Blogoir

My piece about the latest Summit over at Daily Telegraph blogs is up, prompting the usual vivid comments from Daily Telegraph readers:

This piece by Crawford simply comes across as Civil Service gobbeldy-gook and demonstrates that he's no understanding of any of this. Is that why the Civil Service seem to be so utterly useless when negotiating with their counterparts in other EU countries ?

After all these years, after all these betrayals, after all the secret signings of treaties in darkened closets, after all the lies, the deceit, the obsequious kow towing and u-turns you and others STILL think it's down to ignorance, incompetence and cock up theory?

We often wonder why countries wish to join the Euro (beyond Dan Hannan’s point that the “club” is highly attractive to any country’s senior politicians). However, why are existing EZ countries so keen that other dissimilar and unconverged economies must share their currency. It’s like the Augean stable cleaner, up to his knees in the smelly stuff, inviting a fresh herd of elephant into a couple of vacant stalls.

Here's me:

The basic problem for the UK is that the tortuous manoeuvres required to keep the eurozone afloat can impact on us in different ways. In general it suits us if most of the rest of the European Union countries share a viable single currency. Plus if it crashed we would export less to the rest of Europe and end up worse off.

However, the point of the Prime Minister’s insistence (the "veto") that the rescue arrangements take place outside the existing EU Treaty structure was not about that. He wanted to try to establish some sort of legal firebreak, so that measures and norms aimed at propping up the eurozone could not automatically be applied to us if the Commission and/or European Parliament and/or European Court of Justice so decided.

Where are we now after the attempt by EU leaders to calm things down? In a murky but more or less tolerable position. The eurozoners must try to sort out their business via a new Treaty which is not part of the formal EU Treaty structure, albeit an expression of the "enhanced cooperation" provisions which those Treaties allow.

David Cameron has agreed to allow the European Court of Justice to support enforcement of the new Treaty’s rules (no doubt because he wants to help the eurozone reform itself, and any weak discipline is better than none). But quite how far – if at all – any ECJ decisions under that arrangement might (a) read across directly to EU Treaty interpretations, (b) to the UK’s disadvantage remains to be seen...

Plus I added a bit on Poland:

We peer at such EU Summits from our foggy offshore position. But spare a thought for the Poles, whose Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski delivered the mother of all pro-EU federalism speeches in Berlin back in November. The Poles are not yet in the eurozone but (under current management) insist they want to join it. Hence, question: how far should countries not yet in the eurozone but in the queue to join it have a say in eurozone reforms which will impact on them?

The problem here is that the more countries have such a say, the harder it becomes to get things agreed and implemented. Poland has the fastest growing EU economy but its total GDP represents only some 5% of the combined GDPs of the five largest eurozone members. So while the Germans and French will have welcomed the pro-EU noises coming from Warsaw, what they really need is Poland to be "realistic" about its weight in the greater scheme of tough decisions needed.

This explains why time-wasting new configurations for eurozone meetings have had to be agreed, to allow the 17 current eurozone countries to get on with it while trying to allow eurozone wannabes (led by Poland) some sort of input now and again. The Poles gloomily must accept that the key issues will be decided at 17, ie when they’re not there.

Conclusion?

The current core EU leaders are like those BUgs Bunny cartoon characters who reach the edge of the cliffs and keep striding determinedly out into thin air, only to realise in total panic that not much is supporting them. Their current efforts to flail their way back to solid ground are certainly impressive. But will they succeed?

My piece about the latest Summit over at Daily Telegraph blogs is up, prompting the usual vivid comments from Daily Telegraph readers:

This piece by Crawford simply comes across as Civil Service gobbeldy-gook and demonstrates that he's no understanding of any of this. Is that why the Civil Service seem to be so utterly useless when negotiating with their counterparts in other EU countries ?

After all these years, after all these betrayals, after all the secret signings of treaties in darkened closets, after all the lies, the deceit, the obsequious kow towing and u-turns you and others STILL think it's down to ignorance, incompetence and cock up theory?

We often wonder why countries wish to join the Euro (beyond Dan Hannan’s point that the “club” is highly attractive to any country’s senior politicians). However, why are existing EZ countries so keen that other dissimilar and unconverged economies must share their currency. It’s like the Augean stable cleaner, up to his knees in the smelly stuff, inviting a fresh herd of elephant into a couple of vacant stalls.

Here's me:

The basic problem for the UK is that the tortuous manoeuvres required to keep the eurozone afloat can impact on us in different ways. In general it suits us if most of the rest of the European Union countries share a viable single currency. Plus if it crashed we would export less to the rest of Europe and end up worse off.

However, the point of the Prime Minister’s insistence (the "veto") that the rescue arrangements take place outside the existing EU Treaty structure was not about that. He wanted to try to establish some sort of legal firebreak, so that measures and norms aimed at propping up the eurozone could not automatically be applied to us if the Commission and/or European Parliament and/or European Court of Justice so decided.

Where are we now after the attempt by EU leaders to calm things down? In a murky but more or less tolerable position. The eurozoners must try to sort out their business via a new Treaty which is not part of the formal EU Treaty structure, albeit an expression of the "enhanced cooperation" provisions which those Treaties allow.

David Cameron has agreed to allow the European Court of Justice to support enforcement of the new Treaty’s rules (no doubt because he wants to help the eurozone reform itself, and any weak discipline is better than none). But quite how far – if at all – any ECJ decisions under that arrangement might (a) read across directly to EU Treaty interpretations, (b) to the UK’s disadvantage remains to be seen...

Plus I added a bit on Poland:

We peer at such EU Summits from our foggy offshore position. But spare a thought for the Poles, whose Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski delivered the mother of all pro-EU federalism speeches in Berlin back in November. The Poles are not yet in the eurozone but (under current management) insist they want to join it. Hence, question: how far should countries not yet in the eurozone but in the queue to join it have a say in eurozone reforms which will impact on them?

The problem here is that the more countries have such a say, the harder it becomes to get things agreed and implemented. Poland has the fastest growing EU economy but its total GDP represents only some 5% of the combined GDPs of the five largest eurozone members. So while the Germans and French will have welcomed the pro-EU noises coming from Warsaw, what they really need is Poland to be "realistic" about its weight in the greater scheme of tough decisions needed.

This explains why time-wasting new configurations for eurozone meetings have had to be agreed, to allow the 17 current eurozone countries to get on with it while trying to allow eurozone wannabes (led by Poland) some sort of input now and again. The Poles gloomily must accept that the key issues will be decided at 17, ie when they’re not there.

Conclusion?

The current core EU leaders are like those BUgs Bunny cartoon characters who reach the edge of the cliffs and keep striding determinedly out into thin air, only to realise in total panic that not much is supporting them. Their current efforts to flail their way back to solid ground are certainly impressive. But will they succeed?

The other day we had the pleasure of meeting senior colleagues at Edelman London, part of the global team who prepare the annual Edelman Trust Barometer. The online survey aims explicitly at educated people round the world who follow current affairs.

