When you sit down and turn your phone on, it will connect to known hotspots and you will manually search for unknown ones.</li>
<li><b>use 2G not 3G</b>. It draws less power and creates a weaker electromagnetic field in your pocket. It is good enough for talking and SMS, you will get all your email notifications. If you would like to surf the net you should temporarily switch to 3G. There is an <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.softxperience.android.switchnetworktype&hl=en">app</a> for that.</li>
<li><b>turn off location services</b>. This is a bit drastic but at this time I do not know enough. Location services may wake up all kinds of stuff, including WiFi hardware and Google services like Google Now.</li>
<li>Goes without saying to turn off bluetooth by default as well.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">And finally, know what is going on</span><br />
<br />
There are tools that will let you know how your battery is draining. I like <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.smalltech.battery.free&hl=en">Battery HD</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/search?q=better%20battery%20stats&c=apps&hl=en">Better Battery</a> stats. It would help you discover that misbehaving app that is keeping your phone warm.</div>
Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-7918688218644096152014-12-14T21:49:00.002+01:002021-07-29T21:50:24.810+02:00Data driven innovation:if you build it they will come<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">In the EU we are often accused of having big government and public sector; spending too much; collecting too much information etc. But there may be a silver lining to it.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><img align="center" alt="" class="aligncenter" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20201230155026im_/http://www.ecinst.org.rs/en/sites/default/files/imagecache/foto_preview/foto-galerija/odrzan-samit-ddi-u-jugoistocnoj-evropi/googlesummit31.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; margin: 5px auto; vertical-align: middle;" width="300" /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In the globalized competition among the states, of course it is important to improve the level of services, cut costs and reduce the red tape. But it is also important to make the best out of the situation. Which is that the public sector is sitting on a treasure of data which costs taxpayer money to collect and maintain and in many cases citizen effort to provide.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Therefore it would be wise to make sure the data is either put to use or stopped being collected.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">It is highly unlikely that the governments would come with the only and the brightest ideas on what to do with that data. On the contrary, the growth around the internet has shown the tremendous potential of innovation in the private sector and the academia.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Zagreb Summit</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In the beginning of December I took part at a Summit “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201230155026/http://www.ecinst.org.rs/en/news/held-summit-ddi-in-southeast-europe" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Data Driven Innovation in Southeast Europe</a>“. It was organized by several organizations from the region and Google in Zagreb, Croatia. Members of governments, academia, civil societies and businesses from the region met to exchange best practices and discuss the innovation strategy. Innovation that should be based around data openly provided by the public sector.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">While Slovenia is also a Central European country, it shares a long common history and therefore institution types and public-sector culture with former Yugoslav republics. There are plenty of opportunities to collaborate and borrow solutions from each other.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">A <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201230155026/http://www.ecinst.org.rs/sites/default/files/page-files/white_paper_book.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">whitepaper</a> summarized the initiative and best practices. The message from Slovenia was very clear – “<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">if you build it, they will come</strong>“. If you build open access to open public data, developers and innovators will come and create services and apps on top of that.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">They will create services which are useful to the citizens. But not only directly useful ones, such as live traffic information. They would create services that would make the publicly available data easier to access and understand.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">By doing that they would contribute to the transparency and public oversight of that the people have over their governments and public sector that they fund. And thereby indirectly contribute to its quality.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">More information in the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201230155026/http://www.ecinst.org.rs/sites/default/files/page-files/final_press_release_see.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">PressRelease </a>and the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201230155026/http://www.ecinst.org.rs/sites/default/files/page-files/white_paper_book.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Whitepaper</a>.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-62616508055535891962014-10-14T21:50:00.002+02:002021-07-29T21:51:45.148+02:00Slovenia tries again<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">Some Europeans are deeply respectful of European institutions and serious about the jobs of the persons that lead it. It is a valuable project that brought peace, prosperity and democracy to the continent. It deserves full support. On the other hand, the Slovenian center-left was cheering to the song that refrains “Europe is a gang of thieves”. Somewhere in between these two understandings is the second nomination for the member of the European Commission from Slovenia.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Not serious</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Ms. Bulc has had a political job for a few weeks only. She has zero political experience. She has never been involved in policy-making. However,<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"> Slovenia is a country of political opportunity</strong>. For some. After a poor performance of the center-left government of MS. Bratušek, the voters this summer did not give a chance to the opposition. Instead they awarded Mr. Cerar, a center-left “non-politician”, with a landslide victory. The current prime minister was never leading anything bigger than a chair at a University. He set up his party a few weeks before the elections. He now leads the country. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The uneven political playing field in Slovenia makes this possible</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Why, then, could not an absolute beginner lead a portfolio in the European Commission? The decision to nominate Ms. Bulc could be interpreted as an indicator of a shallow talent base of the Cerar’s party and a<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"> result of poor understanding of the seriousness of the European project</strong>. Which I believe is the case.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">However, it could also be interpreted as a sign of contempt and disrespect: as if being a Commissioner is a job that does not require any experience. As if just about anyone who did some public speaking could do it.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">It is worth remembering that in August, when his opinion did not matter much, Mr. Cerar said he was supporting Mr. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Potocnik</strong>; then Ms. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fajon </strong>and Mr. Erjavec. Now that his opinion matters, he pushes his party loyal Ms. Bulc through the process. Though even in the government there were 7 votes against her, 6 in favor and 2 abstained. But technically not a majority against.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Mr. Cerar won the national elections on the ticket of morality and ethics. He is becoming a politician fast. Sadly Ms. Romana <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Jordan</strong>, two time MEP, PhD in nuclear physics and a respected member of ITRE was never seriously considered in Slovenia though she could excel in an energy, industry or science related portfolio.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The sacred feminine</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The second controversy that is accompanying Ms. Bulc’s nomination is her track record in the occult, in shamanism, in walking on fire, whispering to horses, annulling the second law of thermodynamics. The list of readings and links on her website is long and mind-boggling.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">If she is appointed a European Commissioner she could inspire the next <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Dan Brown’s novel</strong>. On how the sacred feminine energy, symbolized by the Zeus’s mistress Europa is returning to the center stage of Europe. Yes, the novel would take place in Brussels, not Vatican, Florence and Istanbul. Perhaps there are some some underground corridors between Justus Lipsius and Barleymont for Prof. Langdon to navigate.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">On a more serious note, I actually think Ms. Bulc’s appointment (a few weeks ago) into the Slovenian government – to a position similar to mine in 2007-2008 – <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">was not a bad idea</strong>. At a non-portfolio post she could not do much damage but could bring some out of the box thinking to the government table. Which can be valuable.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The way I understand Ms. Bulc’s consulting, it is about <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">making businesses more creative and innovative</strong>. Without going too deep into the theory and psychology of creativity, being creative means finding a solution, which as outside of the set of obvious solutions that a mind limited with rationality could come across. The mumbo-jumbo that she preaches could be a way to “overload” the rational brain and, with the shields of common sense and reason weakened, allow for “out of the box” ideas to emerge – in business, design, anywhere.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">I do not know if she really believes in the unscientific quackery that she lectures about or is just selling that snake oil to (naïve) business customers to help them be more innovative and creative. If it is the second, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Brussels could certainly use an occasional departure from the politically correct but often void phrases that dominate the bubble</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">She will make it</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The problem is the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">thin line between the irrational and the creative</strong>. If she can persuade Mr. Juncker and the MEPs that she can walk it, she will do just fine at the hearings. After all, it would be disrespectful and un-European to dismiss a second Slovenian in a row.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">There might even be sympathy for her beliefs in the parliament. In the West the appreciation of shamanism, African cults, conversations with horses etc. is regarded open, tolerant and <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">multicultural</strong>. She would be in much greater trouble had her blogs be about the visions of <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Archangel Gabriel</strong> instead of pseudo-scientific equations; and conversations with Virgin Mary instead of with the spirits of horses.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Commissioners were dismissed for less. In the European Parliament it is more dangerous to be a strict catholic (such as Mr. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Buttiglione</strong>) than a shaman. It is worth noting that we are speaking about European and not African Union.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Personally I am sorry that Slovenia was unable to look beyond petty party interests in the nomination of its Commission candidates. Ms. Bulc is not the best choice but has broad horizons, is intelligent and will hopefully learn fast.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The lesson</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">What Europe should learn from the saga with the Commission member from Slovenia (and a few others) is, that the Commission construction process is dysfunctional. The president of the Commission should simply have more to say on who he/she wants on his team. Parliamentary rejection also should not be such an exception. After all, the success or failure of the Commission is not the responsibility of the member states. It is the responsibility of president of the Commission and, to some extent, of the Parliament. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Powers, formal and grabbed, should be compatible with that.</strong></p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-53354007821032154862014-07-14T21:52:00.002+02:002021-07-29T21:53:35.769+02:00Slovenia: State of Denial<p> <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">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.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The results are a culmination of economic, financial, social and political crisis in Slovenia and, one can always hope, a step towards its resolution.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">From poster child …</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Its independence was a success story. It joined the EU and NATO in 2004, adopted the Euro in 2007 and was the first of the new member states to hold the rotating presidency of the European Council in first half of 2008. It entered the economic crisis with low unemployment, a budget surplus and one of the lowest public debts in the EU. Since independence it has been catching up economically. In 2008 it reached 92% of the EU average in terms of GDP per capita.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">… to sick man of Central Europe</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Since the beginning of the crisis in late 2008 everything went sour. Neither the economic nor the political system was able to handle it.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The crisis exposed the lack of reforms that Slovenia failed not make since independence that would complete the transition towards market economy and rule of law. Because of open borders and a softer version of socialism Slovenes were led to believe that not much needs to change after democratization – except to have more than one political party and to hold elections every few years.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Slovenia failed to make an overhaul of the institutions and of the economic systems that enabled some other former socialist countries with much worse starting positions to develop faster. As a result, Slovakia is buzzing with foreign investments, Prague is a cosmopolitan metropolis, Poland avoided recession altogether and is living its historic golden age, the Baltic states grabbed with both hands the opportunity to be independent after a long occupation and Estonia, for example, is now the E-capital of Europe.