Ewelina Nowak

Throughout these three months, I focused my blog on political economy, particularly in European Union. I tried to explicate the idea that many issues, which are mostly pertain with other countries, are also closely related with EU. Even looking through the daily news, we can read how much in common Europe has with the United States and how many interests they share. It is important to understand that countries are not able to walk alone and they need to ally with bigger states in order to keep their security and peace. As students, we try to learn as much as we can to understand the positives and negatives of world leaders' actions. In the conclusion of my work over this couple of months, I wanted to visualize the idea of what I am doing in the classrooms and how it reflects to my blog. On this particular example, I use the slide show that presents the proliferation regimes and existence of weapons of mass destruction particularly in India. It could be true that this slide show focuses mostly on the interests and concerns of the United States as the strongest country in the world, but I also see it differently. I hope it can be understood that like in my past posts, I showed that European Union's countries are very connected with the United States, or likely most of the countries. I believe that on the example of India, we can more clearly deduce that the danger and threat against the U.S., also involves all countries allied with them, which means the European Union too. I think it is important to understand the background of each dangerous state, like for example India, to prevent states from nuclear attacks and conflicts in politics and economy. The artifact, which I use to emphasize my point, can be found below. Here is the link to the artifact.

Many things have changed since November 1st, 1993, when twelve European countries signed the Maastricht Treaty to form an economic and political alliance. The European Union, as it was later named by its member states, has gone through several adjustments and transformations in the last fifteen years, and its most sweeping change may only be weeks away. The EU has expanded since 1993 to include 27 countries and will expand further as it attempts to unify all of Europe. In this year alone the Union has undergone various modifications after the election of new politicians to the European Parliament to replace its Head and many others in order to improve the overall functionality of the political union. While the whole European Union is waiting for the Czech President to sign the Lisbon Treaty, Tony Blair has offered himself as a candidate to run for the President of the EU. For many citizens of the Union in addition to politicians, Blair's ambition seems a little out of place and raises many questions. Is Tony Blair a good candidate for this position? The opinions are certainly divided; although many believe he might enable this union to be a stronger political and economic force internationally, I am a little bit skeptical about his candidacy.

Mr. Tony Blair assumed the role of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for ten years between 1997 and 2007. As some might have noticed, he was most politically powerful while George W. Bush served as President of the United States. His political affiliation and alliance with Bush weakened his popularity in his own country, though, and many British citizens believed that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and a huge mistake. Moreover, others hated Blair for his views on certain economic issues, earning him even more antagonists. For example, European federalists blame him for failing to urge Britain to convert its currency to the euro, which would stabilize the British economy. Protectionists dislike him for his commitment to free market capitalism. Several years ago, Mr. Blair spoke in Mexico and passionately claimed, "I'm for free trade, and I'll tell you why: because we can't say to the poorest people in the world, 'We want you to be free, but just don't try to sell your goods in our market.'" This statement has damned him in many eyes who think he should be protecting British and European interests primarily. Certainly, Europeans with anti-American sentiments are afraid that his desire for Europe to work closely with the United States will completely destroy European power and the overall system.

Blair also lacks support from the largest party in the European Parliament, the European People's party, which demands to have one of its own assume the presidency, and Mr. Blair does not belong to this party. Henry Porter, who wrote a commentary for the Observer, sheds more light on Tony Blair's weaknesses as a candidate for EU President. As he points out, Mr. Blair, with his ten year period as prime minister, seems to not reach his "presidential" position and rises the question if his experience is enough to take over such high status. Ultimately, Europe is looking for a person who would increase its global influence and its quality. "They want a Euro-fighter, not a Euro-suit," like Mr. Tony Blair, says Porter. Moreover, let us be clear that Mr. Blair "is not a convinced democrat," where the European Union attempts to organize itself more effectively through the Lisbon Treaty. This is why Europe allows foreign policy institutions to preside over internal security. Many should start to think if giving the position of the President to Mr. Blair would be good, when most European leaders appear to think in terms of the power and influence of Europe in the world, rather than integrating its institutions. Whereas some of them think in terms of Europe's power and influence in the world, Blair's candidacy has raised some important questions about priorities: perhaps these political leaders should instead focus on developing Europe's internal organization first, and integrate its institutions before prioritizing an international role.