This year's survey concluded that trust in governments had suffered a sharp erosion in the past year, a finding that is both unsurprising and (as far as it goes) welcome. Yet it also suggested (perversely) that people wanted more government action in the regulatory field. Here's a snapshot of the results as recorded by the BBC.

Trust in government stayed high in several countries including China (perhaps because people there 'trust' the authorities to watch the replies in online surveys like this one?) yet in China trust in NGOs had leaped - NGOs there seen as an emerging force for alternative views?

Trust in business had also declined. Not surprisingly perhaps, given what is going on.

Such surveys are more interesting and indicative than strictly scientific. Yet this one coincides with what we might expect. Basically, as people round the world get access to new cheap IT, the emerging energy of networks is disrupting the established power and effectiveness (and legitimacy) of hierarchies. The rate at which government is unable to cope is accelerating: new laws and policies can be out of date or rendered irrelevant before they are promulgated.

Plus the Tower of Babelisation represented by 'social media' makes it all worse - facts, rumours and complaints all appear and circulate at startling speed, creating strange echo chambers in which truth, sense or nonsense alike are amplified to a meaningless crescendo. Governments are unnerved by this clamour and start to look for instant results. See the latest shameful row over RBS bonuses in the UK, where the government seem to have bowed to 'public opinion' and pressed a private citizen not to enjoy the bonus he is entitled to under his contract.

People in all countries sense this confusion and look to other ways to get things done, while hankering after greater certainty or order which (they still think) only government can provide. Examples in all directions: mainly incoherent, such as the creepy collectivist demands of assorted 'Occupy' tendencies.

One of the ideas which the survey throws up is the proposition that we need to move away from (rigid) Rules towards (more flexible) Principles or Standards. But how?

Look at the Eurozone drama unfolding once again today, as I type. The EU leaders are scrambling to come up with even more rules, in the shape of a brand new treaty which is intended to impose strict requirements on errant member states. Yet we all know that the new rules are unlikely to be enforceable, and new standards are unlikely to be respected when things get difficult. No-one in power dares suggest that the EU structure as currently configured is itself the main problem. Instead they press their leaking euro-canoe on towards the deeper faster rapids, proclaiming that that is the only sensible thing to do.

Trust in fact is what is wrong with the Eurozone. The Germans conclude that (say) the Greek government can not be trusted to do what is right and so must give way to EU-imposed technocrats. The Greeks (not unreasonably) think that they'll get stiffed by such a procedure which is designed to prop up German, French and other over-stretched banks.

Meanwhile the world peruses this unseemly flailing around and concludes that a bickering and demographically declining Europe can not wholly be trusted to repay money it has borrowed, hence imposes higher interest rates to help cover the risk.

Trust, in short, is simply another way of looking at Confidence. And as the Edelman 2012 survey suggests, it is unsurprising that global popular confidence in 'government' is declining - but not easy to work out what sensibly might be done about it.

Do any long-standing readers remember this?

Here is my own Grand Unifying Theory of Politics.

The core question of politics and economics is Trust. More specifically, under what circumstances can and should one trust strangers?

The greater the ambient level of trust in any given social space, the easier it is to do things quickly and well. People who scarcely know each other or who have never even met can strike sophisticated deals, knowing (a) that other partners are likely to be reliable, and (b) that if things go wrong the local state institutions will honestly help sort out the problem.

Without Trust of this sort, personal and organizational horizons shrink. Extended family networks and associated corruption thrive as the best way of dealing with the trust problem.

Or one trusts primarily members of one's own group/clan/religion/community. And assumes that members of other groups/clans/religions/communities are doing the same, so they are not to be trusted too far since their primary loyalty (like one's own) is not to a fair, neutral process.

All this is massively obvious across the former Yugoslavia space. Political leaders must represent 'their' national communities first and foremost if they are to get elected; voters distrust other communities and make a mainly ethnic/national choice as a form of political fire insurance.

Even in the UK where there is no serious complaint about the intrinsic fairness of the legal system and Trust is at civilizationally high levels, many Scots want a different political structure, viz some sort of independence from England. Likewise Quebec, Kurds, Chechens and countless other examples. The Israeli/Palestinian problem seems capable of being settled only on an ethno-national basis.

Thus the so-called 'nation-state' turns out to be a sophisticated device for enabling trust to operate, often at much higher levels of population. This has created conditions for the surge of economic growth and creativity seen around much of the globe over the past couple of centuries. Greater attention to this fundamental trust issue would pay huge dividends in the international development industry. 

Our success here in Europe (and the ruinous experience of the two World Wars where certain national ambitions ran amok ) has brought us to think that there is a new 'higher' stage of development.

The European Union is a unique example of an attempt to create a wider context of trust at a supra-national level. But it too risks making a fundamental blunder by trying to insist on, or sneakily nudge people towards, a new 'European' uber-identity which supersedes supposedly drearily parochial 'national' identities... 

True then. Even truer today.

Here is my new Daily Telegraph blog piece comparing the problems of the Eurozone with the fates of the USSR and former Yugoslavia.

In those two cases (but for very different reasons) the Centre had became the problem and duly crashed, whereas in the case of the Eurozone the majority of EU states are struggling to hold the Centre (ie Eurozone) together, even at stunning cost.

This one even has added Literature:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

You know the sinking feeling when you hear some precious moments of music from Mozart or Shostakovich used to support a TV ad or, horror of horrors, served up in a lift as "background music". Beauty has been melted down, turned into a trinket of cliché.

This has happened to the famous poem The Second Coming by W B Yeats. So vivid is the imagery and somehow so suited to our dismal times, his great lines pop up all over the place and start to sound trite.

But you have to applaud Mr Yeats’s prescience in sharing with us his poetic yet trenchant thoughts on the eurozone, and in particular the idea that “the centre cannot hold". Indeed, some people are now wondering whether the eurozone will go the same way as the Soviet Union or even the former Yugoslavia, and abruptly disintegrate...

... The problem is that keeping the Centre going also incurs unfathomable costs. EU capitals squabble furiously as they try to distribute these costs away from themselves and on to all the others. The world's markets observe this unseemly spectacle and conclude that they might be wise to call for higher interest rates to park their money in such a neurotic economic space.

No one can tell how this drama will play itself out. It's all very well the eurozone's leaders demanding that the EU Centre be held at almost any cost. Those costs are being dumped on European taxpayers who, sooner or later, are likely to insist that enough is enough. Then what?

While you’re mulling over that question, read this scarifying account of Greece’s looming deadlines. Then run out to buy tinned food.

What rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Brussels to be born?

Note the post-modern irony (mis)use of the word scarifying.

In due course I'll need to share thoughts on the lessons of the break-up of the USSR for Scottish independence (or not).

In the meantime, I need to recover form two hours of blather from a suave, persistent but ultimately unsuccessful solar panels salesman.

Part of the problem facing the Eurozoners as they struggle to convince global markets that all is under control so DON'T PANIC is identifying what exactly is the issue which needs solving. After all, they might make a bad situation worse by misdiagnosing what needs to be done.