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Slovenia, now <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">one of the worst performers in the EU</strong>, remembers with nostalgia the 1970s and 80s when it was the richest and most democratic part of Yugoslavia and the entire Eastern Europe, and the 1990s when bright European future was ahead of it.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Buying time with borrowed money</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">During the last six years Slovenia had three different governments, center right for a bit over a year, center left otherwise. It was holding two elections that, due to a complicated political system, bring the government activities to a standstill for almost a year. During the brief interlude of the second Janša government in 2011, efforts to reduce the budget deficit and modest reforms were met with violent protests in the streets and resistance in the left-dominated media.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Except during that brief interlude, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Slovenia was buying time and was doing so with borrowed money</strong>. Since 2009 the public debt almost tripled, unemployment more than doubled. In 2013 Slovenia was running the highest budget deficit in the EU. The 2014 budget spends more on interest payments than on entire primary education. From 92% of the EU average Slovenia slid back to 85%. The educated youth is leaving the country en masse. Poster child is no more.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">State of fear</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">For a citizen, the years of the crisis were characterized by uncertainty about her economic prospects, jobs instabilities, looming dangers of reductions of salaries or cutting down public services. It was speculated that Slovenia will be forced to look for external help and face a Greek scenario. But actually there was not much of a belt tightening. The public debate reflected this nervousness and sense of powerlessness. It was fierce, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">everyone against everyone on anything; except the debate on what would matter – about key structural and economic issues</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This is the general context in which the snap elections took place. The existing left wing parties could not expect much support because of a rather poor track record of handling the economy and internal skirmishes. The economic message of center right were sobering but sometimes unpleasant; especially for those on the receiving end of government spending that would need to be reduced to bring the budget deficit at least closer to the Maastricht criteria.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The public debate over the last couple of years was not about economy, jobs and reforms but about corruption, allegedly corrupt politicians, and spiced up with ideological debates about the continuation of the totalitarian regime in a democratic setting.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The most prominent (but not the only) case was the alleged bribery in the purchase of the armored vehicles for which leader of the opposition Mr. Janez Janša was tried and convicted on charges of “accepting a promise of a bribe”. He was sent to jail just three weeks before the elections. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">That he <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201230155011/http://zturk.blogactiv.eu/archives/234" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">did not have a fair trial</a> (to say the least) is argued by most Slovenian legal experts regardless of their political affiliation.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This case dominated the discourse of the strongest opposition party SDS. They were pushed it into a corner where the battle was about the legal problem of its leader, about politically motivated judiciary and about ideology. They made little effort to break out of the corner and appeal to moderate less opinionated voters. They came out second but lost a fifth of their seats.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Enters Mr. Cerar</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In this heated political atmosphere the Slovenian people chose a person, who ran on a ticket of ethics, who seems to be a nice guy, who was not bringing any bad news, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">never said anything that one could disagree with</strong> and did not take part in the political quarrels of the last years.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Mr. Cerar was not the only one who was calm and moderate. The EPP affiliated Christian Democrats and the People’s Party as well chose constructive, tolerant, moderate language and had a modern pro-European program. And largely failed in these elections. They were not brand new and lacked the enthusiastic support that Mr. Cerar was getting in the left dominated national media.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The voters in Slovenia turned their backs to political quarrels. They chose not to face reality but to look the other way. And there was Mr. Cerar with a sober face and (according to some media) an aureole of honesty not tainted by a history of political involvement.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The day after</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Unfortunately reality is still there. Debt is mounting. Economy will have to open up to foreign investment and privatization, budget will have to be balanced, public services reformed, business environment will have to get more flexible and friendlier to entrepreneurs.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">I am sure Mr. Cerar is aware of all this and is well intentioned to address some of these issues. The problem is, however, that in these elections he did not get a mandate to do anything specific. Should he ever push any of his supporters out of her comfort zone, she could rightfully argue this was not what she chose at the elections.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Grand coalition?</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Since 2008 I have been advocating grand coalitions. One reason for this is the deep ideological divide that is hampering Slovenia and is rooted in the Communist Revolution during World War 2. A grand coalition could bring a remedy to this. The practical reason is that only right and left combined could move things in Slovenia.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The left, not being a modern social democratic left, is lacking ideas to reform the country. They would like to continue the pre-1989 system with democratic means. They don’t seem to include a reformer like Mr. Schroeder.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The right faces hostility of the informal power structures that remain strong in Slovenia – the trade unions, the media, many academics and the professionals in the civil service. But together, left and right could bring about change.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The elections did not give us the result that could support such a coalition. Indeed the Cerar party and the SDS have the numbers but not the will. Mr. Cerar would not get into a coalition with SDS because he claims that by questioning the Janez Janša’s verdict they are not supporting the rule of law. The SDS would not work with Mr. Cerar, because it is not yet clear what he stands for. The culture of political dealmaking in Slovenia is not very high.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The SDS is also questioning the legitimacy of the entire elections, due to the fact that the leader of the opposition was unjustly jailed just before elections. In fact the elections in Slovenia have hardly ever been fair. Without any right-leaning national media they have always been an uphill struggle for a half of political spectrum.