Although I pointed out the weaknesses of Mr. Blair as a candidate for European President, we can still distinguish his strengths. He could improve the Union's global credibility, because even though the EU makes up 20% of world GDP, it still remains less influential in international diplomacy. Furthermore, during his ten years in office Mr. Blair generated the idea that gave the EU "a role in defense policy and that has subsequently led to the deployment of two dozen missions of peacekeepers, policemen and administrators to conflict zones such as Bosnia, Congo, Palestine and Somali coast." Tony Blair has also addressed global warming, green energy, and security issues as the most important for the European Union. All these actions have established Mr. Blair as one of the most recognizable and influential personalities of the European Union. Now, while the Lisbon Treaty is on hold, Mr. Tony Blair tries to portray himself in the best light in order to ultimately win the position as the European President.

Nevertheless, the most important point to remember is that this job does not even exist until the Lisbon Treaty is signed. There is a bigger problem, however, because "the new presidency's function relates to EU institutions that are generally reviled or ignored in this country, but rarely understood." The task for the new President under the Lisbon Treaty is "to provide continuity and ambition to the European agenda." This should fix decision-making within the European Union in areas like the environment, energy, supply, financial stability and security, areas that require coordinated continental action. So far, the meetings of European heads of government were set by the state that holds a rotating presidency, but now, the new president and his officials should "set a clearer strategic agenda, persuade member states to sign up to it and sell its benefits across Europe." This means that a "president of Europe" does not wield executive power, but will steer meetings of the European Council. This advisory role is probably not what Mr. Blair dreams of while he campaigns for the position, but anything is possible. Mr. Blair could try to transform his presidency into a symbolic and influential office, so this would give him a sort of executive power over the whole European Union.

Tony Blair's talents, faults, and many controversial positions make it difficult for the European Union as a whole to determine whether or not he should assume the leading role in its affairs. His candidacy challenges politicians to decide what they want from the presidential position and what good it would ultimately bring for the Union. Mr. Blair is certainly a celebrated personality, and many politicians around the world, like Silvio Berlusconi or David Miliband, have known him and support his candidacy, but it might not be enough to win him the title of the President. I have reviewed many of Blair's major political decisions and several seem to collide with the EU's interests and goals. I believe that ex-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is a great person and respected politician but think there are better people who could take over this position, without additional self-interests, like possessing executive power of the EU. This position, which Mr. Blair is so eager to take, will not allow him to make reliable and credible progress for the whole of the European Union.

Since the world crisis is one of the most current issues around the globe, like in the last post on the economic recession, this time I also tried to for the blog that would be related to this topic. While the world economists look for solution to decrease the recession, politicians also try to deal with issues of migration appeared within European Union. As people decide to go abroad to look for new jobs, countries have difficulties with maintaining open positions for new coming workers. The crisis has limited the number of open work places and many of experienced employees had to be fired in order to preserve the company from bankruptcy. However, many people coming from abroad would work at the same place for lower wages. Such situation provokes that employers prefer to hire less cost effective foreigners rather than the citizen of his or her country, which at the same time, it leads to take over their job positions. Additionally to it, the worst part of this is that some of European Union countries have a lot of difficulties to seek for people with advanced skills to work in particular sectors. Because of it, this might cause long term problems in economic recovery. Unfortunately the migration started to become out of control and the level of unemployment seems to be increasing as the recession progresses. Although migration of people in order to look for job appear to be crucial negative side effect of the crises, Tobias Billström and Gunilla Carlsson believe that European Union has to seek for the orderly migration in order to understand the positive aspect of this issue.