Views on this differ. In the interests of fair play, here is a studious article (pdf) by C Fred Bergsten and Jacob Funk Kirkegaard which argues that the Eurozone is heading for the right outcome (ie 'comprehensive economic and monetary union') by the crafty ploy of (in effect) eliminating all the wrong ones:

One of the themes of this website is how our institutions and beliefs of all shapes and sizes are struggling to cope with the way new technology creates complexity at ever-soaring rates.

In other words, the faster our machines the faster they can do things and generate information, which in turn allows us to see new patterns and connections and (therefore) try to have 'smarter' policies. Which doesn't work because our policies are too slow anyway,  often out of date before they begin.

All of which, as we know, gives some advantages to small, fast, determined things who Keep things Simple (such as single-issue busybodies, terrorists, pirates, assorted Occupiers) over clunky big unwieldy things (such as the Eurozone, or even Democracy as currently constituted).

Here is a fabulous article by David Weinberger about what this means for science itself. Take a few minutes out from your busy day to read it and learn something:

The result of having access to all this data is a new science that is able to study not just "the characteristics of isolated parts of a cell or organism" (to quote Kitano) but properties that don't show up at the parts level. For example, one of the most remarkable characteristics of living organisms is that we're robust -- our bodies bounce back time and time again, until, of course, they don't.

Robustness is a property of a system, not of its individual elements, some of which may be nonrobust and, like ants protecting their queen, may "sacrifice themselves" so that the system overall can survive. In fact, life itself is a property of a system.

However, just as we realise that we can't work out what is happening at the most basic level of our own bodies, governments strain to micro-manage almost anything that moves. This way of running things is philosophically doomed to fail, and failing it is around the world.

Hayek was right. Capitalism and free markets are essentially information networks, and need to be treated respectfully as such. This in turn shows why the Eurozone is wobbling. Hundreds of millions of people are now able to examine its deepest practical and moral foundations and are finding them badly designed.

In short, the Eurozone system as a metaphor for the 'Western Social Model' is over-complex. But under-robust. It's science, see?.

Here is a nicely turned interview with Polish writer Andrzej (Andrew) Stasiuk where he gives us some deliciously naughty thoughts about European nationalism and German hegemony:

Before Europe existed because it knew how to take risks, it went to sea to seek a fortune. Today it just accumulates and fears losses. I know nothing of nation states. I know nothing of states at all. For me language is of course primary. Poland survived partitions, occupations thanks to its language, thanks to the culture. Religion also played an important role in affirming the national consciousness. The Catholic Church replaced the budget, the army and taxes. Today, it is somewhat trying to do the same.

But what seems the most essential, is the feeling of uniqueness, of unity, which is worth sacrificing for. Otherwise, why not become German for convenience sake, Russian on a whim or Jewish to upset everybody? This 'Polishness' must also certainly be a sort of feeling of superiority. Don't you think so? Yes, a feeling of superiority. Unjustified, of course. But still.

Are you afraid that Germany will become a dangerous nation?

Yes, and that is very good because my country exists more when it is threatened. Without danger, without troubles, Poland is less alive and a little more inexistent. However, whenever nationalism comes knocking on the door, it feels better right away, it perks up and gets its strength back. So long live German nationalism. Which doesn't mean, does it, that we must not remain vigilant.

Mr Stasiuk farms llamas. As well he might.

Even on Christmas Eve - or maybe especially on Christmas Eve - we need to be aware of those repellamt people who stroll around the Western chattering classes exploiting the historic privilege of democracy to make excuses for the inexcusable.

Here are some classic examples.

Enough. Just go away.

Except they never do.

All the very best wishes for Christmas and the New Year to all my loyal readers. Let's all look forward to a calm, stable and generally agreeable Eurozone in 2012.

Eurozone problem addict? It doesn't get better than top US economist Martin Feldstein, who has the great advantage of having said right from the start that the project as conceived was unworkable if not dangerous.

Here he is explaining in brisk terms what went wrong, before moving on to say what could and should happen next:

Single currencies require all the countries in the monetary union to have the same monetary policy and the same basic interest rate, with interest rates differing among borrowers only due to perceived differences in credit risk. A single currency also means a fixed exchange rate within the monetary union and the same exchange rate relative to all other currencies, even when individual countries in the monetary union would benefit from changes in relative values.

Economists explained that the euro would therefore lead to greater fluctuations in output and employment, a much slower adjustment to declines in aggregate demand, and persistent trade imbalances between Europe and the rest of the world. Indeed, all these negative outcomes have occurred in recent years.

Here is why: when a county has its own monetary policy, it can respond to a decline in demand by lowering interest rates to stimulate economic activity. But the ECB must make monetary policy based on the overall condition of all the countries in the monetary union.

This creates a situation in which interest rates are too high in those countries with rising unemployment and too low in those countries with rapidly rising wages. And because of the large size of the German economy relative to others in Europe, the ECB's monetary policy must give greater weight to conditions in Germany in its decisions than it gives to conditions in other countries...

Before the monetary union was put in place, large fiscal deficits generally led to higher interest rates or declining exchange rates. These market signals acted as an automatic warning for countries to reduce their borrowing. The monetary union eliminated those market signals and precluded the higher cost of funds that would otherwise have limited household borrowing. The result was that countries borrowed too much and banks loaned too much on overpriced housing...

Powerful, smart, authoritative. Read the whole thing, before it vanishes behind a paywall in February...

One of the things I do on training courses aimed at telling people how to Write with Impact is to cite Shrek. Issues and Shrek are like onions. They have layers.

No piece of writing can address all the layers of any problem. The trick is to show awareness of other layers but focus on one or two of them to help the reader make sense of it all.

Likewise it is a good idea to take a single issue and use it to illustrate a wider point. Or to take a seemingly obscure but nonetheless interesting question and force it to the top of people's attention.

All these devices help achieve the basic rule of good (and therefore impactful) writing: if you want it to be read, make it readable.

One of the best examples from my own career came in early 2004, not long after I arrived in Warsaw from Belgrade. Poland was set to join the European Union. Colossal numbers of Poles were likely to start moving to and fro between Poland and the UK - we had decided to open our Labour market unconditionally, much to the utter disbelief of the Polish leadership.

Once those Poles started moving with the aim of getting richer faster, what would they get up to? I thought it worth analysing one possible source of income - illicit cigarettes.

Hence a telegram I sent to London warning them in very simple language that the UK's multi-billion pound problems with the informal cigarette market was about to get a whole lot worse overnight.

I did this by spelling out in the simplest possible terms the economics for the average Pole of informal cigarette-selling, even within legal limits.

This telegram wittily called Smoking Ants - Coming Our Way? caused a minor sensation in the Cabinet Office. Officials scrambled round to change the rules to limit the numbers of cigarettes which people from the new EU member states could bring into the UK duty-free.

And, thanks to the miracles of Freedom of Information, I am pleased to share this telegram with you today. The FCO cheekily cut out a line or two on the grounds that UK relations with Poland might be adversely affected(!). But otherwise it's just as I drafted it. A nice example (if I say so myself) of drawing senior attention to an unexpected new problem by delivering work written in a bold way which no-one can avoid reading.