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Failure with a chance</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">If elections are about establishing trust in politics and government then not much trust was created this Sunday. Mr. Cerar’s voters were not offered a substance to project trust into. SDS voters do not trust the outcome of these elections in general. Half of the population did not go to the polls at all. And the remaining less than a quarter of the electorate voted for minor players catering special interests of farmers, pensioners, public employees and left radicals. And without much trust from the people, a government cannot do much good. Especially in a stormy weather.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">On the other hand, elections always offer a chance for a new beginning.</strong> Not such a long time ago, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Slovenia was a success story</strong>. Perhaps it could be again. Mr. Cerar may not have a substance but has the numbers – the seats in the parliament. Now is his task to <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">turn the numbers into substance for the good of the country</strong>. He will need support in this, ironically, by those that are not in denial about the state of affairs in Slovenia.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-70239680478000006512014-06-23T21:53:00.004+02:002021-07-29T21:55:00.425+02:00Slovenia and the Return of History<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">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.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Known unknowns and known knowns</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">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 <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201230155012/http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140205/DEFREG01/302050031/Finnish-Court-Dismisses-Bribery-Charges-Against-Patria" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">all accused of bribery were acquitted</a>). And no, I was not present at any of the court hearings.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">But I did read the indictment, the first and second instance judgments, the opinion of the Slovenian Constitutional Court and the dissenting opinions of its three judges of the Constitutional Court. It is a few hundreds of pages that can be read and which <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">provide a complete information</strong>. Not on how they were buying the armored vehicles, but on <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">whether Janez Janša had a fair trial</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">And since this was not an ordinary process against an ordinary person but against an uncompromising opponent of the politics that has roots in the former communist organizations, these few hundred pages also shed light to the question whether <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">is there rule of law in Slovenia</strong> and if in Slovenia its highest authorities <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">respect the constitution and human rights</strong>. Or are the police, prosecution and the courts abused by the dominant political forces to suppress political opponents.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Failed democracy?</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Dr. Avbelj, Professor of European Law at the Graduate School of Government and European Studies argues quite convincingly that <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201230155012/http://www.verfassungsblog.de/en/slovenia-de-facto-failed-constitutional-democracy/#.U6f-TpSSySo" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">Slovenia is a failed democracy</a>:</p><blockquote style="background-color: white; border-left: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; color: #6f6f6f; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 21px; padding: 10.5px 21px; text-align: justify;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;">Slovenia has thus become a primer example of a <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">de facto</em> failed constitutional democracy, whereby the orchestrated media (…) refuse to present to the wider public the Patria case for what it really stands for – an apparent abuse and instrumentalization of law, through the actions and omissions of the judiciary, to eliminate particular political opponents and to consolidate political, economic, legal-institutional and finally overall social power in the hands in which it has rested so far (…).</p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The state of democracy and rule of law is larger than the fate of one individual and his family, larger than the fate of one political party and its leader, larger than the legitimacy of one elections (even though Janez Janša was jailed some three weeks before parliamentary elections and after his party won, hands down, the elections to European parliament).</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">State of fear?</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"></strong>Those few hundred pages are destroying the confidence in the repressive apparatus and the rule of law. This confidence is the difference between democracy and the rule of terror. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Democracy </strong>holds society together with <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">trust</strong>. The alternative is to hold society together with fear. We do not want to live in this alternative <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">state of fear</strong>. We had it before 1989.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Janez Janša is a polarizing political figure in Slovenia because of his uncompromising attitude towards the ideological and economic heirs of the communist regime in all elements of society.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">His trial may be an <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">inconvenient nuisance</strong> for EU democracies that find it more comfortable to believe that all EU member states are idyllic democracies with fair and unbiased rule of law. But this case is not about Janez Janša. It is about <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">preserving European values – human rights and rule of law</strong> – not in Belarus or some other country on the borders of EU – but in a member state <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">in the heart of Europe</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Not only are extreme-right ideas resurrecting in Europe. The democratic processes that swept through Eastern Europe in late 1980s and early 1990s may be in retreat. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">This is a kind of Europe we hoped was left to the history books</strong>.</p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-78199825705965749982014-06-10T21:55:00.003+02:002021-07-29T21:57:10.040+02:00Echoes of the Past in the Future of Europe<p style="text-align: center;"> <em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: right;">Lecture at the</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: right; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; padding-top: 10px; text-align: right;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin: 10px 0px; text-align: center;" /><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"></em></p><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Center for Transatlantic Relations at John’s Hopkins University,</em></em></div><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin: 10px 0px; text-align: center;" /><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Washington DC, May 28th, 2014.