a smorgasbord of reactions href=”http://www.euractiv.com/en/future-eu/eu-treaty-deal-meets-praise-criticism/article-164921” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.euractiv.com/en/future-eu/eu-treaty-deal-meets-praise-criticism/article-164921

I´m using textile so I´m pretty certain I´ll fuck up.

What you would expect, really (both the reactions and the fuck-up, that is).

Hey, Radek. Prodi is sort of trying to address the subject-matter of our extended exchange. It is unknown, however, whether he´s putting his finger on the irreducible political kernel of the issue or just soundbiting his way out of trouble.

The Open Europe boys are total hacks, BTW.

In related news, our friend Rachman manages to put a classic eurosceptic chestnut to good use href=”http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c183c4a8-2338-11dc-9e7e-000b5df10621.html” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c183c4a8-2338-11dc-9e7e-000b5df10621.html

The beastly complexity of it all. He remains true to the script, seemingly underestimating people´s ability to read words on paper, and ascribing insidious Eurocratic intent to the alleged undecipherability of the text.

The thought does not cross his mind that the complexity is to a significant extent the result of the attempts of specific nation states to minimize the impact of EU initiatives on them.

Witness the UK´s attitude towards the Charter of Rights, which is indeed legitimate but did not precisely contribute to greater transparency, or how it got away with a hideous rechristening of the name of the EU Foreign Policy Guy.

But…lack of the Democratic Legitimacy thang as a consequence of the actions of Nations! ! ! Why perish the thought.

He does endear himself to the reader with the “I know shit about Nabokov´s ´Pale Fire´ but I can google and I have a column to write” bit, though.

Incidentally, there´s already talk of some referenda (Ireland, Danemark, the Netherlands).

But the moment the concept of “successful bargaining” enters the discussion, the projection/leap of logic becomes not too far-fetched, surely?

There is no such thing as the completely free, unbridled pursuit of self-interest. Every association among individuals or states is a covenant, subject to rules, many of which will be unwritten. The concerned parties may have internalized those rules, to the point that they do no longer realise they are there. Or they may play fast and loose with them. In such a case, the covenant´s self-regulation mechanisms may eventually be stretched to the breaking point…or at least lead to unpleasant “deformations” of the association.

That´s some half-arsed pop sociology, verily. But there´s a nugget of timeless truth hidden in the amateurish turd.

And, sorry to bring up the topic again, but it´s not like some of that most basic, childishly obvious of insights hasn´t already made its way into current economical thinking.

Off topic, and related to #36 above: Freud´s first work on the Todestrieb was actually published in 1920. It´s clear that the sheer self-destructive madness of WWI weighed heavily on his thinking.

Plus, the expression “sense of semiotic void” is some seriously fucked-up writing. But, being partial and all, I find it has a certain campy charm.

Alright, I’ll leave it alone too.
Just for the record though, I never brought game theory or economics into this. Just said that the various parties were, um, bargaining, more or less sucessfully. I think you were projecting based on stuff from my post in other threads into this one.

What matters is outcomes (which is what your original question was about)

That´s the main reason we´ve been talking past each other a bit up to this point. Essentially…

GAWD NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ! ! ! !

I realise now that my original question was pretty boneheaded, all things considered.

Sorry to pull the standard “Hah! You studied THIS! So your mind is LIKE THIS and it EXPLAINS EVERYTHING” crap that always seems to crop up in these kinds of discussion, but you´re thinking too much like a typical economist. You seem to be hung up on nice, tidy abstract notions of “negotiation” and “credible threat” and so on. Thus, being an “unpredictable and undiplomatic” nutbar is OK, if it gets the job done.

That´s rubbish, frankly.

Every polity, every form of political association, is based on rules, written or otherwise, of what constitutes acceptable behaviour. It is agreed that the pursuit of self-interest occurs only within the limits allowed by said rules. Break them, and the polity will evolve, and not necessarily in pleasant ways.

The Kaczynskis are the two highest office holders in a country of some forty million inhabitants, with a remarkable pedigree. If they behave like the sort of fuck you wouldn´t ever think of entrusting with public office, they are not getting the job done. They are displaying indecorous, disgraceful behaviour. And they´re tapping into a rich lode of prejudice and emotion that other dignitaries, in other countries can exploit too.