Diplomatic Folly Note: look out for the amusing reference to 'Trilateral' at the end. That was a footling attempt by Tony Blair to set up an inner UK/France/Germany driving force within the EU, which collapsed in no time at all in the face of the obvious objections (not least those emanating from one S Berlusconi).

Thus:

SUBJECT: EU ENLARGEMENT: SMOKING ANTS, COMING OUR WAY?

SUMMARY

1. Incentives for Poles to make a reasonable living in the UK's dodgy cigarette business. Policy contradictions.

DETAIL

2. As a non-smoking connoisseur of Balkan tobacco activities I recently met the local BAT team to talk about regional cigarette smuggling. Some striking conclusions.

The Big Picture

3. BAT have studied tens of thousands of discarded cigarette packets. They conclude that some 70 billion cigarettes are sold legally in Poland every year, with a further 20 billion smoked "illegally" (ie sold outside the official excise structure and smuggled into Poland).

4. A good proportion of this illegal trade is conducted by an army of "ants", individuals who carry small quantities of cigarettes into Poland from points East. But up to 50% of the illegal cigarette business is well organised, involving hundreds of truckloads of cigarettes each containing up to 10 million "sticks". [redacted]

5. The emergence of this lucrative illegal trade can be traced readily back to 2000, when Poland pushed up excise duties. Until then almost all the 90 billion cigarettes smoked in Poland each

year were passing through normal procedures. Smuggling soared with these new higher duties.

6. Sharp price/tax/excise differentials as between Russia, Poland and Western Europe are set to continue. Currently a pack of cigarettes which costs 50 cents in Russia sells for 1.30 dollars in Poland and up to 8 dollars in the UK. These ratios will change somewhat in the coming years as Poland raises the effective price of a pack towards EU levels, thereby giving serious new local incentives to regional smugglers (one good truckload can generate a profit of 1.5 million dollars). BAT expect some 50 billion cigarettes per year to be smuggled from Russia to Western Europe; this generates a 5 billion dollar profit - more than double BAT's own global annual pre-tax profit. Implications for UK of EU Accession

7. BAT point out that as things stand every Polish citizen is allowed to bring legally into the UK 200 cigarettes a trip. But after accession this figure jumps to 3200 cigarettes per trip. A pack of Dunhill can be bought in Poland for about £1 and be sold in a UK pub for up to £3.00. Each Pole entering the UK can hope to make a quick profit on the cigarettes of £250 per trip, not to mention extra money by importing a few bottles of cheap vodka. With a return coach fare of £50 and monthly unemployment benefit here of about £80, it is not difficult for a poor Pole to work out what to do. Better to get involved with UK officialdom by filling in UK benefit forms, or make easy money sitting on a bus?

COMMENT

8. The scale of the illicit cigarette business caused by price/tax differentials as between the UK and continental Europe is obvious and well known. It is part of a global compound interest drama: as rich countries get richer, the absolute wealth we generate gives ever-growing and vast incentives for honest people and gangsters alike to "play the margins". The cigarette price effects of EU enlargement is more of the same, albeit a great deal more of the same. But the upstream consequences of this illegality for the region are considerable.

9. Our Policy contains Contradictions. HMCE/HMT are looking at reducing the amounts of cigarettes which accession nationals can bring into the UK. Meanwhile we and our EU partners laboriously try to "train border guards and customs officials" on the EU's Eastern Borders. But only a couple of truckloads of cigarettes inject more resources into corrupting these official structures than we are injecting into reforming them. The corrupted structures then can be exploited not only by cigarette smugglers but also by human traffickers, global drug dealers and even terrorists - serious security questions here.

10. The cost of all this is not on a scale to destabilise the whole of Polish society as has happened in Serbia, to the point of the assassination of the Prime Minister. But it is a serious and systemic obstacle to reform. Scope for a new, hard look (Trilateral or in another smaller group first?) at what else might be done on the strategic level?

To pass the time and take my mind off my bright blue foot, I have done a couple of quickies for the Telegraph Blog site where there has been a lot of energetic stuff about the EU Summit and all that.

Thus yesterday:

We awoke this morning to various commentators and Twitteristas bewailing the fact that British intransigence has left the UK “isolated". This ridiculous assertion needs to be knocked on the head, once and for all.

If “isolated" means staying well clear of the clumsy and ultimately undemocratic eurozone project, that’s a damn good place to be. The measures needed to prop up the eurozone involve intrusive inspection of national financial affairs by Brussels and other changes (such as harmonising tax rates) which necessarily amount to surrendering national sovereignty to EU HQ. Without the protocol he demanded, David Cameron could not have stood up in the House of Commons and honourably told the British people that the UK would be spared that.

In fact, even with that protocol there would have been in serious risk of eurozone “mission creep" in legal terms had the Lisbon Trinity route been used. Not that that risk has gone away even with the proposed new treaty outside the existing Treaty structure, but it is arguably for now rather more manageable.

Now what?

The proposed new arrangements for the eurozone would have been good had they been introduced right from the start. It is not clear how far if at all they will satisfy the planet’s markets and investors now. The crisis is set to drag on.

More generally, the whole European integration ambition looks like a nervous tightrope walker wobbling more and more severely with each new step. The contortions needed to stay balanced are impressive but grotesque.

And today:

As the sheer scale of the new requirements expected in the new treaty become clear – intrusive Brussels inspection of national budgets, balanced budget constitutional provisions and so on – bits will start to fall off the bandwagon. Different local factions will demand some or other political price for conceding their support to these radical changes. Public opinion will be aroused, with demands for referenda here or there. And so on.

The best thing about writing for a national newspaper's website is the giddy delirium of the many comments one attracts, for and against. Many people seem unable to understand what one writes, or miss the self-indulgent witty touches completely, or assume that because I am an ex-Ambassador I a priori am a pompous Sir Humphrey type living on a vast pension blah blah blah.

Therefore you get stuff like this:

Charles Crawford - a breath of fresh air. I bet you don't get many invitations to opine on the BBC!

For the first time, I actually have to agree with much of Mr Crawford has to say. Perhaps he could offer his expertise of the break up of the former Soviet Union during his time in the FCO, for the government for Britain's withdrawal from the EUSSR?

Magisterial and wise as one would expect from a 'Sir Humphrey' enjoying his astronomically high pension at our expense...It's rather majestic when the British Establishment makes a 'fleet turn'; all those wonderful old ships of the line coming round. The trouble is that they need an awful lot of sea room and they already got much too close to a lee shore.

Whatever leads Crawford to the conclusion that an 'amicable separation' is on the books? Why wouldn't our former partners just screw us to the floor as much as they are able? What is the USP that would stop them, if they ever climb out of the mire where they are?

Thank you Charles for your explanation, especially posting the speech by Howe.  Incredible how the same old arguments are being trotted out by the same old europhiles ignoring the twenty year interim where *nothing* turned out as predicted.  And all the guff about influence--what influence?  Although we have wasted a lot of treasure on the european experiment and the most worrisome aspect of our economic outlook is our closeness to the european economic (disaster) zone.