</em></div></em><br style="box-sizing: border-box; content: " "; display: block; margin: 10px 0px; text-align: center;" /><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="text-align: center;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Full version with introduction in <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201230155035/http://transatlantic.sais-jhu.edu/transatlantic-topics/Articles/eu/Introduction_of_Professor_Ziga_Turk_28may2014.pdf" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">PDF</a>.</em></div></em><p></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px;">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.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Civil servants in Brussels can either be occupied with <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">day-to-day execution of policies</strong>, deepening the common market, distributing structural funds, passing directives, regulating anything from vegetable sizes to Google … <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">or with a grander task of building “an ever closer Union”.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Trumping peace, prosperity and democracy</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">It is not easy to find a sequel to the success the Union had – with bringing peace, prosperity and democracy to the continent. But creating a United States of Europe is such a task. So is saving the planet from climate change, and Brussels is always interested in taking the lead there.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The 21<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">st</span> century started successfully. In 2005 most of the Eastern European countries became members. The Iron Curtain fell already in 1989, the continent looked united again. Soon after its introduction, the common currency, the euro, seemed like a success. The Union was searching for a next grand project, the next narrative.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This was the atmosphere in Brussels in 2008 when the European Council set up the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Reflection Group on the Future of Europe</strong>. It was led by former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and included the legendary Polish freedom fighter Lech Walesa, former EU commissioner and future Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, several academics, and other former heads of states. I had the privilege to be the secretary general of the group. The title of its report was “Project Europe 2030.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">And while we were thinking on how to maintain the fantastic success the European civilization has been since the Renaissance, how to ensure that the West continues to lead in front of the rest in science, culture, wealth, military and political power … the financial and economic crisis happened.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The Group’s report was handed out to the president of the European Council in May 2010, on one of these “hard night’s days” during which, so they said, Greece was saved. Many such nights followed when either Greece, the euro, or the EU were saved.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Only recently we are seeing the crisis receding, Portugal and Ireland exiting the assistance program and economic growth anemically picking up. However, another kind of crisis emerged on European eastern borders, the Ukraine crisis.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">If the first decade of the 21<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">st</span> century looked like a success for Europe, the beginning of the second confirmed that neither peace, nor prosperity, nor democracy are as certain and lasting as we believed.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">It is not Project Europe per-se that is to be worked on; the effort should be to maintain these three elements – peace, prosperity, and democracy.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Peace</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The historic achievement of the European Union is that it brought lasting peace to a continent whose nations waged wars with each other for centuries.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In essence the European Union put an end to a thousand year old problem on how to divide the Lorraine part of Charlemagne’s legacy for which France and Germany have been fighting ever after. At Waterloo, Napoleon was stopped from entering Brussels. And Brussels is now the capital of the European Union.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">But not all of Europe enjoyed the peace and not all the European nations are enjoying the end of history. The peace in the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia, looks fragile, but with a clear European perspective for all major players in the region, the situation appears defused. Instead of waging wars on the Balkans they will soon be discussing common agricultural policy in Brussels.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">But there was another area in Europe where conflict was permanent and where borders were shifting in the East/West direction. Where occasionally a small country would emerge between two strong powers or get swallowed by one or the other. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">It is the area east of Germany and west of Russia.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Europeans discovered Russia through the writings of a <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Slovenian diplomat of the Holy Roman Empire – Sigismund Herberstein</strong>. He was surprised how absolute the power of the Muscovy Tsar was, how wretched condition of the peasantry were and how he was, as a diplomat, closely monitored on one hand and kept undiplomatically waiting for meetings on the other. Since then, some of this changed and some did not.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">At least since Peter the Great, Russia’s attention was towards Europe and played an increasingly important role there, first by waging wars with Sweden, Poland, and Turkey for the lands on its western borders, then increasingly, as a major pan-European force.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">It played a decisive role in the defeat of Napoleon and was then a pillar of the Holy Alliance that brought peace to Europe in the first half of the 19<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> century. It had to leave the 1<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">st</span> world war to stage a communist coup-d-etat. It took the majority of the war effort in fighting the Nazi Germany in the Second World War and won – at a great price in human lives and devastation of the country.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Not only militarily, also culturally, Russia became increasingly European. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky, Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Solzhenitsyn are as much titans of European culture as are Beethoven, Verdi, Balzac, or Dickens.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In spite of vast lands in the east, Russia was always looking west, but never quite sure if it is a part of it or not. And the western part of Europe was never quite sure if Russia is a part of it or not. The communist revolution and the Iron Curtain made the question entirely irrelevant.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Even today, Russia is faced with the question, if it is a European or Asian power.</strong> And it is not only on the Russians to answer that. If they are a European power then they should probably sit around the same table as Germany, France, Poland and others. If they are not a European power, they are in fact no match to united Europe. The EU creates 23% of global GDP (the U.S. as well), and Russian economy is the size of Italy’s at about 12% of that of the EU and 40% the size of Germany. But in terms of population Russia is almost twice the size of Germany.