Gjentagreier

Vyrde Lesar.

I Sarpsborg har gammelmennene bestemt seg, de skal ikke slippe ungdommen til. 4 nye år !

Og det er heldigvis fler enn meg som er opptatt av grønne lunger og eplehager.

Fra Bergen : (det virka ikke med bompenger TRAFIKKEN ØKTE ALLIKÈVEL)

Byrådet øker tilskuddene til kollektivtrafikken med mer enn 40 millioner kroner til neste år. Takstene fryses, antall takstsoner skal halveres og det blir gratisbuss til Bryggen(til Bryggen ville si i Sarpsborg - ca Mega på Kurland, ca bensinstasjon på Valaskjold, ca Hafslund hovedgård, ca Sannesund).

Fra : STRATFOR (en trist utvikling dette, at bøndene skal ødelegge for hele verden)

Summary

Speaking from Germany, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson called Sept. 18 for the European Union to launch trade negotiations with a host of Asian states. The announcement is a substantial shift in European policy, and one that will lead to a bifurcation of the global economy even as it plays to Europe's strengths.

Analysis

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson called Sept. 18 for the European Union to launch trade negotiations with a host of Asian states. This is a sharp change in European trade policy, but one the Europeans can expect to be significantly successful -- even as they fight for access.

Until now, three broad criteria have guided European trade policy. First, preferential agreements link the union to former colonies. These were not free trade zones per se, but more precisely legal structures to maintain colonial-era trade relations with the developing world -- under which Europe got raw materials in exchange for some limited access to the European markets. Second, full free trade agreements were offered exclusively to states the European Union was willing to consider potential members. Third, all other agreements were shunned in favor of the overarching efforts of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

During the past few years, however, two things have changed. First, the European Union's appetite for expansion has slowed from a heady sprint to a reluctant crawl. The 2004 expansion that took in 10 of the mostly poorer Central European and Mediterranean states strained not just the union's finances, but its public's willingness to consider further expansions. Bulgaria and Romania will almost certainly still join the European Union in January 2007, but after that the possible candidate list -- Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine -- reaches into states that are financial basket cases, would plant cultural time bombs, generate political nightmares and/or bring with them unsealable borders.

Second, the WTO's Doha Round has not simply run out of steam, it has stalled completely. Under the negotiations' aegis, any existing WTO member has a full veto over the entire process, so for the negotiations to succeed, all 140-odd members must agree on everything. That is an excruciatingly tall order under any circumstances, but with agriculture -- the world's most heavily subsidized sector -- supposedly the centerpiece of the Doha Round, hopes for success have not so much proven elusive as nonexistent.

In part, this is Europe's fault. The EU agricultural subsidy network, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), has its roots in the early post-WWII years, when a defeated Germany agreed in essence to subsidize French agriculture. Fifty years later the CAP absorbs half of the EU budget and is a sacred cow of French politics. So long as Paris decides it wants to keep the CAP, Doha has no future. And of course American and Japanese agricultural subsidies make the perfect mortar to cement the blocks of the CAP into a beautifully impenetrable wall for Doha negotiators.

With expansion slowed and Doha on hold, Mandelson and his European compatriots have two options: stay put in fortress Europe waiting for the political mood in Europe (or at least in Paris) to shift to a more integrationist and less-subsidized perspective, or branch out using Europe's best tool: trade.

Moreover, this is a strategy with a chance of succeeding regardless of which direction the European Union evolves. As a (unlikely) superstate, Europe certainly is an attractive trading partner. But even if, as Stratfor expects, the union degenerates into something more closely resembling the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), rather than integrates into a supranational government, it certainly retains the gravitas to be a major economic hub with which others will want to trade. This can for the most part overcome cultural concerns, as the case involving Turkey has shown. Few European states wish to grant Turkey full membership, but Turkey has enjoyed all the benefits of a customs union (read: free trade agreement) with Europe for years.

Europe, however, is not the only entity moving in such a direction. Washington, under the Bush administration, has been assembling a piecemeal trade alliance that seeks to branch out from NAFTA into another 35 states. Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Australia, Singapore and Central America already have had their trade deals signed and ratified.

Roger Larsen