Dave has done more u-turns than a boy racer, so will have no problem with one on this matter.
Has to be said, Chas is a definite Rolls Royce blogger. Maybe he could get a job as Foreign Secretary, if he was quickly ennobled.

Walked the dogs earlier - a bit cold but a nice day for it. Notably, no-one from Antwerp, Lower-Saxony, Tuscany or Valencia stopped me for a chat.Looks like the isolation has started to bite

You, sir, sound like a traitor and should be treated as such. I am thinking naked, tar, feathers, high street parade, but maybe this would infringe one or two paragraphs in the EU human rights chapter, or whatever. You display all the characteristics of an aparatchik who forgot that you are/were a servant of the people and in your generous loftiness are throwing some crumbles of your superior intellect to the benighted masses.  

That last one hits it bang on the nose.

Anyway, my second one linked to this excellent Economist piece offering a detailed account of what the UK Prime Minister wanted and why he did not get it. Well worth a read if you want to look at some hard-core analysis and not a lot of heated knowledge-free opinion.

What does it all boil down to?

Not enough, if the main aim is to stop the Eurozone failing horribly as the planet's investors think we've all gone mad and draw their money out of the system.

But maybe just enough (for now) if you want to get re-elected as President of France?

Do global investors see this blood-stained arena as a sensible place to park their hard-earned money? No.

While the self-absorbed British commentariat divides into Europhile/Europhobe factions like Bertie Wooster's aunt mastodons bellowing at each other across a primaeval swamp, the real story is that the Summit did not do anything serious to tackle the eurozone's acute credibility problem.

Why did it not do more? Because top European opinion is completely divided on existential questions to do with the moral hazard involved in different eurozone rescue plans. And because step-by-step Europe's leaders have set up structures of such intricacy and complexity that it is next to impossible to identify what needs to be fixed, and then muster the practical agreement to do the fixing.

Here in powerful fluent form is Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, speaking today in Berlin about Europe and the Eurozone.

If anyone can find a better peacetime speech by any Polish Foreign Minister or any Polish politician ever, let it be produced!

Not that it is perfect. Too many rather impenetrable statistics at various point. Some sentences are too long or involved.

He even - horror - takes a populist swipe at the UK (bear in mind the German audience and his own credentials as an Oxford graduate), after saying something important about 'subsidiarity'. Note how he abruptly switches to talking to the UK in the second person, as if we were in the room. Fine technique:

The more power and legitimacy we give to federal institutions, the more secure

member states should feel that certain prerogatives, everything to do with national

identity, culture, religion, lifestyle, public morals, and rates of income, corporate and

VAT taxes, should forever remain in the purview of states. Our unity can survive

different working hours or different family law in different countries.

Which brings me to the issue of whether an important member, Britain, can support reform. You have given the Union its common language. The Single Market was largely your brilliant idea. A British commissioner runs our diplomacy. You could lead Europe on defence. You are an indispensable link across the Atlantic.

On the other hand, Eurozone’s collapse would hugely harm your economy. Also, your total sovereign, corporate and household debt exceeds 400% of GDP. Are you sure markets will always favour you? We would prefer you in, but if you can’t join, please allow us to forge ahead. And please start explaining to your people that European decisions are not Brussels’ diktats but results of agreements in which you freely participate.

Fine, forge 'ahead' as you see fit. But pay for it yourselves. Don't expect too much British money if you overdo it. And don't try taxing us by the back door.

Nor is it easy to see from an admittedly befogged UK point of view how giving a turbo-boost to more powers at the European level as Sikorski suggests is in any meaningful way compatible with democracy as hitherto understood. More power to ... the European Parliament? No thanks. (Remember that one? Follow the link to see a German TV station doing a very early job to magnificent effect...)

Above all, isn't a wholesale reorganisation of  EU powers lunging in a Far More Europe way as Sikorski suggests completely unrealistic? How to negotiate a new treaty structure of such far-reaching new measures without the whole business getting bogged down in referenda and hopeless controversy? It's not by chance we have what we have. And German voters would have to be mad to allow other Europeans effectively to decide how much German money is transferred out of Germany for wider redistributive purposes.

Nonetheless, if you want to hear the message for More Europe delivered by a European foreign minister in a way calculated to impress an audience from another large member state, this is what it looks like.

This one passage - directed directly at Germany - is really good by any standard. Energetic and thoughtful, but also refeshingly blunt. An authentic contemporary rhetorical masterclass in delivering a tough message ("Listen, you helped get us all into this mess..!") to a foreign audience in their own country with style and grace.

Oh, but note too the hard-nosed Polish caveat tucked away at the end:

What does Poland ask of Germany?

We ask, first of all, that Germany admits that she is the biggest beneficiary of the current arrangements and therefore that she has the biggest obligation to make them sustainable.

Second, as you know best, you are not an innocent victim of others’ profligacy. You, who should have known better, have also broken the Growth and Stability Pact and your banks also recklessly bought risky bonds.

Third, because investors have been selling the bonds of exposed countries and flying to safety, your borrowing costs have been lower than they would have been in normal times.

Fourth, if your neighbours’ economies stall or implode, you greatly suffer, too.

Fifth, that despite your understandable aversion to inflation, you appreciate that the danger of collapse is now a much bigger threat.

Sixth, that because of your size and your history you have a special responsibility to preserve peace and democracy on the continent. Jurgen Habermas has wisely said that "If the European project fails, then there is the question of how long it will take to reach the status quo again. Remember the German Revolution of 1848: When it failed, it took us 100 years to regain the same level of democracy as before."

What, as Poland’s foreign minister, do I regard as the biggest threat to the security and prosperity of Poland today, on 28th November 2011? It’s not terrorism, it’s not the Taliban, and it’s certainly not German tanks. It’s not even Russian missiles which President Medvedev has just threatened to deploy on the EU’s border.

The biggest threat to the security and prosperity of Poland would be the collapse of the Euro zone. And I demand of Germany that, for your own sake and for ours, you help it survive and prosper. You know full well that nobody else can do it.

I will probably be first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity.

You have become Europe’s indispensable nation. You may not fail to lead. Not dominate, but to lead in reform. Provided you include us in decision-making, Poland will support you.

I like various Sikorskiesque personal style-touches, such as this feline one:

This appears to be a well-sourced Telegraph piece revealing that the FCO has instructed Embassies to start making contingency plans for a Eurozone crash.

If so, it's startling.

Startling!

Partly because our much-diminished Embassies across the EU - cheerily cut back by Labour and this Coalition government alike to redeploy diplomats to the 'emerging markets' - just won't be able to handle the tens of thousands of consular cases which could come their way.

Can someone working at an EU mission quickly drop me a private line (via the site-link above) to tell me what exactly a contingency plan to deal with thousands of people whose credit-cards have stopped working would look like?

But startling also because the FCO is not warning the British public through its formal Travel Advice to start making similar precautions.