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">What we see in Ukraine is Russia’s answer to this problem of identity – to create a regional bloc that would be of at least a similar order of magnitude as the EU to its west and the Muslim countries to its south; “too big to be swallowed” by mighty China on its eastern border. Without Ukraine, Russia’s capacity to build a reasonably strong bloc is not possible.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">In a sense the situation around Russia after its defeat in the cold war is similar to the situation around Germany after its defeat in the 1<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">st</span> world war.</strong> A still powerful country surrounded by new and weak countries that emerged as a result of Russia’s weakness. Germany, when recovered in 1930s, got an appetite for them. Russia, as it is recovering, has a similar kind of appetite.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">With Germany, the mistake was not repeated after the Second World War. The EU was created. On the one hand, the West should be very determined not to repeat mistakes like Munich and should take a firm stand against Russian expansionism. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">On the other hand, the Russian people, particularly the intellectuals and the political elite, should be given strong signals that there are European perspectives for Russia, as there are for Ukraine.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Russia should be encouraged to comply with EU membership criteria, with the principles of democracy, market economy, and human rights on which the European Union is built. Since Peter the Great, Russia has had European ambitions. The European Union should make it clear that these ambitions are realistic and that potentially the true limits of what can be called Europe could be on the Russian Pacific coast.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Not tomorrow. Another former superpower, Great Britain, became EU member half a century after it lost its superpower status. It still is not sure whether it was a good thing or not, but many of us are quite happy that the EU has such members as well.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Prosperity</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Someone said that both the American and the French revolution were fought along the same keywords: liberte, egalite, fraternite, however, that the French revolution put the “egalite”, equality, before “liberte”, liberty, and the American vice versa.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The obsession with inequality in Thomas Pikkety’s book <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Capital in the 21<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">st</span> Century</em> is the latest indicator of that. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Envy seems to dominate political debate</strong> and will continue to do so, particularly if some prognoses are correct – that we will be looking at decades of no or slow growth.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In the period of strong economic growth after the Second World, War everybody was better off. Indeed, some more than others, but children were expecting to live better than the parents. This is not the case anymore. According to Eurostat most Europeans believe that their children will live worse than the parents.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">In a no growth world some can be better off only if others are worse off.</strong> And this is the situation we are looking at in Europe. Through the glasses of envy.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Germany and some northern European countries are more productive than countries in the south and there are no politically easy fixes for that. In a European unionized labor market and opportunistic political system it is very hard to reduce labor costs or do structural reforms. A sympathetic central bank, on the other hand, can improve competitiveness easily by devaluation.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This tool is not available to the Eurozone members. Significant debt reduction and investment financing through bond issues and inflation cannot be expected from the ECB. It will take time and money (in the form of debt) before national policies can adapt to the Euro and before the structures around the common currency are completed in such a way that crisis can be resolved in a faster way.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Money markets did not learn enough from the Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and Irish crises. Too much of the bailout money was bailing out banks that gave credit to sovereigns which turned out not to be as safe as thought. Latest developments in the money markets show an increased confidence in lending to the European periphery. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Financial markets have learned in the crisis that sovereign European countries indeed <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">are</em> too big to fail.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Both crises, the financial and the Ukrainian did not only question the peace and prosperity of Europe, they rised doubt if Europe can be managed politically. Which leads us to the third element …</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Democracy</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">On May 25<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> the EU held parliamentary elections. Europeans voted for over 750 members of the European Parliament – a body that creates a notion that although there might not be a pan-European democracy, Europe is demoicracy – plural for democracy. The results demonstrate the retreat of traditional center-left and center-right parties and the rise of parties on the extremes. Populist right, populist left, Pirate party, Greens, Eurosceptics, etc.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The retreat of the traditional center parties was bigger in the EU elections than it was in typical national elections. One reason for this is surely low turnout and bigger motivation of opinionated voters to attend. The other may be structural.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Voters seem to feel that the role of the European parliament is to an extent symbolic. EU redistributes only about 1% of the EU’s GDP. When voting they could afford to send a signal to their own national politicians about their dissolusenment and anger <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">without risking that, in the end, real power would be with rather populist, perhaps irresponsible and unreasonable extreme parties.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The vote demonstrates a crisis of European continental democracies. In fact <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">democracy everywhere is in crisis because much has changed since the principles of democratic rule were set up</strong> hundred or, as is the case with the USA, more than two hundred years ago. Three elements changed since that time:</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">(1) ways through which elements of society are connected and collaborate together via communication technology and media</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">(2) different distribution of knowledge with a much smaller share of the knowledge concentrated in the government offices or church hierarchies</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">(3) increased share of GDP that the government is distributing creating different incentives for the population to take an interest in democracy</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The crisis of democracy deserves special attention, but I will only focus on the problems of Europe in general, and of the former communist countries in particular.