"Time for the EU to acknowledge the advantages of migration" by Tobias Billström and Gunilla Carlsson

I am happy to read the post that will not offend people who go abroad to work. Many of such people have been fired, some cannot meet the ends and going to foreign country is the last chance to make the day up. Even though many people are upset that their jobs were taken over by someone else, and they would prefer to kick all those people out of the country, we should think if maybe this is the way to get out of the crises? As it is stated in the post "it is time the EU acknowledged the advantages of migration: the EU finds itself in a situation where it can help itself and help the developing world." All of us know that we have a shortage in many labor sectors, and maybe not all of them, but definitely some can be filled out with people who are migrating. I think you are right mentioning that migrants sending money back home or when they come back home, they "bring skills (...) that can contribute to the development of their countries of origin." I definitely agree that migration, which is well managed by certain rules, previously set by the each government, would bring benefits to everyone. Also the attitude of citizens of these particular countries with high migration level should change, so the danger of racism, strike, violence would be minimized. As it was previously stated in the title of this post, it is "time for the European Union to acknowledge the advantages of migration," because in order to fight against the crisis, people have to cooperate, let each other do their job as they are assigned. We have to seek for cohesion, which is missing in the present world, when people run the "rat race" in earning money and getting better positions. I even have heard that some international students take the stipends, which native citizens should get, which makes me even more frustrated because I believe that students from abroad are not worse than native students. Summing up, I think it was great to read a post, which would try to convince people look at migration from different perspective than most do.

As we can probably see, each day brings fresh news. I cannot imagine my day without reading news on the Internet or in the newspaper because I need to know what is going around me. Even though I am far away from my home, which is even on different continent, I still read news from Polish websites. As I am interested in politics, economy and international relations overall, and this is what my blog is about, I decided to scour over some websites, which I enjoy to look at and help me to go on with expanding my blogosphere.

Most people who are interested in news from political and economic world would go to website like The Wall Street Journal, which is probably one of the most popular one and also fulfills the Webby Awards and 21st Century Information Fluency criteria. It possesses great structure and navigation, which refers to its "organization of content, the prioritization of information," but also has visual design on high level. You can see the actual market data, videos, quick links to the most popular articles and many others, which helps to move within the site. This site also possesses various blogs, which everyone can read about different topics. If someone wants to know more about European Union, its businesses, schools with European Union, non-governmental bodies and organization, Europa: The Gateway to the European Union is precise and accurate for searching it. Going along, European Voice.com gives a good analysis of the current news, so we can compare our opinion with deeper analysis of different people. European Commission: CORDIS as a part of European Commission website, is the gateway to European research and development, so it gives more narrow information in compare to European Commission, where it describes overall news.

I also found couple interesting blogs on political economy worldwide and in Europe: International Political Economy Zone: Attitudes of elegant despair on subprime globalization, ESA Critical Political Economy RN, The Rational European, BISA IPEG Weblog, CurrencyTrading.net which leads to Top 100 Economics Blogs, A Fistful of Euros, Political Economy Specialist Group and guardian.co.uk. The last one, however, follows also, called the same, the website, which possesses wide range of articles. Each of the previously mentioned blogs have external links and bloggers cite different sources and people, which follows the 21st Century Information Fluency criteria. Some websites, like Central European University or European Union Studies Association offer the membership with their group to expand their web sphere. I hope that anyone who is interested in politics, economy and international relations can find a good source through my blog and find something interesting for themselves.

Economic recession still gives a headache for many businessmen, companies, governments and also normal civilians. Companies fire their employees to make their business to flow easily. The national governments put more taxes, so they can cover their debts, like France and their carbon tax. It seems that the peak of the crisis already has passed, but the end of it is still not on the horizon. At least for some of the countries of European Union it is not. How long is it going to take? No one exactly knows and predictions are different. We have heard so many times from various economists and other different people that the end of recession is close; still none of them have been right. However, I found the post entitled "EU economy recovering faster than expected" by Jim Brunsden on EuropeanVoice.com, and this week I chose it to explore the blogosphere on, because it seems to be the most optimistic among many other forecasts on economic recession. The author affirms the predictions posted on European Commission webpage, where are figures presenting the actual forecasts according to the European governments. Also, as Jim Brunsden states, the Commission has said that European Union is "recovering from the economic crisis faster than expected and that almost all the European Union's larger national economies should be out of recession before the end of the year." This sounds so optimistic, which could not be missed by my attention. Unfortunately, while the economics raise from the crisis up, the high level of unemployment will be still increasing for another couple months , which is definitely a depressing information. Although the news about the end of the crisis is very positive information, the question is if they are correct? Or is it another invention of European Government or media to make people optimistic once again?