Here is the current FCO Travel Advice for France, which 19,000,000(!) British nationals visit each year. It focuses on the eternal issue of the day in Europe - French food:

• Sea France has suspended all of its cross-channel ferry services. Call Sea France on +44 (0) 845 458 0666 for further information and allow extra time for your journey
• Following an outbreak of botulism, the French Health authorities have issued a warning not to consume any pastes or spreads produced by a French company called La Ruche. The pastes are branded as Les Délices de Marie Claire, Terre de Mistral and Les Secrets d’Anais

Here's the FCO's lugubriously out-of-date ungrammatical Travel Advice for Italy:

·         There is a general transport strike planned in Italy on 17 November. All means of public transport is expected to be affected.  If you are flying to/from Italy contact your airline before you travel. See Safety and Security - Local Travel - Major pre-planned strikes.

Germany has another grammatically challenged entry, but at least has some references to money. Maybe the advice should be to carry lots of counterfeit Euros - soon likely to be worth more than the real ones?!

• Like other large European countries there is a high threat from terrorism in Germany. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers. See Safety and Security - Terrorism.
• We are aware of British nationals who have been arrested for possessing counterfeit currency.  We advise against changing currency anywhere other than banks or legitimate Bureaux de Change.

Hmm. Not much in all this on how a few million Brits across Europe might get back to our island fortress if the Eurozone folds overnight and the cash-machines stop working and fuel for cars, planes and cross-channel ferries runs out.

There is a real problem here - any such official warning would trigger panic and make the Eurozone's horrible problems even worse. 

Yet the Telegraph piece archly quotes a "senior Minister" to the effect that a Eurozone collapse is now 'just a matter of time'. Perhaps this IS the consular warning. To lucky Telegraph readers at least.

Croatia is next in line to join the European Union.

But this sort of thing, circulated by the eminent Centre for Research into Post-communist Economies, shows that beneath the surface - or even bang on it - a lot of nasty habits and people and instincts inherited from the communist period and then the ghastly Tudjman era are flourishing.

I am forwarding the CRCE appeal on behalf of H21 to William Hague's office and to senior people in Brussels, urging them to take action.

Come on Croatia. Stop producing this rubbish. And don't bring it into our EU tent. We have enough already. 

A Call for the Release of Croatia’s Political Prisoner - 72 year old Author and Stalwart Anti-Corruption Activist Aleksandar Saša Radović

72 year-old Alksandar Saša Radović (Sasha) - an author and stalwart anti-corruption leader in Croatia was arrested last week just moments after Sasha's name appeared in public as a formal candidate of Hrvatska 21 - Croatia 21 (H21).  The police report given to the press was that Mrs Radovic was present with Sasha when they were arrested on charges of extortion. 

There are major issues involved in this case that require immediate international intervention led by principled leaders of the West:

-  Sasha has been detained at an undisclosed location and denied due process and an attorney for 7 days and counting.

-  Contrary to the police report which claims that Mrs. Radovic was with Sasa when Sasha was arrested, Mrs. Radovic was at their family residence some 60 minutes from where Sasha was arrested.  Mrs Radovic was with her sister and brother-in-law during the period.

-  Due process was denied and lawyers were not appointed or permitted to contact Mr. and Mrs. Radovic.

The arrest of Sasha took place on the day when it became public that he joined the roster of 75 brave citizens as political candidates on the list of Hrvatska 21 - Croatia 21st Century.

In his most recent book, Sasha exposed the outgoing Minister of Interior, Mr. Tomislav Karamarko for political corruption and general Ivan Cermak as a war profiteer.
   
Cermak’s unexplained wealth and evidences of smuggling during the West's arms embargo of the Balkan region have been published in Sasha’s four major books which include the selling of oil and weapons to Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro while Cermak was employed in Croatia’s military during Croatia’s independence war. 

Today, Cermak resides in a lavish castle with an estimated wealth of 200 million euros - much higher than the wages earned working for the government.  Cermak’s “business endeavors” included a chain of gas retail outlets which was sold in the meantime.  Cermak's companies have been a major media advertiser in Croatia.

The West’s leaders have been silent in spite of the fact that Croatia is a NATO member and a candidate of the European Union.  The West has poured over 1 billion euros of taxpayer funds into Croatia’s “reform process” without any results.

Aleksandar Saša Radović has published over 20 books on corruption in Croatia and much of his work (with documents and evidences) has been presented in the international arena to place a spotlight on high level political corruption including cabinet members of the ruling HDZ including former PM Ivo Sanader and the communist party SDP.

Croatia is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the "freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media."

EU membership criteria emphasize the stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law and human rights.  However, Croatia’s politicians have subverted the rule of law and protection of property rights.  More than 1 million back logged cases are in the court system, some for more than 20 years.

Croatia’s elections are slated for December 4, 2011 with over 550,000 illegal votes not addressed by Croatia’s authorities. Efforts by ruling HDZ and SDP have blocked the verification of the voter list.

Sasha is now a political prisoner of a tyrannical state, a compromised member of NATO with an unreformed intelligence structure dating back to the UDBA (Tito’s communist system) and a tainted candidate nation about to enter the EU.

In an independent initiative, Denis Latin, anchor of Croatia’s state-run television and one of the most respected journalists in Croatia and Southeast Europe has joined well-known public figures in a signed letter calling for the release of Sasha.

Over the last four months, over 20 political party candidates of H21, supporters and volunteers have been harassed, intimidated, lost business contracts and had visits by Croatia's "financial police".

The Adriatic Institute for Public Policy and Hrvatska 21 call for the immediate release of Aleksandar Saša Radović and encourage Western leaders from strong rule of law nations to join this effort in calling for Croatia to uphold the rule of law and establish an independent judiciary.

Former FCO Minister Denis MacShane MP has written a small but energetic book praising Kosovo's independence: Why Kosovo Still Matters (sic).

Here it is, a perfect Christmas stocking-filler, the more perfect if bought via this link so that I get a few groats from Amazon: 

The main interest of the book for you folk lies in the more or less contemporaneous Ministerial diary extracts from Denis as he visited various Balkan capitals and attended international gatherings where Kosovo/Serbia was being discussed.

There is a walk-on role by Keith Vaz MP, briefly the Minister responsible for Balkan policy, whose modest knowledge of the subject was exposed back in 2001 when he and I had to give evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee:

We find it deeply regrettable that Mr Vaz, the FCO minister responsible for south-east Europe, has not visited the area ... His evidence session with us did not reveal a detailed grasp of the policy issues which the area faces. As the Minister told us, and we know ourselves, the situation in the Balkans is "very complex and very difficult"...

It has to be said that the Committee had a point.

Mr Vaz's eloquent but somewhat insubstantial replies to their many questions were a truly fine example of talking a lot and saying  ... nothing.

In Denis' book too Keith Vaz blandly reveals his insightful approach. During a session of briefing by FCO officials on the complexity of the Kosovo problem, he asks:

"Can somebody just draw me a little map and show me where Kosovo is?"

The main interest of the book for me is ... me. I appear wittily or not at various points, but this line caught my special eye:

"... Charles Crawford, one of the most whizzing catherine wheels of a politically astute ambassador that we have"

*blushes prettily*

The book also records accurately enough one amazing moment in April 2002 when then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw chaired a discussion about Balkan policy.