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In continental Europe the matters are made worse by a proportional electoral system and the relatively highest share of GDP that government is redistributing. When democracies were set up in Europe about a hundred or more years ago, governments were redistributing 5 or 10% of the GDP. Voters chose whom they would trust to maintain law and order, take a country to war and who talked their language in terms of ethics and values.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Today European governments redistribute a <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">half of the national GDP</strong>. About <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">2/5 of the population is employed in the EU and between a quarter and a third of all employed work in the public sector</strong>. The majority of voters are on the receiving end of government spending. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">And their vote is not only influenced by the broader policy ideas but increasingly by expectations which political party may put more money into their pocket</strong>, provide them with more free government services or ensure better salaries for public sector in which they work.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Proportional election systems typical for continental Europe make possible that rather small political parties are organized to respond to the expectations of, for example, pensioners, civil servants, peasants, small businessmen, the young etc. And when in power, the government is buying their vote. With the money it borrows from the next generation (that does not vote) and the money from taxes.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Jean Baptiste Colber said that “the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing.” <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">In his latest book Piketty actually says that democracy is a tool to reduce the hissing:</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">“If we are to regain control of capitalism, we must bet everything on democracy—and in Europe, democracy on a European scale.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">“If necessary, the tax can be quite steeply progressive on very large fortunes, but this is a matter for democratic debate under a government of laws.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">It seems that the voters in the recent European elections rejected Pikkety’s first suggestion – democracy on a European scale (success of the Eurosceptic and Eurohostile parties) but seem to be in favor of the second (rise of extreme left, retreat of center right and European liberals).</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Democracy in the East</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In some former communist countries matters are even more serious. All these countries have <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">a system which they call capitalism</strong>. The flavor of capitalism and democracy that we see at close-up does not compare very well to our view of the western democracies and market economy. But perhaps this view is idealized.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Before 1989 these countries were ruled by communists. They preached solidarity and equality, however they enjoyed privileges and luxuries not available to the working class. While at the edges of communist movements there were many people, particularly the intelligentsia, who <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">sincerely advocated equality and solidarity</strong>, the clique that had the power used these (actually noble) instincts as a tool through which they could hold on to power. <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Communism was an attractive narrative that allowed some to gain and keep absolute power and economic privileges.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">When the system changed in 1989, the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">interests remained the same: wealth and power</strong>. Some countries succeeded in establishing new political and economic elites. Others failed. The elites stayed more or less the same, except that they are now in power, apparently through democratic means.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The first president of one of such countries, for example, was a former secretary general of the local communist party, the second was the president of the country even before the democratic change, the third was very young when he became a member of the inner circle of undemocratic ruling elite and was later a diplomat of a socialist country. The current one started his political career in the Union of the Socialist Youth, then rising through the ranks of the renamed communist party.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">It seems the careers of these people would not be much different even if there was no change of system in 1989. The situation is very similar in law enforcement, the judiciary, civil service, economy, and business. The idea here is not at all to condemn them for their past activities. The problem is, however, that <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">there was apparently no significant mobility of the elites</strong> and that the country largely remained under the control of a single elite that ruled it even before the Berlin Wall fell.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">To be honest, power and wealth are quite often a motive of politicians in the western democracies. The major difference lies in the way <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">economic and political power is distributed in old democracies and how it remained concentrated in some new eastern European democracies. Is there a fair competition, a balance, or is there almost a monopoly?</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">What happened for example in Slovenia, Russia, Belarus, to some extent in Ukraine, and elsewhere was that the people who were entrusted with the management of (then) state owned enterprises during socialism became, one way or the other, owners and capitalists in this so called capitalism. The government remains a significant owner, attempts to privatize are blocked.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">These companies are big advertisers in the media, so the media is in fact influenced by the same group. To get advertising, the media has to be friendly to certain kind of politics. Biased media can never support an honest political discourse.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The only school that teaches journalism perhaps evolved from a school for communist party cadres. No teacher was fired in 1989. And no judge or public prosecutor – including those who took part in violations of human rights — was fired. So even if the democratic opposition at some point wins the elections, all other branches of power, including the media, are firmly in the hands of the so called left.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">This left is accepted, in the European scale, as an ally of the Western European Social Democratic parties</strong>. As Tony Judt once wrote, the Social Democrats in the West were envious of their communist comrades in the East, because the latter could do so much more, with so many fewer democratic checks and balances.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">They are true allies now, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">shifting whole Europe to the left, questioning capitalism, questioning the Atlantic partnership, questioning TTIP, opposing NATO — while taking advantage of the legacy of communist regimes</strong>.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">A recent example: the winner of the European elections was supposed to become the president of the European Commission. This is what the voters were lead to belive. Now that the center-right candidate Juncker has won, and the Socialist candidate lost, the latter has already announced that he will be trying to form a majority – obviously looking for votes in the extreme and former-communist left.