"EU economy recovering faster than expected" by Jim Brunsden

Among many economic forecasts, which were up for many previous months, this seems to be one of the most positive that we have heard and seen before. The heart enjoys, when sees such figures given by European Commission, which should lead our, European Union to finally end, how tiring economic crisis. Among much important information, how great results European Commission has accomplished, one of very worrying sentences are the words of Mr. Joaquin Almunia, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs. If everything goes so excellent and all results seem to be great, why he says: "The situation has improved...but the weak economy will continue to take its toll on jobs and public finances?" So it is good or is it still bad? If everything is not exceptional yet, and does not look like is going to be, why they put again, this fake, utopian idea of perfection and greatness of European Union economics? They give one more time the hope, which might fell apart with their promises by the end of the year. It was great to read that Poland is one of the seven strongest economically countries in European Union because I am Polish. However, while being in Poland, it does not feel like it, when I see people around losing their jobs, trying to make the ends meet. I strongly agree in the mentioned words of Mr. Almunia, that the high performance of Poland in the first half of the year was that it "had been due in part to the depreciation of the zloty." Now, the zloty is not such strong any more, and as it is stated, it would not help in this half of the year. Upon reading the part of the post about France as one of the best performers in EU, I would argue in it. I have read the article about carbon tax, which France wants to bring it into the daily life. This looks shadily, and many would argue that France is willing to cover their debts, and what goes along, to increase their GDP. Would anyone agree with it? This is clearly a vague concept in context of countries' performances. However, I am glad that I have read this post and the European Commission gave me and other readers a hope, looking for the recession to end.

The progress of the world in the 20th century has significantly helped humans in all life domains. New technologies have improved economics, international communication, evolution of media presence, and many others. The economics could easily develop when various companies appeared on the global market, and new choices emerged for people and the competitiveness in the market appeared. Nevertheless, in this rush for the perfection of life, the world has come up to the point where people start to realize that not everything is as perfect as it suppose to be. Pollution, global warming, greenhouse gases, carbon emissions and many others are the negative side results of human actions. As saving the environment has overwhelmed most of the debates between ecologists in various countries, politicians propose decreasing of carbon emissions, which is one of the most harmful effects. Although the idea of carbon taxation in all countries originally began almost twenty years ago in Scandinavia, it has only recently been given more attention as the economic crisis continues to appear. Nonetheless, as the time passes by, it becomes harder to make this idea come true, even though it still has its economic supporters. For example, in France, while the idea of carbon tax looks promising in ecologists' models, this concept is unbalanced between individuals and companies, and it might hurt some of the people who are not able to pay it.

As history shows, the concept of carbon tax concept began in Sweden. In 1991, the Swedish government imposed a tax for each ton of emitted carbon dioxide. The initial price was 28 euros, which was equivalent 41 US dollars. Nowadays, Swedish carbon tax has risen to 128 Euros for each ton. Denmark, Finland, Norway, Switzerland and Canada have followed Sweden and now use similar systems to lower emissions of carbon dioxide. The senior adviser at the Ministry of Finance in Stockholm, Susanne Akerfeldt, has said for The New York Times that the restriction has caused Sweden to emit about twenty percent less negative air pollutants than without a tax. Although companies are forced to lower their emissions, the overall economic growth has risen 44 percent since the tax came into life. Other nations had little attention paid to the idea of limiting carbon emissions once Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, and Canada signed their initial treaties. However, this is changing, and more attention is increasingly being paid to the idea. A couple of days ago, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared that the French government will now create a similar tax decree "all with the aim of encouraging conservation and thus reducing France's overall emissions.". This will cause a raise in driving prices and heating homes, which will force people to consume less and consequently lower greenhouse gases emissions in France. The initial price is set for 14 euros ($20) and will gradually increase up to 100 euros ($143) by the year 2030. Many citizens may get a headache hearing the idea of such a dramatic jump in gas payments, and these payments will especially affect those who belong to low income families. Is it really necessary for all citizens to pay such taxes? What about the companies that can pay the tax at lower rate?

