Did you expect another Cassandra diary in the economy/environment/politics?... But this is just a quick questionnaire: when do you manage to leave bed when going to work?

There are deeper issues one could associate at: I contend for some time that waking hours can be a class marker (the lower one's class, the earlier work hours begin). However, this diary was inspired by my lack of toleration for standing up a 5 o'clock all week...

In this diary, I am asking you to dig up and contrast three names in your mother tongue. And ask you whether you are/were aware of them all separately.

For context: in a discussion in the 9 July Salon, we discussed the three institutions that, confusingly, all have Europe and Council in their names:

• Council of Europe: a human rights watchdog and convention, encompassing all states of the European continent except Belarus, residing in Strasbourg (just next to the European Parliament);

• Council [of the European Union]: one of the three main institutions of the EU, the one representing its intergovernmental character. It manifests itself by the meetings of the ministers of national governments for the appropiate issue.

• European Council: originally the Council of the EU when meeting in the composition of the heads of states and governments, twice (later four times) a year. But, even before being institutionalized, it became the most powerful organ of the EU. It was recognised as separate from the Council of the EU with the Maastricht Treaty (1993), and would become a recognised EU institution with the Lisbon Treaty. (We helped to stop Bliar from becoming the President of this one.)

Promoted by Colman

So group matches are over - time to review your betting success in Helen's European Championships 2008 - Predictions thread - and bet again for the knockout stage!

So the calendric summer is upon us.

This is pretty much the common wisdom on ET. But just the opposite of what we expect mainstream politicians to dare nowadays: they rather advocate tax cuts à la Sarko.

However, Wolfgang Tiefensee (SPD), Germany's Federal Minister for Transport, Construction and City Development just did the 'unthinkable':

1. He called for an EU-wide harmonisation of car taxes, with rates set proportionally to CO2 emissions - so that "every EU citizen makes the same contribution to climate protection"!

2. He also called for a tax on kerosene, saying, "there is no reason to continue with tax benefits for air traffic"!

Looking over my diaries on Hungarian politics, it's apparent I spent more ire on main opposition party Fidesz than the governing Socialists. "But DoDo," you may ask, "even if you hate nationalism and have bad memories, surely you are closer to their economic platform than the 'reformist'-dominated so-called 'left-liberals' on the other side?" And point me say to my Referendum question diary. You'd also mention their civil rights platform.

My answer would be that socialistic rhetoric is all nice and well, but I don't trust Fidesz for a second to govern accordingly once they get back in power. Now I can bring the latest leaked tape scandal in Hungary as evidence.

I will also cover recent developments on police brutality cases.

Recently I wrote that the background of German figurehead President Horst Köhler calling financial markets "monsters" is: his re-election bid.

What was an expectation in that diary has now happened. Köhler officially declared his candidacy on last Thursday; he's got the declared support of the Union parties (Christian Democrats [CDU] and the Bavarian Christian Socialists [CSU]) and almost certainly that of the liberals (FDP). And on Monday, the SPD officially declared that they will again nominate the candidate they ran against Köhler last time, Gesine Schwan, to challenge the incumbent.

He rose to the second-highest rank of sumo, but just struggled ever since. He was considered ripe for demotion, and finally written off after bowing out in the middle of the last tournament at 2-7.

When he started into Natsu Basho (the May tournament) with victories, people thought: he's got no chance, but at least he tries!

When he got his eighth straight win, commentators said: he was on the edge to secure his rank, but now come the real difficult opponents!

Then when he beat the first yokozuna (Grand Champion), he suddenly became the favourite. Then he went on to beat the other yokozuna. And then he won the tournament.