It´s really simple. Rhetoric, when used as a weapon, leads to escalation.

Schoolyard scuffle” is a good way to characterize the whole thing. But if you find yourself in a schoolyard scuffle, you play by the schoolyard rules.

Well, the whole point of this and all preceding posts is that if EU politicians allow their disputes to degenerate to the level of schoolyard scuffles, it´s not guaranteed that the whole bloody thing will not start to fray at the seams.

Digression: I was reading a biography of Freud the other day. It appears that the good doctor was shocked when WWI broke out. He, like many of his contemporaries, just could not believe that the European powers would shred the ties of trade that bound them. And that´s from the guy who “discovered” the thanatos.

…domestic policies/general ideology. International diplomacy, unfortunately but inevitably, gets played by a different set of rules.

See above. International diplomacy is not a generic, immutable thing that came into being the first time a Sumerian city waged war on its closest neighbour.

And, please, don´t give me the “unfortunately but inevitably” crap that is the hallmark of every bargain-basement “realist”.

True, but I think the difference here is that the disagreements between France and Spain were about specific, fairly narrow issues. They were not about th meta-issue of how everything’s gonna be decided, where the stakes are much greater.

Aznar was the one who negotiated on Spain´s behalf when the current voting system was agreed upon, in Nice. So the stakes were pretty much the same.

It all comes down to ideology, doesn´t it? It´s not about realistic self-interest and game theoretical wizardry.

Well, no, it is about self interest.

Well, yes, it´s about ideology. Because self-interest and ideology are not disjoint categories.

As already argued, not all negotiation fora are born equal. Ideology influences one´s perception of the nature of a specific forum, of what´s permissible in it, etc.

In addition, the promotion of nationalism is in the Kaczynskis self-interest, and that of their coalition partners. Spreading warm, fuzzy feelings of pan-European cordiality, not quite so much.

In the course of the last few months, we have been able to appreciate to what extent the wondrous twins know what hot-buttons will make the Polish body politic get all twitchy and sweaty.

Berlusconi used to receive foreign dignitaries with a swanky kerchief stretched over his balding pate. He looked like a cretin but, apparently, in Italy some people did like it.

If Dubya´s domestic ratings have only slowly converged towards levels similar to those he enjoys in the rest of the world, it´s at least to some extent because his hambone impersonation of a reg´lar Texan ranch hand is more appealing in the US than abroad.

In other words, the kind of shitty politician we´re talking about may be ubiquitous, but the “charisma” that each of them displays is invariably an extremely quaint, local phenomenon.

It´s therefore not surprising that they tend to regard a supranational entity like the EU, with its consensus culture, the technical nature of much of its legislation, etc. with great aversion. How could any of them ever thrive in such a world?

The EU is an edifice built on a foundation of liberal idealism, and compromise and pragmatism are its brick and mortar. The sense of semiotic void which such an entity must elicit in your average demagogic arsewipe must be horrifying indeed.

A week or so ago, we had a lot of riotous fun peeing all over Václav Klaus in effigy. He´s a manful, hairy-chested, rumbustious, hard-assed sumbitch whose demagogic bona fides are beyond doubt. He also happens to be a rabid eurosceptic. Coincidence? I think not.

Here’s an example – the one I promised – and actually you’re the one who brought it up; energy policy…I think the Poles here feel like they need a decision making system which is favorable enough to them (and small countries like the Baltics) that can act as a check on these kinds deals.

More power to you, literally. Just as long as the one you send to negotiate on your behalf can keep a civil tongue in his or her head, and as long as undermining the EU is not part of his or her ideological mission statement.

And since we´ve sounding like broken records for a while already and this post is too damn long as it is, that´s the last I´ll say on the topic, if you don´t mind.

Maybe, maybe not. Its transparent to you, maybe to others, but neither I nor you can get inside their heads. What matters is outcomes (which is what your original question was about). And judging by the outcomes, the strategy, transparent or not, worked. Perhaps by accident, perhaps by design.

I guess that, since I´ve been reading mostly the German press on this and you have kept in touch with what´s been written in Poland, we can go back and forth forever on who started what.

Well, the Polish press was pretty divided on the issue. The opposition was very critical of Kaczynskis, even more so then the foreign press. I’m guessing there was a diversity of opinions within the German press as well. “Schoolyard scuffle” is a good way to characterize the whole thing. But if you find yourself in a schoolyard scuffle, you play by the schoolyard rules.

