EU Needs Own Military Capacity to Respond to New Crises

The fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the chaotic international evacuation effort shows that Europe needs to develop its own military capacity independent of the United States, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell argues.

In an interview with AFP, Borrell said European powers would struggle to evacuate their citizens and Afghan allies before the United States ends its operation at Kabul airport — perhaps as early as 31 August.

Several US allies have asked Washington to delay this departure, as NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg confirmed on Friday (20 August), as without the protection of the 6,000 US troops deployed at the airport, European operations may have to cease.

Read more at: https://www.novinite.com/articles/210949/EU+Needs+Own+Military+Capacity+to+Respond+to+New+Crises

The UN Refugee Convention: Is the Geneva Refugee Convention living up to the times?

Defending human rights is Hamado Dipama's passion. It's something he's been committed to every day since he fled politically motivated violence in his home country, Burkina Faso.

Twenty years ago, as a young student, Dipama joined protests against the dictatorship of Blaise Compaore, who ruled Bukina Faso with an iron fist for 27 years until he was swept from power following a popular uprising in 2014.

Read more at: https://www.dw.com/en/is-the-geneva-refugee-convention-living-up-to-the-times/a-58646760

NATO: What is NATO for? – by Mary Kaldor

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a geopolitical alliance. It was constructed during the cold war to counter a potential Soviet threat. NATO forces in western Europe, nuclear and conventional, anticipated and planned for a conventional Soviet attack—a Blitzkrieg across the German plains—on the model of World War II.

NATO could be transformed into an organisation for reducing and damping down conflict within the framework of the United Nations. It could represent the transatlantic contribution to peacekeeping. It would mean a focus on crisis management—reducing violence in the context of armed conflicts, massive violations of human rights or genocide.

Read more at: What is NATO for? – Mary Kaldor

USA - the Electorial College under scrutiny: If the Electoral College can't be abolished, can it be reformed?

When the results of the popular and electoral votes match, as they did for every presidential, election from 1892 to 1996, the electoral college feels like an anachronistic quirk of the system, the constitutional equivalent of a powdered wig or quilled pen. But when they are in opposition and the loser of the popular vote wins the election, as in 2000 and 2016, it feels much more threatening to the principles of democracy, which—in theory—is organized around majority rule.

read more at: If the Electoral College can't be abolished, can it be reformed? — Quartz

Capitalism’s triple crisis - by Mariana Mazzucato

After the 2008 financial crisis, we learned the hard way what happens when governments flood the economy with unconditional liquidity.

Capitalism is facing at least three major crises. A pandemic-induced health crisis has rapidly ignited an economic crisis with yet unknown consequences for financial stability, and all of this is playing out against the backdrop of a climate crisis that cannot be addressed by ‘business as usual’. Until just two months ago, the news media were full of frightening images of overwhelmed firefighters, not overwhelmed health-care providers.

This triple crisis has revealed several problems with how we do capitalism, all of which must be solved at the same time that we address the immediate health emergency. Otherwise, we will simply be solving problems in one place while creating new ones elsewhere. That is what happened with the 2008 financial crisis. Policy-makers flooded the world with liquidity without directing it toward good investment opportunities. As a result, the money ended up back in a financial sector that was (and remains) unfit for purpose.

The Covid-19 crisis is exposing still more flaws in our economic structures, not least the increasing precarity of work, owing to the rise of the gig economy and a decades-long deterioration of workers’ bargaining power. Telecommuting simply is not an option for most workers and, although governments are extending some assistance to workers with regular contracts, the self-employed may find themselves left high and dry.

The bad news is that the Covid-19 crisis is exacerbating all these problems. The good news is that we can use the current state of emergency to start building a more inclusive and sustainable economy. The point is not to delay or block government support, but to structure it properly. We must avoid the mistakes of the post-2008 era, when bailouts allowed corporations to reap even higher profits once the crisis was over but failed to lay the foundation for a robust and inclusive recovery.

This time, rescue measures absolutely must come with conditions attached. Now that the state is back to playing a leading role, it must be cast as the hero rather than as a naive patsy. That means delivering immediate solutions, but designing them in such a way as to serve the public interest over the long term.

Read more at:
https://www.socialeurope.eu/capitalisms-triple-crisis

Canada - Daylight Savings time: 'It actually throws me off': Why some experts say it's time to stop springing forward and falling back

As British Columbia introduces a bill to stay on daylight time, there's research that suggests springing forward and falling back can be bad for your health. That's why some experts say it's time for a debate across the country about whether to abolish the practice.

Read more at:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/stop-daylight-time-1.5343393

US Two Party System Under Scrutiny: Why America’s 2-party system is on a collision course with our constitutional democracy

There was a time, several decades ago, when America’s two-party system was praised for its moderation. Unlike European parliamentary democracies where “dogmatic ideological parties” of Europe thrived, America’s winner-take-all electoral system seemed to reward and therefore encourage parties and candidates with broad national appeal. No party, it was argued, could simply give up on half of the electorate. Similarly, no party could convincingly win a majority by putting forward extremist anti-system candidates far outside the mainstream.

Obviously something has gone wrong with this theory. Instead of being rejected as outside the mainstream, Donald Trump, an extremist anti-system candidate, simply redefined what “mainstream” is for almost half of the electorate.

 And today, both American parties regularly forsake about half the electorate. Or even more than half, really.