So here is the first European to lift the Emperor's Cup, Kotooshu (born Mahlyanov Kaloyan Stefanov in Bulgaria):

As Fran reported in the Salon, Horst Köhler, Germany's figurehead President, gave a much-noted interview to weekly magazine Stern, in which he attacked financial capitalism head-on, speaking some quite sharp words:

stern-Interview: Köhler nennt Finanzmärkte 'Monster'		stern-Interview: Koehler calls financial markets 'Monster'
Bundespräsident Horst Köhler hat die Banker dazu aufgefordert, sich zur Schuld an der Finanzkrise zu bekennen. Er vermisse noch immer "ein klar vernehmbares mea culpa", sagte Köhler im Interview mit dem stern. "Jetzt muss jedem verantwortlich Denkenden in der Branche selbst klar geworden sein, dass sich die internationalen Finanzmärkte zu einem Monster entwickelt haben, das in die Schranken gewiesen werden muss."		Federal [representative] President Horst Köhler has called upon bankers to confess their guilt for the financial crisis. He is still missing "a clearly audible mea culpa", Koehler said in an interview with stern. "By now, it must have dawned on everyone who thinks responsibly in the industry that international financial markets have developed into a monster, which must be contained."

On your knees, bosses! But wait, it gets better - he names some of the insanities of the Anglo Disease we discuss on ET:

Die Branche habe "kaum noch Bezug zur Realwirtschaft. Dazu gehören auch bizarr hohe Vergütungen für einzelne Finanzmanager." Die Finanzwelt habe sich "mächtig blamiert".

The industry has "barely any relationship to the real economy remaining. Part of this are also bizarrely high compensations for individual financial managers." The financial world has "disgraced itself mightily."

Let's have a closer look at what this was all about.

Today, Britain celebrates a war crime that involved mass murder.

You bet you don't read that in the headlines: Flypast for Dambusters anniversary - Yahoo! News UK

A Lancaster bomber swooped over a Peak District reservoir to mark the 65th anniversary of the Dambusters raid.

The historic Lancaster - similar to the one used by the RAF's 617 Squadron to successfully bomb two German dams in 1943 - flew three times along the Derwent valley as the centrepiece of a thrilling flypast. The Derwent dam was used by the Dambusters to train ahead of their mission to destroy three dams in Germany's Ruhr valley.

Let me introduce you to the latest episode of the longest-running soap opera in Hungarian politics.

The main character of the series: Tamás Deutsch, member of the inner cabal of the main opposition party Fidesz.

Co-star of the latest episode: Lajos Für, onetime defense minister in the first freely elected government.

Episode teaser: what to do when you're Jewish and your father-in-law joined a far-right paramilitary?

Disregard of.

This diary isn't even intended as funny. It is about deadly accidents.

On my railway, in recent years, there has been an upswing in accidents involving young people that resulted from the utter disregard of basic safety rules. While even with the upswing, we are speaking of the behaviour of a microscopic subset of the total youth population, thus the outer end of a spectrum, there is still some underlying development here.

My grumpy old man rumblings are bound to turn into a series...

When I was a kid in the eighties, one could get a clue of the impending death of "real existing socialism" - from how it already lost the propaganda war in inspiring the dreams of the younger generation. Especially as it was the kids of the then upper-middle-class, e.g. Party members, who had most of the Western consumer culture importware.

While I was still enthralled by the model trains of East German maker Piko (still extant), what all the kinds dreamt of was stuff like the construction sets of Danish toy-making giant Lego, the model cars of British maker Matchbox - and the contents of Kinder-eggs (coming from Italy despite the German name).

A quick diary on the further development of a story briefly discussed in the 11 April Salon.

On 10 April, the parliament of Slovakia voted to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, defeating a boycott by the right-wing and liberal opposition. The latter had nothing to do with Europe, the opposition being more Europhile than the government: the opposition wanted to use the occasion to protest a grossly restrictive new media law.

The opposition party breaking lines was the ethnic Hungarian minority party SMK/MKP. In the weeks since, claims of backroom deals caused turmoil.

After the success of the referendum to abolish the 'reforms' that made healthcare and higher education not free of charge, the governing Socialist-Free Democrat coalition was in turmoil.

Yesterday, this peaked in the break-up of the coalition: after PM Ferenc Gyurcsány declared that he fires their healthcare minister with effect from 30 April, the liberals declared Gyurcsány abandoned the reforms, and that the rest of their ministers will step down on the same date, too.

In practice, this won't mean much: the liberals declared they don't want Orbán (former PM and leader of the right-populist opposition party Fidesz) back, and they surely don't want new elections with their sub-5% poll numbers, so I guess we'll have a Socialist minority government with outside support.