As it happens, Merkel is among the most decent specimens one can find in the German right.

Sure, I agree and in fact like her much better than I like the Kaczynskis. Wanna switch HoGs? But that mostly has to do with domestic policies/general ideology. International diplomacy, unfortunately but inevitably, gets played by a different set of rules.

Re; next few paragraphs see my first paragraph. Outcomes.

not even Aznar managed to be as big of a dick as the Kaczynskis

True, but I think the difference here is that the disagreements between France and Spain were about specific, fairly narrow issues. They were not about th meta-issue of how everything’s gonna be decided, where the stakes are much greater. I’ll give a specific example below…

It all comes down to ideology, doesn´t it? It´s not about realistic self-interest and game theoretical wizardry.

Well, no, it is about self interest. Here’s an example – the one I promised – and actually you’re the one who brought it up; energy policy. Germany and other WEUs have shown themselves all to willing to go behind the back of their Eastern neighbors to make shady deals with the Russians. Shady, because it’s obvious that they’re trading off cheap gas for themselves for increased Russian political influence in the East. Now, Russia is not a member state (hopefully at some future point it will be) and they’re acting against fellow EU members’ interests (not just Poland but also Baltics not to mention potential entrant Ukraine). It is about self interest.
I think the Poles here feel like they need a decision making system which is favorable enough to them (and small countries like the Baltics) that can act as a check on these kinds deals.

As far as Britain, it doesn’t matter. In 10 years or so (before 2017 at least) we’ll have their vote locked up, since their entire plumbing system will be our hostage.

Re: 34
That’s cool.

It was simply the very open hint to the second alternative, discussed recently quite often again (at least in several continental governments and newspapers), a ‘Europe of different velocities’, with an inner circle of those who want to go ahead with more integration and an ‘outer’ set of member-states still under the roof of the existing treaty of Nice.

True, but the Poles who, let´s not forget, have a generally favourable attitude towards European integration, get very antsy when there´s talk of a “periphery” of less integrated member states. Also, since the enlargement to EE is still recent, the hypothetical constitution of a “core” that would forge ahead with political integration would appear to be timed to leave the new members out.

At any rate, I´ve always disliked this talk of “different velocities” because it tends to lend credence to that most absurd of eurosceptic straw men, the notion of the imminence of the inception of a European Superstate of some kind.

The principle is applied all the time, though, as you correctly point out. Only on a modest scale and by countries, such as the UK or the Scandinavians, that can plausibly “opt out” of stuff, instead of appearing to have been excluded.

So, yes, Merkel´s threat was pretty explosive.

BTW, Radek, I won´t post anything more on the subject of nationalism, in spite of what I promised at #33. What can I say, the internets are a throwaway medium and I am a bit of a jackanapes. Plus, I lie frequently and am not to be trusted.

That´s not just standard strategy. That´s a glaringly obvious, utterly transparent strategy. Presenting a tough front and a satisfactory fallback position is what people have been doing at EU summits since the outfit was created. The main innovation in the twins´ modus operandi, which you appear all-too-willing to forgive them, is that they have added to the mix a generous helping of genuinely repulsive demagoguery. “Give-me-my-money-back” Thatcher, eat your heart out.

Rhetoric, when used as a weapon, leads to escalation. This display of demagoguery sets a very worrying precedent. I´m afraid that the glib mention of game-theory-for-junior-managers 101 will not cut it.

I guess that, since I´ve been reading mostly the German press on this and you have kept in touch with what´s been written in Poland, we can go back and forth forever on who started what. I don´t care. Long before the Kaczynskis had decided to finally shut their traps it was clear that this particular schoolyard scuffle had already gone too far.

Markel’s proposal really shot the German bargaining position in the foot.

Why? Wasn´t her proposal “a bit of crazy, unpredictable, undiplomatic behaviour”? Just what the doctor ordered? As it happens, Merkel is among the most decent specimens one can find in the German right. She has been subject to a lot of pressure from the hawks in her own wing, to stand up to the twins. You see, the “one man, one vote” line is bandied in Germany at least as often as the Polish grievances on the other side of the Oder-Neisse line.

