Archives for Robert Cottrell
Living to see Baltics fitter than Germany
I am packing my bags again. But not for a general election in Bulgaria, nor a conference in Budapest, nor any of the other diversions which have brought me so much pleasure while working in central Europe. I am off to America, and a new life as the New York correspondent of The Economist.
Bush shows Europe how to handle Russia
Delivered against a backdrop of bitter arguments between the Baltics and Russia over the causes and consequences of the Second World War, George Bush's speech in Riga last Friday was a miniature masterpiece. It said what everyone needed to hear. The Russians had been heroes to defeat Hitler. The Balts had been heroes to beat back half a century of Soviet occupation. The West should remember Yalta and the post-war division of Europe, with a proper sense of shame.
Facing the harsh realities of EU enlargement
YOU would have looked in vain for signs of large-scale celebration in Central Europe at the weekend, marking the anniversary of last year's enlargement. Membership has lost its novelty and its shine. But still, all has gone well. The European institutions have gone on working. The economies of Central Europe have gone on growing at two to four times the eurozone average. In Poland even the farmers are happy, something rarely seen in nature.
Joseph Stalin and the curse of the blue elephant
The Baltic News Service carries a report from Ulan Ude, capital of the Buryat Republic, a province of Russia to the east of Lake Baikal, saying that local political movements plan a demonstration this coming Friday against Latvia, my home country. A large rubber doll dressed as the Latvian President, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, will be paraded round the town square, and free vodka will be handed out.
Time to sell the EU to the people. Literally
While others were following Jacques Chirac's dismal defence of the European constitution on television last week, I was catching up on my reading of the Bulgarian press, a much livelier diversion.
A fuzzy 'Yes' better than a fatal 'No' for Czechs
Living as I do far from Brussels, I do not think I have met anybody in the past two years who thinks that the proposed European Union constitution is a good and necessary thing. It is seen in the new member states as a sort of loyalty-test or entrance fee for EU membership, a piece of forced and futile labour.
Bowing to a Russian ambassador's demands? No way…
A fine public row adds to the gaiety of diplomatic life in Lithuania. The Russian ambassador, Boris Tsepov, has written an open letter to a leading local newspaper, Lietuvos Rytas, saying that the paper "spreads false information and lies" damaging "the honour of citizens from other countries, including their diplomatic representatives".
Russia's heir apparent has orange appeal
Well, there goes one option for Chechnya. You could only ever hope for a political deal between Russia and the Chechen rebels so long as there was a "reasonable" rebel leader with whom the Russians might negotiate. The sole candidate for that role was Aslan Maskhadov, elected president of Chechnya in 1997. Last week the Russians killed him.
Wanted: heavyweights to pack a punch for new Europe
Say what you like about Jacques Chirac, or Tony Blair, or even Gerhard Schröder, but as politicians they are built to last. They stick at it. They take the knocks. They talk, and people everywhere listen.
Slowly but surely Slovenia must get radical
Wilder Europe, meet milder Europe. If Ljubljana was any easier to spell, we might all want to live there. The capital of Slovenia, it blends the primness of Austria to the north with the zest of Italy to the south.
People power can move Roma onwards
When Britain stationed immigration officers at Prague airport in 2001 to keep poor Roma away from Britain, I urged the Czechs to station immigration officers at Heathrow to stop drunken British stag parties getting on planes to Prague. The British louts were a far bigger danger to innocent bystanders.
Davos tax talk fails to dent aggregator demand
Yes I did go to the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, and yes I did come back with lots of other people's ideas that I can pass off as my own, albeit most of them irrelevant to my usual line of work.
Simeon II: the return of the come-back king
Good. A date for the diary. Elections in Bulgaria, 25 June. I know the Bulgarians will be signing their accession treaty in three months and joining the European Union in less than two years, but there is still a whiff of adventure about going down to Sofia and lounging around in the lobby of the Balkan Sheraton.
This Latvian leader is made of the right stuff
IF she were a character from fiction, then Latvia's president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, would be the heroine of an early-19th-century romantic novel. Which is to say, clever and well-meaning, but also headstrong and a touch clumsy, moved more by instinct than by calculation.
At pains to understand Hungarian history
WHEN you say "that's history" in a western European country, you are usually dismissing something as old hat, no longer of importance.
Ringing the changes across eastern Europe
I live in Latvia, which means that I approach the holiday season there with the caution of any sober pedestrian. Last Friday, with Christmas still two weeks away, the police stopped 200 cars in 12 hours for breaking traffic rules at a road junction in the centre of Riga. They found that 25 drivers — one in eight — were drunk, two were on drugs, nine were driving without a licence, while 41 were merely speeding. Small wonder that road deaths in Latvia are twice the EU average per head of population, with only half as many cars. In other words, that approaching car is four times as likely to kill you.
Relishing his role as Putin's man in Europe
The recent turmoil in Ukraine notwithstanding, I suspect that Sergei Yastrzhembsky must be enjoying his job as President Vladimir Putin's special representative to the European Union more than anything he has done since he ended his term as Russia's ambassador to Slovakia eight years ago.
…but show of democracy could bring Ukraine to EU
THE partitioners are right. The best solution for Ukraine would be a peaceful and orderly division into two new states, allowing the Donetsk and Lugansk regions to go east under President Yanukovych while the rest of the country went west under President Yushchenko.
Kovács in clear, but Barroso left holding Barrot baby
THE Budapest Business Journal gives a fine welcome this week to Hungary's new European Commissioner, László Kovács, who emerged with the tax and customs portfolio after being rejected for energy.