Consider some basic numbers: Trump was the choice of 14 million people who voted in the Republican primaries. But in a nation where 230.6 million Americans are eligible to vote, that’s 6 percent of eligible voters. In the 2017 German election, the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) won 5.9 million votes. In a nation of 61.5 eligible voters, that’s almost 10 percent. 

In short, when voters in both countries were given the full range of options, Donald Trump was less popular in the United States than the AfD was in Germany. 

But in the German system, AfD can be kept out of power by other parties forming a coalition. In the United States, Trump’s 6 percent support gave him a major party’s nomination, which gave him instant legitimacy. And because he was a Republican candidate and because he wasn’t Hillary Clinton, 63 million Americans cast a vote for him — enough to catapult him to the presidency.

Sixty-three million is a lot. But that’s also just 27 percent of eligible voters nationwide. Likewise, 63 million of Americans voted for to send Republicans to the US House, also just 27 percent of the eligible voters. In many cases, these were not even affirmative votes for Republicans, but votes against Democrats. 

I raise these numbers to point out that, contrary to claims that American political parties have to appeal broadly to win, they only need to win a quarter of the voting-age population to gain unified control of government in Washington, and their presidential nominee needs to win far less than that. Lest you think I’m picking on Republicans, the same was true (roughly) of Democrats in 2008.

Part of this is because unlike in Germany, where voter turnout hovers closer to 80 percent, American voter turnout is usually in the mid-50s in presidential elections, and closer to 40 percent in midterms (an international laggard). Many US voters don’t bother to vote because neither of the two parties appeals to them, or because they live in a safe state where their vote doesn’t matter, or because by comparative standards, there are significant hurdles to voting in the United States (such as more complicated registration, or voting being on a workday instead of on a weekend).

In short, there is nothing structural about a two-party system that guarantees moderate parties that have to appeal broadly. We just got lucky. Well, sort of — the past wasn’t so great either.

The obvious challenge then becomes how to shift the axis of political conflict back away from a battle over the nature of America and its political institutions, and to more of a non-existential “normal politics” argument over public policy and its implementation. The answer has to involve somehow scrambling the current party system, so that being a Democrat or being a Republican is not wrapped up in these fundamental zero-sum questions about the basis of American democracy.

This is why I’m an enthusiastic supporter of efforts to expand ranked-choice voting, which are gaining steam, and of more incipient efforts to move our elections away from zero-sum winner-take-all, single-plurality winner affairs toward proportional, multi-winner elections. This would give us a more fluid party system, more in line with our constitutional design.

This means changing our electoral institutions. I recognize this is a major undertaking, and broad electoral system change is never easy. But at this point, anything less seems like taking buckets to a flood when we know the levees have broken.

There are big, important conversations to have here on the best way forward. But first, we have to admit that we have a problem. And the problem right now is that the two-party system is trapped in a doom loop that it can’t get out of on its own without significant collateral damage.

Read more: Why America’s 2-party system is on a collision course with our constitutional democracy - Vox

EU: US billionaire Soros warns EU of 'existential danger'- by Eszter Zalan

to be or not to be

The European Union is in "existential danger" because of "dysfunctional" institutions, a persistent austerity policy and outdated treaties, American billionaire George Soros warned in Brussels on Thursday (1 June).

 The Hungarian-born philanthropist, who was speaking at the Brussels Economic Forum, said the EU should use the Brexit negotiations to introduce far-reaching reforms and be "radically reinvented", otherwise it risks ceasing to exist.

"If the European Union carries on with business as usual, there is little hope for an improvement," he said, adding that the bloc was surrounded by "hostile powers", such as Russia, Turkey, Egypt, and, possibly US president Donald Trump's administration.

He argued that the way to change the trend is to reform the EU by combining the "top-down approach of the EU institutions with the bottom-up movements that are necessary to engage the electorate".

"Most Europeans of my generation were supporters of further integration. Subsequent generations came to regard the EU as an enemy that deprives them of a secure and promising future," Soros told the audience.

"This feeling was reinforced by the rise of anti-European, xenophobic parties that are motivated by values that are diametrically opposed to the values on which the European Union was founded," he added.

He spoke of an emerging pro-European momentum that might turn the populist tide around as xenophobic forces lost ground in the Dutch and French elections earlier this year and seem to be falling behind in Germany as well, where elections will be held in September.

Soros said the term "ever closer union", something the UK had strongly resisted in the past, should be abandoned.

He argued, that instead of a "multi-speed" Europe, a "multi-track" Europe should be the aim "that would allow member states a wider variety of choices".

"Member states want to reassert their sovereignty rather than surrendering more of it," the Hungarian-born billionaire said.

He urged the EU to act in unison on three issues: territorial disintegration (as highlighted by Brexit), the refugee crisis, and the lack of adequate economic growth. Soros argued if cooperation on these bring positive results, EU countries might be more willing to work together closely.

Soros urged the EU to conduct the Brexit negotiations in "constructive spirit" and resist the urge to punish the UK for leaving the bloc.

"Brexit will be an immensely damaging process, harmful to both sides," he said, adding that the divorce could take as long as five years.

According to EU rules, exit negotiations will have to be wrapped up in two years, with the UK leaving the EU in March 2019.

Read More: US billionaire Soros warns EU of 'existential danger'