Merkel just took the whole pathetic spectacle to its logical conclusion. She called the twins´ bluff with an outrageous, calculated and perfectly modulated mindfart of her own. And everybody ended up looking worse for it.

And the reason why it compromised the German position is because it wasn’t just directed at Poland. Implicitly it was aimed at any country in the EU that doesn’t happen to be Germany, France, UK and maybe Italy and Benelux. What happens next time, when say, Hungary, or Portugal, or Greece finds itself in disagreement with the “true Europeans”? Gonna go and have a summit without them? Talk about setting a bad precedent.

Oh, here you explain why. Well, no offence, but do allow me to call bollocks on this reading of what´s implicit in the embarrassing little episode. It´s not about “finding oneself in disagreement” with other countries. It´s about mentioning the nuclear option i.e. the veto at the first opportunity and doing one´s level best not to sound serious.

Let´s be mates and reach a deal, OK? I´ll gladly grant that Merkel was a Very Bad Woman Indeed if you stop trying to palm off the Kaczynskis as canny, mettlesome statesmen.

All that was needed was a bit of crazy, unpredictable, undiplomatic behavior to convince others that, yes, they are crazy enough to use the veto (which I don’t think they are).

Yes exactly, what a brilliant pair of Hasardeure . “All that was needed” to suceed in these difficult negotiations was for the twins to pull outrageous shit out of their tush. Angie just peed in her knickers ! !

No, you can´t be serious.

But hey, maybe it’s about time the Poles learned how to play cynical diplomatic games.

Sorry, but that´s just dripping with prima donna victim complex bullshit. No more Mr. Nice Pole. Yeah, right.

France and Germany really need to get over this attitude of “we let you and we give you some money so shut up and let us run things for you” that they have vis a vis EE, and to a lesser extent other “junior” members.
That Germany and France have attitude problems is undeniable. For example, don’t get me started on the whole Stability and Growth Pact debacle. But, you see, Spain for example was the single biggest beneficiary of EU solidarity funds for almost twenty years, had some serious bilateral issues with France in the agricultural domain, has got into very tough negotiations in its time, and yet not even Aznar managed to be as big of a dick as the Kaczynskis. And it´s not like Spain hasn´t benefited from EU membership.

It all comes down to ideology, doesn´t it? It´s not about realistic self-interest and game theoretical wizardry. It´s about thinking that a EU summit has more in common with the Versailles Conference than with a business meeting.

The name of that ideology is nationalism. More on that later.

Incidentally, those Carolingian attitude problems get highlighted far more often than the uniquely British combination of fifth-columnism, niggardliness, ideological hegemonism, hypocritical “concern” for democracy, and generally laughable posturing as a “bridge” between the US and Europe. And let´s not forget, in the last EU-summit it´s the British who managed to piss the Poles off royally with their budgetary minimalism. It was the British media that was acting as a resonance box for UKIP slogans (the “why build a new underground system in Warsaw and new sewers in Budapest” line cropped up in a couple of live debates on the BBC, for example).

Sorry, it wasn’t – also, b/c that wouldn’t have been possible, given the existing set of rules.

It was simply the very open hint to the second alternative, discussed recently quite often again (at least in several continental governments and newspapers), a ‘Europe of different velocities’, with an inner circle of those who want to go ahead with more integration and an ‘outer’ set of member-states still under the roof of the existing treaty of Nice, as it happened already some times before and is also the way in cases like the Euro or Schengen, let’s say, some clubs within the club.

“If that’s not delegating someone (a country) to second class status I don’t know what is.”

No, its not delegating someone to second class, it was simply the hint at a potential ‘inner club’ of so far 26 members to come, combined with the offer ‘to join’, by this rendering the club needless, or to stay outside under the treaty of Nice.
It was the same with other member-states playing to and fro at the times of the Euro and I can’t see any possible bad precedent.. .