First of all, it should be explained what greenhouse gases are. As many ecologists state, greenhouse gases are dangerous for our environment: the air, the fauna and flora, and many others. They also affect thermal infrared range within the Earth atmosphere, which is commonly known as a global warming. The question arises: is this only the invention of ecologists or is that a fact? Although the answer is unclear, it is commonly known that greenhouse do have some positive effects. Greenhouse gases affect the temperature on Earth, and without them, the Earth would be about 33 degrees of Celsius (59°F) cooler than is now. The gasses work like a jacket; they keep the temperature of the Earth constant. Does that mean that they are good? Not necessarily as too much of them can have a negative effect. Since greenhouse gases are an immediate threat it makes the most sense to try to limit them in most circumstances while allowing those who cannot afford the costs to be exempt from them. For this reason Mr. Sarkozy should avoid hurting people who cannot afford extra taxes, especially considering that many people are currently affected by the world economic crisis.

Another thought also comes to mind when looking at reports on French National Debt. According to Ezine Articles, France National Debt equaled 72 percent of GDP in 2008, and might rise to 79 percent by the beginning of 2010. Additionally, France is dealing with a relatively high unemployment rate. Based on statistics checked in past few days, "according to International Labour Organisation standards, rose to 9.5 percent in the second quarter from a downwardly revised 8.9 percent in the first quarter." Moreover, tax revenues are still low, and this might be the real reason why Mr. Sarkozy and his government want a carbon tax to come true. This tax could definitely help to reduce French National Debt, and it could give a more open range in borrowing money. For now, France is ranked as 23rd on the list of countries with the highest national debts. Thus a carbon tax might help them to emerge from this and move closer to the level of Switzerland. In comparison, Swiss National Debt equals 44 percent, and Switzerland has already had a carbon tax for many years. This might be a valuable example for France to follow. Nevertheless, such changes would be noticeable many years after the carbon tax is applied. The costs of changing cars to more eco-friendly and efficient, adjusting houses for new ways of heating and adopting highways to include car-pooling will be difficult and time-consuming. It will definitely take a lot of time to affirm that everything works in favor for all French citizens. The poll done after announcing the tax show "that 65 percent of those surveyed did not favor the tax, while 55 percent doubted its usefulness in offsetting climate change." Most of the people are concerned about those from low income households, who will not be able to cover all tax payments. It would be fairer for the French government if they would burden companies which still emit most of the air polluters, and do not pay as much as they should. Moreover, it would be fairer for the government to set up separate rates of payment for both individuals and companies. Thus incomes from it would be balanced and it would still be reasonable for companies to stay in the market.

The world changes constantly even when it is immersed in economic crisis. People trend to make their lives easier, but some of the past ideas unfortunately have a negative impact. Thus countries have to create new plans, like carbon taxes. Some of these ideas began in early 1990's and are coming back with stronger pressure for accomplishing them. France is one of the countries which wants to get out of the crisis strongly and powerful, but unfortunately most of the costs of this idea will have to be covered by individual citizens, even those who do not have such high incomes. It is reasonable that the officials of the French government want companies to be comfortable and continue to influence the circle in economics, but it is not reasonable to do it by costs to civilians. This is not the necessary way of solving a country's national debt problem, where people have to give up what they have left. This topic will still create many controversies within the public and the French government but hopefully with a good result for civilians.