Why Zaporizhzhia?

 As you doubtlessly know, Russian invaders recently shelled the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine. The images of burning plant (more precisely, burning building housing offices and training facility) swept the world in no time at all.

Tonči Tadić, a physicist I had a pleasure of working with and knowing for ages, also for a brief time an outspoken conservative member of Sabor (Croatian parliament), commented on this on our public TV, denouncing the move as "idiotic" because, in the unlikely event of the reactor meltdown and containment failure (the plant's reactors are of relatively modern pressurized light water design) the cloud of radioactive fallout would mostly move over Russia.

Sorry, Tonči, but this time your inner physicist won over your (former) inner politician. I will explain, but first a bit of background:

Oil and especially gas make up about 50% of Russian exports, and about 30% of its GDP. Russia has become a classical "petrol state" (and not Norway type of petrol state; more Nicaragua type.) Ukraine was trying to squeeze as much money from Russia for "hosting" gas pipelines as possible; Russia built other pipelines in response, including two "Northern stream" ones leading under the Baltic sea into Germany - the second of which is still not operational, despite being physically finished. Then Ukraine discovered large gas deposits under the Black sea, and started to develop them in joint efforts with Western companies. The annexation of Crimea was Russian response.

Germany invested heavily into wind power all over the country, but especially in Baltic North, and in residential solar, the latter being pretty much fool's errand, at their latitude and with their climate.They reacted to Fukushima incident (which should have served as a testament to safety of nuclear energy, because despite cutting corners in construction of plants, almost unprecedented earthquake and botched response, released radiation killed nobody!) by closing down immediately or in a year or two of all their nuclear power plants, relying heavily on "peakers" burning Russian gas and even reactivating some lignite mines! So much for fulfilling their Paris Accord pledges.

German reaction to the invasion of Ukraine, along with freezing or outright seizing various Russian assets, was pledging to raise its defense expenditure to above 2% of its GDP permanently, to set aside 100bn EUR for that immediately, to allow its military to participate in NATO operations outside of Germany, and to build up a strategic reserve of oil, gas and coal. COAL! No mention of keeping the nuclear power plants running to their design age, let alone building any new ones.

I think it should be clear now what was the purpose of burning an inconsequential auxiliary building at Zaporizhzhia power plant site: to fan again the irrational fears of nuclear energy among European population and make sure we stay dependent on their gas. And European, German in particular, "greens" are accomplices. 

A side note on new crop of Small Modular Reactors: they are manufactured industrially, rather than built, and therefore much cheaper; they are installed close to the places of high demand, diminishing the need for expensive and vulnerable long distance, high voltage transmission lines; they are housed in underground water pools providing passive emergency cooling and making them invulnerable to terrorist or other kinds of attack. More and more countries are considering SMRs as a source of their baseline electricity supply, Something had to be done about it; Putin did, and Germany reacted obediently (as I am afraid others, except perhaps France, will.) 

Putin's "special war"

 In the case it slipped your mind, Putin directly financed or more covertly helped and/or influenced, among others:

• Donald Trump, a.k.a. Agent Orange (I do like this pun of mine). No, Mueller Report did not "fully exonerate President Trump"; quite to the contrary, it found that "Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was illegal and occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion, but was welcomed by the Trump campaign as it expected to benefit from such efforts."
  Go see the Wikipedia page and make sure to follow the sources linked from it, instead of crying that Wikipedia is unreliable.
• Nigel Farage (who still cries that "Europe and the West have caused this crisis") and other Brexiteers.
• Various European populist nationalists, xenophobes, neo-Nazis, and other kinds of "EU skeptics", From Orban to Le Pen to Wilders to whatever the newest Mussolini wannabes are called.

In the case of the US, the goal was to divide the country even more deeply and bitterly and to make its government barely functional (and what function was left was only thanks to lower-ranking professionals.) In the case of Europe, it was weakening the Union in any possible way. So, Putin merely followed the ancient "divide et impera!" - that one never gets old.

Now, the next item is more of my little conspiracy theory, based on very simple analysis of "who gains and who loses": German "Greens". For that, see the next post. 

The Constitution

Preliminary results from French referendum on European Constitution are in: Chirac and Europe have lost, 55%:45%. Who has won? Nobody, probably...

Mr. Chirac did not have to put the Constitution to referendum; National Assembly has authority to pass the law ratifying it. However, he wanted to show he has strong support, whatever his policy. Europe is paying for this hubris.

Analysts claim that anti-Constitution mood has very little to do with The Union and its proposed Constitution; "no" vote is simply a message to the government is question. This is probably so. However, I don't think I am in a mood to support those who only want subsidies from Europe: I think my next car will be of Czeck manufacture.

Europe 25, a year later

Cheap labour from 'the East' has not swamped the West (except for jobs Germans and French don't think about taking for decades now). Eastern economies did not collapse under the pressure of competition once barriers got dismantled (though some, like pampered Slovenian food industry, did feel the heat). All said, the enlargement went surprisingly smoothly.

And yet, people in some of 'core' EU countries, France and Netherlands, are very unlikely to approve the new European Constitution. What is the problem they have with it? Most, of course, never read it, and don't have a clue what's in there. I won't rehash analyses of what the voters are protesting against (mostly having nothing to do with Europe). I will just say I am sad that their petty nationalism and xenophobia (and they are so quick to accuse us 'lesser nations' of that), their fear of change and their domestic quarrels will lead them to betray the European dream.