Time for an update to Oil prices in Euros from last October. The accompanying text was edited for a less European audience for an upcoming re-post at The Oil Drum. Update [2008-3-19 15:46:31 by DoDo]: Now with another week of data, more consequent colours and added logarithmic graphs.

In the past half-year, we often saw simultaneous crude oil and Euro/dollar rallies. The question emerges, how would oil prices look in Euros?

(Click to enlarge)

Below the fold, I'll explain what data is displayed on the diagram, and show a few more diagrams.

Promoted by Migeru

Ever since the German economic recovery started three years ago, there is confusion about how to spin it. Some paint it as Merkel's success, some credit the Grand Coalition. The SPD's reform wing points out that the recovery started before the elections, and credit Schröder's reforms (Agenda 2010, of which the most (in)famous element was the Harz IV labour reform). Those more committed to the Church of the Economic Faith than parties have been seeing signs that that growth will soon fizzle out, for lack of further reforms...

Meanwhile in the real world, certain disparities get noticed. Namely, that this recovery resembles that in Dubya's USA: growth for the well-off, more (crap) jobs but less income for the rest. A just released study says real income fell by 3.5%.

How a successful economy looks like, European edition.

This Sunday, I can vote in a referendum on some 'reforms', ones concerning healthcare. But colour me unenthusiastic: I wonder if the vote will really decide the future of 'reforms', or only who'll govern next.

Though since I began to draft this diary, I do tend in one direction, I felt inspired by redstar: after some intro on the campaign, the politics and polls; I will present you with the referendum questions, and ask you to tell me what to do and why.

Update [2008-3-10 3:59:33 by DoDo]: Bumped for the coverage of the actual referendum. Live blogging in the comments. Below the preliminary final result:

Turnout: 50.49% (highest in a referendum since 1989)

Yes vote ( = rejection of 'reforms') as percentage of valid votes, and as percentage of eligible voters:

• Hospital bed charge: 84.08% (42.10%)
• Doctor visitation charge: 82.42% (41.30%)
• University tuition fees: 82.22% (41.15%)

As told in the comments, the PM announced a quick return to the status quo ante (not only from next year as in the referendum question), without earmarking extra funds for healthcare from somewhere else (the voter be punished for its foolish decision). Later he also had the gall to interpret absentions as silent support (also kicking those of his voters who are against 'reforms' but didn't want to reward the Right). Such spin may have worked for Bliar in Britain, but it looks suicidal here.

The referendum-initiating right-populists suggested to spend lottery tax income on healthcare... Meanwhile on the streets, riots were averted for now after one of the far-right leaders told the crowd that "we should wait a few days".

Responding to an (email) request by the stormy present, and following up a request by metavision (even if she withdrew it, because I thought it's a good idea), and not forgetting earlier meta discussions, I created a Frontpager Duties page:

On community blogs, "frontpagers" are super-users who can edit the front page, manage the site appearance, and user accounts. For the sake of transparency, here is a collection of loose guidelines followed by European Tribune's frontpagers (whose actualised list you'll find on the front page: in the right-hand column, in the bottom box titled "Blogroll").

This is now the buzzword all across the German media. After the Left Party success in all of the last three regional elections, the beginning of a new era is finally dawning on everyone, with the need to create new types of coalitions.

In the prior four-party system, the basic options were:

• right-wing camp: Christian Democrats (CDU) (+ liberal Free Democrats (FDP))
  
• left-wing camp: Social Democrats (SPD) (+ Greens)
  
• Grand Coalition (CDU+SPD)

First in 2001 in Berlin, then after the 2005 federal elections, new options were in discussion, and now seriously at the table in Hessen and Hamburg:

• Black-Green: CDU+Greens
• Jamaica: CDU+FDP+Greens
• Traffic lights: SPD+FDP+Greens
• Red-Red-Green: SPD+Left Party+Greens

Though such complexities aren't exactly new to Scandinavian democracies and the Netherlands, with Germany's influence, the ideological frames of reference may change all across Europe.