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">European peace, prosperity and democracy are in crisis. Changes are needed. But the results of the EU elections are such, that not much – reform wise – can be expected in Europe, Because Europe will, most likey, be run by a bi-partisan coalition of People’s Party and Social Democrats.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">This coalition will be faced with difficult questions, large and small.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Dilemmas</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">The great philosopher Woody Allen</strong> once wrote: “We’re all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Europe too is faced with <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">agonizing dilemmas on a great scale</strong>: about peace on its eastern borders; about enlargement; about its internal democracy; about more or less Europe; whether Europe is a project or a done product. These are “agonizing dilemmas” but also “moral choices.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In the past, Europe must have made some good choices. European civilization reached a global monopoly on economy, military power, science, technology and art in the 20<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> century. European wars were world wars. The cold war was the last European war that was a global war.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Europe has to make the right moral choices and <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">stand firm by the values that made it great in the first place</strong>: liberty as the basis for human rights and allowed the individuals to be empowered by technology and innovation; property rights secured the fruits of that liberty. Prosperity spread.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">And Europe has to <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">stand firm by the values it got it united and peaceful</strong>. True borders of Europe are the borders of European values. We Europeans and Americans together should do more to promote them in Ukraine, Russia, and in fact within Europe itself. Sometimes we need friends from across the Atlantic to remind us what these values were. Sometimes we need competitors who are beating us, relying on our own principles. Like China. The founding fathers of the EU were correct. Creating a community prevents wars and creates peace.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">And finally, we must be reminded again and again that democracy is not a system where the masses make decisions about policies, but a system to establish trust between the rulers and the ruled. This trust in Brussels is breaking apart.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">It could be regained if <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Brussels would stop look at Europe as a project. Europe is not a project. Europe is half billion Europeans that deserve peace, security, jobs, economic opportunities and services from efficient public sector.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">This too requires choices, but perhaps not on such a grand scale.</strong></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">If European center fails, forces exists that will amplify the echoes of the past and offer geopolitical distractions and dangerous populist shortcuts of all colors.</strong></p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3219737673575101028.post-34374732809860710162014-06-03T21:57:00.006+02:002021-07-29T21:58:33.882+02:00To Russia with Courage<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">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.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In a sense the European Union put an end to a thousand year old problem on how to divide the Lotharingia part of the Charlemagne legacy for which France and Germany have been fighting ever after. It made partners out of former competitors for colonial power and brought former parts of empires as independent states under the same roof again.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">But not all of Europe enjoyed the peace and not all the European nations are enjoying the end of history. The peace in the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia, looks fragile, but with a clear European perspective for all major players in the region, the situation appears defused.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">On the other hand, even today the citizens of Ukraine are struggling to obtain what is taken for granted by the rest of Europe. It looks like one of those “us” vs. “them” conflicts where the players on the geopolitical chessboard are moving pieces to win positions. The people of Ukraine are just pawns in this match. The people of Belarus or Moldova could find themselves in a similar predicament. It is exactly the board that has been replaced – for western and central European countries – by negotiation tables around the Schuman roundabout in Brussels.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Russia has been an increasingly important player in European affairs over the last 500 years. It decidedly chose to become European with Peter the Great in the early 18th century. The Russian empire took European center stage during the Napoleonic wars and became one of the three key elements of the Holy Alliance that the Russian, Prussian and Austrian empires set up to maintain “justice, love and peace” after the defeat of Napoleon. Wars for the lands between Russia and Germany or Turkey resembled the wars for the lands between Germany and France. The latter conflict was made obsolete with the creation of the European Union.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">In 2008 the European Council set up a Reflection Group to think about the future of Europe. One of the questions it was expected to answer was about where the borders of European Union should lie. The group, led by the former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, concluded that “the EU must stay open to potential new members from Europe, assessing every candidacy on its own merits and compliance with the membership criteria.” Compliance with membership criteria, it claimed, were “in fact the true limits of Europe.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">The recent events in Ukraine are a reminder that the European project is not finished. Historical experience in the European West and parallels to the European East challenge the introverted Europeans to think the unthinkable.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Russia should be encouraged to comply with EU membership criteria, with the principles of democracy, market economy and human rights on which the European Union is built. Since Peter the Great, Russia has had European ambitions. The European Union should make it clear that these ambitions are realistic and that potentially the true limits of the European Union could be on the Russian Pacific coast. Not tomorrow. Another former superpower, Great Britain, became EU member half a century after it lost its superpower status.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 10.5px; text-align: justify;">Europe must immediately do whatever it takes to stop the violence in Ukraine. On the longer term, however, the issue is not whether Ukraine should be in the Russian or European sphere of influence. The issue are the European perspectives of Russia, and all the countries at its western borders.</p><p style="text-align: right;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">Originally published in <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201230155036/http://www.neurope.eu/article/russia-courage" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #008cba; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">New Europe</a>, 24.2.2014</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: justify;">.</span></p>Žiga Turkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04484685521213241084noreply@blogger.com