Today, when China and the rest of Asia is growing at astonishing rate, and that supposedly friendly giant across the Atlantic has grown positively mad, we need strong Europe more that ever. Perhaps not the United States of Europe, but certainly not the bunch of quarreling, suspicious neighbours of the second millenium.

Another Europe Day

60 years ago an era of unthinkable evil ended, hopefully for good. During the last 15 years new Croatian politicians tried to distance themselves from anything remotely smacking of Communism (and some of them received hefty contributions from extreme right wing emigration), so the theme of Croatian antifascism was rarely brought up. This year, however, I see it more on places like public TV, and finally young people indoctrinated in right propaganda can catch a glimpse of the fact that my little country, through struggle of Communist-led Partisans, did more to defeat fascism than all of occupied Western and Central Europe combined (including France).

Somehow, people in power from 1990 managed to make the puppet Ustaše regime in Zagreb more visible to the world than the fact the Partisans kept half of the country free in the middle of the war, even before any help from Allies began to trickle in. That perception, no doubt, helped to introduce 'balanced approach' to war crimes in ex-Yugoslavia (the primary reason for which is, of course, to justify almost total indifference 'the world', Europe included, displayed towards murderous fascism that differed from that of sixty-something years ago only in size and lack ofphysicall power, discipline and technical sophistication).

For some of my readers (if there indeed are such creatures at all) the fact that strong Partisan movement in what was Yugoslavia was Croat-led, or that 'Balkan war' 1990-1995 was not result of 'centuries of hatred' with all sides being more or less alike but the case of a fascist regime (masquerading as socialist, but that is nothing new, either) gripping to power through expansionist wars and virulent ultra-nationalism might be new. If so, I will be happy to provide more arguments and proof. But I have wandered way beyond the intended theme of this post.

Happy Europe Day!

The Buttiglione Affair

Two weeks ago "Charlemagne", a columnist for "The Economist" wrote that European Parliament is playing "an intoxicating game of 'let's pretend'", pretending that is was a real parliament, deciding about a real cabinet. Of course, the matter at hand was confirmation hearings before parliamentary commitees, which Rocco Buttiglione, nominated for justice and home portfolio, failed. ("The Economist" thinks that nomination of José Manuel Barroso for Commission president was also result of such pretension games.) Charlemagne noted that the Parliament has no power to reject individual commissioners, and that "the nuclear option" of rejecting the whole commission was unthinkable. Buttiglione was almost a random victim, said Charlemagne; what about a handful of other nominees with very checkered track record, or being too close to industry and various lobying groups, or simply not looking all that competent?

 
Well, Mr. Barroso withdrew his cabinet from confirmation vote when he realized the Parliament would go for the "nuclear option". Mr. Buttiglione decided to stand aside (although his national government, i.e. Mr. Berlusconi, stood behind him, and Catholic Church mounted quite a campaign in his support), but Barroso was told this would not be enough. It seems MEPs really do have concerns about some of those other commissioner nominees.

 
What is "Charlemagne's" comment now? This migth be a case of elected politicians asserting themselves against the bureaucrats (and their own governments), and the Parliament might have gained new admirers, but perhaps they should stick to benefits of quiet obscurity... It seems that European Parliament can do no right, in "Charlemagne's" opinion.

 
News outfits like CNN reacted to this development with assorted worried noises about "the future" of the Union, "credibility" of the Commission, even the Parliament, things like that. Is it so strange for an elected body to do its job? Apparently so, for many.

 
BTW, I agree that a guy with Kirche, Kueche, Kinder outlook at women's place in the world who thinks about other people's behaviour in their bedrooms in terms like "sin" has no place in Europe's executive branch. I thought that his sincereness during confirmation hearing about his beliefs was quite commendable and unusual for your typical politician. However, he soon returned to business as usual, trying to paint himself a kind of martyr (see here). Perhaps he was sincere because he misjudged commitee's "balance of power", and then again, perhaps I am just cynical.

 
Anyway, this incident can be interpreted as a part of long struggle the smallest European (and world's, I think) country, that is, Vatican, leads to stop decline of its influence on the continent. It is said that Margaret Thatcher considered all this EU affair a "Catholic conspiracy". Indeed, it looked as if the Church has good shot at cramming a line on "Christian foundations" of Europe into preamble of the new Constitution. But I think that, after the wave of fresh Catholics who all of sudden found their faith in coutries like Poland or Slovenia subides and only actually religious people are left in churches, such efforts at "de-secularization" of Europe will gradually cease. In the meantime, the Buttiglione affair is sure not to be the last we have heard about the place of "official religion" Vatican would like to be has in the continent's political life.

Wow, this started as a one-liner about Buttiglione's honesty; then "The European's" take was added, and look at it now....

Happy Europe Day!

Today is 59th anniversary of capitulation of Nazi Germany, the day fittingly chosen as Europe Day. The day before was the anniversary of liberation of my city, Zagreb, by Partisans of 10th Zagreb corps. Congratulations, my fellow continent dwellers!

Yesterday was also 20th birthday of Radio 101, a station that continue bringing urban spirit and liberal thought into local ether.

Eu25

Viennese daily Kurier tries to acquaint their readers with new members of the Union. Part of the effort is a series of slightly naughty tongue-in-cheek cartoons. Here is how they see Slovenia.