Of course, thing with the ‘inner clubs’ is (naturally), the rules are set up by their members. The members of Eurozone or Schengen define the rules and those who want to join have to take it or leave it – but they are not ‘second class members’ they are simply NONE-members of those ‘inner clubs’…26 members have had come to common grounds on some substatial changes on the system given by the treaty of Nice, which turned out to have some disfunctionality with now 27 EU member-states. They had come to an agreement already in 2004, when the council voted with all of the, at that time, 25 governments (including Poland) on the planned constitution, and now 26 agreed on a slightly altered ‘don’t-call-it-constitution’-version, which took into account some domestic ‘necessities’. It turned out that the Dutch couldn’t get along with the mention of something reminding of a ‘super-state’ and wanted more influence for the national parliaments? Ok, forget about an explicit statement for flag, symbol, or hymn (they will be used anyway, so what the heck) and increasing slightly the powers of national parliaments was not a problem to fall apart for but done within some hours. UK wanted to opt out from the Charta, a ‘don’t-call-him/her-foreign-minister’ and ‘independence for national foreign policy’, and ‘no interference in british social/labour policy’ ? OK, ‘two velocities’ on the first and fourth (and – maybe, time will tell- also on the other parts) and let their foreign policy be as independent as the US of A let them.., nothing not to be solved at short hand.
The system of MV and QMV is one of the vital points of the constitution that was discussed month over months already back at that time and under participation of the the new members 2004 yet to come. The Union finances itself (mainly) by customs on all goods from outside the EU (collected at the ports of entry but in fact finally payed for by the respective consumers) and by national contributions connected to the respective national GNPs and the national VAT-revenues in proportion to their respective European totals and by this very close connected to the respective population figures…opening the package with the weighting of votes for MV/QMV would have brought up necessarily some serious further discussions – and Poland wouldn’t have been in favour of having the proportions of the respective national financial contributions based on only the square roots of national GNPs and VAT-revenues, for sure.
‘No taxation without representation’ and, beside that – as decisions on EU-level have more and more direct impact on domestic populations – why should a vote for a citizen of a small country have an exponentially higher impact than a vote for a citizen who happens to have the nationality of one of the bigger countries? Talking about democracy..better closer to ‘one man, one vote’ or closer to ‘one state, one vote’?

For many of the same reasons it was simply not the way that ‘the Czechs, Lithuanians, and Portugal among others supported the Poles along the way’. They had other interests at stake, were content with the give-and-take they got and the only ones saying they would like and would be in favour for the Polish solution of the ‘square-root’ were the Czechs (for sure, other of the small states would have been also quite pleased about that, but hey, if someone offers you to increase the weight of your vote, wouldn’t you be in favour of it, too?), but even they made very clear already ahead of the summit that they would never back a Polish veto on that point.

And the reason why it compromised the German position is because it wasn’t just directed at Poland. Implicitly it was aimed at any country in the EU that doesn’t happen to be Germany, France, UK and maybe Italy and Benelux. What happens next time, when say, Hungary, or Portugal, or Greece finds itself in disagreement with the “true Europeans”? Gonna go and have a summit without them? Talk about setting a bad precedent.

France and Germany really need to get over this attitude of “we let you and we give you some money so shut up and let us run things for you” that they have vis a vis EE, and to a lesser extent other “junior” members.

In what sense did it get the job done? That the Kaczynskis didn’t use the veto? Do you think seriously that they were going to?
Or in the sense that it made a lot of other countries – Lithuania and Portugal for instance – go “whoa, Angela, that’s crazy talk! Give a little!” – and Sarko too.

But do you seriously think that the twins´ antics gave them a stronger hand during the negotiations?

Yes, as a matter of fact I do. Standard bargaining strategy – make an extreme proposal in order to frame the debate in your favor then back down somewhat to the best position which was acceptable to you from the beginning anyway. And Kaczynskis’ statements just got them a lot of international reprobation. Markel’s proposal really shot the German bargaining position in the foot.

I know, I know, Poland gets lots of money from the EU. But the combination of Poland’s domestic politics and Kaczynskis own ideological leanings meant that Germany (and other countries) were much more worried about a Polish veto (in light of two other countries rejecting the constitution in a referendum) than the Kaczynskis were scared of getting kicked out of EU (like that was a serious threat!) or having things decided at a seperate meeting without them (also not very serious). All that was needed was a bit of crazy, unpredictable, undimplomatic behavior to convince others that, yes, they are crazy enough to use the veto (which I don’t think they are).

Is that cynical of’em? Yup. And sure it is, the dirty business of politicians and the putrid handiwork of demagogic arsewipes. But hey, maybe it’s about time the Poles learned how to play cynical dimplomatic games.

Proofreading is your friend.