Paddy Ashdown (then High Representative in Bosnia) had nobbled PM Tony Blair to argue against drawing down UK forces too far in Bosnia while maintaining a sizeable UK military presence in Kosovo. The Foreign Secretary asked officials where we all thought the main UK military effort should now focus:

Charles Crawford, the sharp but rather cocky Ambassador in Belgrade, says that we should stay in Bosnia and that Kosovo should be persuaded to stay in a loose federation with Serbia and Montenegro.

The arguments about where UK troops made most impact on the ground and where the main threat to the region's security lay went round and round the table. Finally, as he describes in the book, Denis proposed a vote. And before anyone could question his sanity he quickly had torn up a piece of paper and handed round slips for voting: B for Bosnia, K for Kosovo.

We voted. The votes were counted by Denis. 10 - 5 for focusing on Kosovo. I voted for a heavier UK military presence in Kosovo (of course), even though the book suggests that the opposite was my view.

Denis' case therefore won the argument:

Thus, British foreign policy is made

Hmm. The exception, not the rule, I think.

Otherwise the text is a gay romp through the politics of the Balkans over a thousand years and the latest decades of convulsion, with no opportunity spared to extol the Kosovans and cast Serbs in general and most UK Conservatives in particular in a bad light.

In other words, a typical MacShanian production. Top quality insider gossip, lively, sometimes irreverent, impossibly light, blithely tendentious. And with handy insights. I especially liked the way he linked the events in 1980s' Yugoslavia to the Solidarity pressures in Poland - important to recall that there was a wider European anti-communist context to the issue.

It's also noteworthy that he does not (now) dismiss out of hand the idea of some sort of small territory swaps as part of an historic deal between Belgrade and Pristina, an idea whose time may yet come.

The main problem with the book, apart from myriad other problems, is that it does far too little justice (in fact none at all) to the significant arguments of the Russians and others about the inadmissibility of border changes in Europe "without the consent of all concerned" as per the Helsinki Accords.

Because, Minister, foreign policy is all about balancing realities against principles and rules.

And for all the merits of the Kosovans' claims against Belgrade, is it really such a good outcome for the UK and the world - and even for Kosovo - that international opinion has ended up so divided in a way which shows that deeper Western policy on this subject has spectacularly failed to be convincing (ie Russia, China, India, Brazil, S Africa and many other non-Western big hitters firmly not recognising Kosovo independence on principle)?

Anyway, did I say buy it via the Amazon link above? Go on. You know you want to.

But better not if you're a Serb.

Six days since I wrote anything here. The longest gap since the Crawfblog began back in early 2008?

I have been running around, not least to Brussels where my training presentation on Political Reporting to startled European diplomats went down well. I banged on self-indulgently about my life and times writing telegrams back to the FCO (including my highly praised telegram on the morning after Serbian PM Zoran Djindjic was assassinated), urging the following general rules:

• if you want it to be read, make it readable
• some things are important - but don't matter
• no stupid words!
• don't be boring

These strictures and accompanying illustrative slides of inter alios Mr Incredible, Clint Eastwood and Spider-Man's Aunt May caught their attention.

Part of the problem with political reporting is getting right the balance between what HQ wants to know and what it needs to know. Usually HQ is several months behind where any given overseas problem 'is' - standard briefs get word-processed and stale, drawing on expired assumptions.

So just as it is right to try to keep HQ up to date, Embassies also need to remember that HQ usually won't be that interested in anything which significantly changes the 'narrative' unless it is dramatic enough to catch the headlines in the HQ country.

Likewise you can say what you like in an urgent telegram, but the dominant thought about any given overseas development back at HQ will be whatever the media are saying that morning about it. Ministers pay more attention to the newspapers read in the car on the way to the office than to diplomatic cables, since any questions they will be asked during the day will draw on that media reporting, even if it is wrong or stupid...

Any public body with the words 'European' in the name has horrible problems with 'the hierarchy'. Information rarely trickles down from on high to the working level, and people have to pull their punches in saying what they think lest the 'hierarchy' object.

One interesting issue thus arose. How should a serious middle-ranking diplomat at an EU mission deal with reporting an election in an African country where the result was largely farcical/manipulated? The problem in this case was the fact that the mission hierarchy and EU HQ and indeed many governments round the world were happy enough to hail this wretched outcome as a victory for continuity and 'stability'. A report calling into question the result as an obvious farce would not be welcomed, or even be allowed to issue.

No easy answer. I quoted my own early disagreements with the British Embassy hierarchy back in 1984 in Belgrade, when I had written the legendary MTS/non-MTS paper warning about problems within communist Yugoslavia. Even though the then Ambassador had disagreed with the paper in important respects, he was gracious enough to send it back to London under cover of a letter explaining what the disagreements were about and what his own view was. London thereby at least had the opportunity to mull intelligently over two very rival interpretations.

This elegant and democratic, clever British outcome was a source of much marvelling amongst the assembled Europeans - none of their bosses would be likely to do anything like that!

So there is no easy answer on how a young diplomat should best deal with a situation where the mission and its policy are at variance with reality, honour and common sense. Of course anyone feeling really upset can launch into the various available grievance/appeal processes, but that merely builds up a reputation as a vainglorious boat-rocker and in any case is a hopeless vehicle for changing policy analysis.

As I said to them, it ultimately comes down to how you want to live. Most of us rationalise such things away on the grounds that it just takes time to change policies, and that much of what 'policy' is ebbs and flows anyway. Sometimes it's better to avoid fighting a losing battle on one issue for the sake of making a difference in another.

If that isn't your style, resign and do something else. But remember that if you do that, the organisation you've left will have one honourable voice fewer - does that really help either?

One final thought.

When I was Ambassador in Warsaw a very senior ex-colleague bow with a global energy company swung by. I asked him what was good or bad about having left the FCO behind.

"The good thing about having left the FCO is that at last I can say what I think!"

That for me was an astounding reply. What had he been saying when he was in the FCO for all those years - what someone else thought?!

Yesterday my Sunday was interrupted by a request from RT-TV (Russia's answer to the BBC's world broadcasts) to take part in a programme talking about the Eurozone in general and Italy in particular.

As they asked nicely and as it was not too far to the BBC Oxford studio where the short session was to be recorded, off I went.

Here is part of the transcript of the interview, with my friend Patrick Young as it happens also featured just below (Patrick knows more than any human being decently should know about software programs running Balkan and other such new stock exchanges).

Off I go:

“All the countries in the eurozone which are getting these debt difficulties are having the same problem. This is because they are in the eurozone and cannot devalue their currencies. In effect they are left with borrowing money from the international market and the other eurozone members. They are left with reducing government spending, which is sacking people, which is not popular with the people who are sacked. They are reduced to putting up taxes, which is not popular with everyone else," ...

