The hard economic times makes politicians defensive and protectionistic. Some time ago we wrote about Sarkosy’s “sovereign wealth funds” that would “defend” national interests (ZG).
Now Swedens prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt have found how easy it is to take cheap points by stressing the importance of saving domestic jobs using protectionistic vocabulary. (Aftonbladet)
“If you have purchased [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Europe’
December 6, 2008
Socialistic Tounge Infection
December 1, 2008
Not Rolling
Ford is considering selling Volvo Car Corporation (The Financial Times) (not to be confused with AB Volvo, the truck maker) but the Swedish government is unlikely to nationalise the ailing carmaker (Dagens Industri).
Previously known as the healthier half of the Swedish car industry (GM’s SAAB being the other), Volvo is now in crisis. Naturally this [...]
November 24, 2008
Let Him Rot
A court in Stuttgart, Germany, has decided that a left-wing terrorist, found guilty of nine murders, is to be released after 26 years in prison (Die Welt).
Christian Klar was a member of Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof group. He was arrested in 1982. His crimes include the murders of the federal [...]
November 18, 2008
Teutonic Auto Action
Auto Maker Opel wants a credit guarantee of € 1.3 bn (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), and gets it (Financial Times). The guarantee is to make sure the present and future endowments of Opel can be paid for regardless of owner GM’s financial situation.
Is this right? Should Opel recieve this guarantee? A possible credit to Opel might [...]
October 23, 2008
Haider Update
Apparently Jörg Haider had an affair with the man who replaced him as leader of his party, Stefan Petzner, and the night he died (The Zanzibar Gazette) he had been drinking with male escorts (The Times).
There have rumours that Haider was gay, but he never commented. He was married to his wife for 32 years [...]
October 22, 2008
Sweden And HIV
The Director General of the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI) wants more lenient sentencing for HIV-positive individuals who have sex without informing their partner about the condition (Svenska Dagbladet).
Today, under Swedish law, doing so constitutes aggravated assault and could lead to a ten-year prison sentence. The argument from SMI seems to be that [...]
October 21, 2008
Le Bloody Idiot
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has come up with a very stupid idea. How stupid? It might not be the most stupid idea from France ever (after all they came up with the French Revolution and the idea of moving the European Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg) but is certainly the most ambitiously stupid idea [...]
October 16, 2008
Haider Was Drunk
As asked by me earlier (The Zanzibar Gazette), it has now been confirmed that Austrian politician Jörg Haider was drunk at the time of his fatal accident – his blood alcohol level was 0.018 %, well over the Austrian limit of 0.005 % (Wiener Zeitung).
Driving 142 km/h with a BAC of 0.018 % in [...]
October 12, 2008
European Updates
Two updates on stories carred by The Zanzibar Gazette earlier this week.
Austrian politician Jörg Haider died in a car crash yesterday (ZG). Now investigations has revealed that he was driving 142 km/h with his Volkswagen Phaeton V6 at the time of the accident. The speed limit was 70 (Wiener Zeitung). While no foul play is [...]
October 11, 2008
Swedish MPs Choose Obama
83 % of the members of the Swedish Riksdag want Obama to be the next president (Svenska Dagbladet).
This is of course no surprise. Sweden’s political centre is far to the left of America’s but we also know that Europe as a whole tends to prefer Democrats generally and Barack Obama specifically.
In the event of a [...]