“Once you’ve got into these very strong difficult debt situations, the ways out are all very painful. So in both Greece and Italy and in some other eurozone countries the choices available to the leaders of the countries concerned are very limited. That is why the eurozone is coming under stress – because the political and psychological pressures are coming up against the way the whole thing was set up in the first place,”

Crawford emphasised that the crisis in Europe is like an impressive house where the foundations, it turns out, were not very well built. And it is very difficult to repair the foundations while inside the house and without moving somewhere else.

If you're feeling brave, watch the full interview (only some four minutes) by pressing the link above. Lawks, I look tired. Maybe it was clear and fluent enough for the occasion, even if I got a bit too involved in one or two long sentence thoughts. Keep it short - and simple!

Fascinating in a grimly painful way to watch one's own twitches and mannerisms (such as starting each answer with "Well, ...") when part of one's work is training others in how to do media work ha ha.

A random comment below from one Bogdan shows that he/she has not quite grasped the point of a TV interview:

A weaker Italy might appeal to many inside the EU. It would be very interesting indeed if Mr Crawford could as well analyse the dire status of economy in his own country, which should be the UK by the biased style of his article...

The medium is the message, or something. Even in Russia.

Readers here know all about MTS and non-MTS.

It seemed a good idea to explain the idea to Telegraph Blog readers. Done here, with a nice stormy seas picture:

Hence the core diplomatic policy conundrum: over what timescale is success measured?

One of the metaphors I deployed to explain Bosnia’s problems to bemused Whitehall officials was the tall, steep sand-dune. You rush at the sand-dune and try to get to the top, but find yourself stuck. If only you had seen that strong tuft of grass over to the right before you made your dash! You could have reached that and tried to pull yourself upwards. But any movement towards it or in any other direction makes you slide backwards.

From good if over-optimistic or even naive intentions you can end up in a hopeless place, where no good move is available. This is why the eurozone problem is so difficult for our top policy-makers.

Eurozone leaders designed an ornate gondola for drifting affably round the elegant decay of Venice. They now find themselves swept by an unimaginable (or at least unimagined) current into horrible stormy seas.

The vessel is sinking! No life-jackets! The Greek can’t swim! The German is hooting that everyone tighten their belts! The Frenchman blames capitalism! The odious Brits preferred their own shabby dinghy: they watch with cynical amusement from choppy but still (they believe) manageable waters.

Basically, the eurozoners have allowed themselves to get far out of their depth. And they smugly refused to pack any safety kit.

I swung by the FCO today for a quiet adult chat about repatriating powers from the EU. What does that mean, if anything, and how might it be done or at least systematically attempted.

Many interesting points emerged. Some unexpected, to me at least. Watch this space.

Plus, a Scary Thought about FCO consular work: what would HMG do if Greece's money system crashed during peak holiday season, leaving a million Brits stranded there with cash machines not working?

The FCO mind boggles.

In case readers here have missed it, my second Telegraph Blog contribution:

Most people reading this website will have been brought up to believe that "liberal democracy" is a natural state of affairs. It trundles along in the background for the British public as for the Foreign Office, without needing much attention.

We also were brought up (usually without realising it) to agree with Hayek that only free markets and free voters deliver the free information which allow modern society to work.

Hayek was surely right over the long term. Goodbye USSR. But what about the medium term? Or short term?

What if the sheer complexity of decisions facing national leaders in a democracy combines with greedy or ignorant or pig-headed voters to produce completely stupid results? Could autocracy plus modern IT in practice look more rational and efficient (and therefore more “moral" or at least more credible) at taking strategic decisions, such as not running up state borrowing far beyond the credible capacity of the state to repay its debts?

... You don't have to be a raving Eurosceptic (although of course that helps) to have profound, urgent misgivings about the way the eurozone crisis is eroding European democracy, including our own. The Greek referendum announcement is bad news for manifold practical reasons. Maybe a referendum won't in fact happen. But given the steep collapse Greece now faces, is asking voters to make strategic choices for inevitable sacrifices so unwise an idea?

Bottom line?

I spent most of my professional diplomatic career in one way or the other working hard to build a decent, peaceful democratic Europe. It turns out that the specific model chosen by the continental EU elites is a moral and (worse) philosophical failure.

Am I alone staring at this dangerous disaster and asking myself a painful question: “How do I withdraw my consent from being governed like this?"

Some vivid comments (over 300 and rising), not all humming the same tune:

Most people are bewildered by what is going on in Greece. So am I.

But here is a wily view from everyone's favourite Serb Paleocon, Srdja Trifkovic, who explains how the whole manoeuvre looks like a quirky judo move to floor the opposition and so end up making the whole EU austerity policy towards Greek debt more likely to be implemented (not that that is necessarily good for Greece).

Not just the Greek opposition feel unbalanced and dizzy. Perhaps the French too:

On the foreign front I still suspect that Germany (but not France) may have been briefed in advance of Papandreou’s referendum gambit, and that he will use the aftermath of the scare to exact an even greater “haircut” in the weeks to come—primarily to the detriment of the three big French banks.

Meanwhile anyone with any sense (and, more importantly, any Euros) in Greece will be shipping out those Euros in case Greece crashes from the Eurozone and those Euros end up worth massively less in newly denominated New Drachmas.

This capital flight of course makes it all worse! As is happening in Italy. In effect 'Italian' and 'Greek' and some other national Euros are now worth less than 'German' Euros. This is a farcical but inevitable result of trying to push economic water uphill.

But of course it's all the wicked banks ripping us off, wail the thick Leftists. To which comes more elegant analysis from Tim Worstall:

The banks have already lost their money. Deutsche Bank carries Greek debt on its books at 50% of nominal. So does RBS. So, in fact, does every bank that has even a modicum of sense (this excludes certain French banks but then we knew that was likely, finance and Frenchmen not mixing well).

For the banks Greece going bust has already happened, they’ve already lost their money. What’s next on the banks’ agenda is, OK, so, they’re bust. What do we all do to get them moving again?

The people who are not being asked to take a haircut are the IMF, the ECB, the EFSF, the whole lot of public sector holders of Greek debt. They too have, in reality (perhaps not the IMF as it is always first in line as a creditor) lost 50% of their money…..because Greek debt is trading at 50% of nominal.

This whole farce of a bailout, the austerity, the entirely counter-productive wringing out of a nation, is all to try and make sure that those public sector holders do not have to acknowledge the loss they have already made...

Wait! It's all the fault of the evil anonymous markets! How dare 'markets' dictate to governments!

Er, not that either.

Governments choose to borrow from different parts of the planet because taxpayers won't pay enough tax to finance things governments say taxpayers must have even though they won't pay enough tax.

And if you borrow money, the lenders may politely ask how you plan to pay it back, and trust you to give an honest answer. If they don't get an honest or credible answer, they are inclined to put up the cost of lending you more money.

That's not an evil market at work. That's good manners.

Last word with Tim who explains why the EU elite won't do what is needed to end the crisis:

... What wouldn’t survive is the Grand European Dream, that the disparate continent can be turned into one Great Country ruled by the technocrats in Brussels. Which is why the technocrats in Brussels won’t solve the problem in the obvious and simple manner. Because the Dream is more important than the People.

Sadly, an economy, a country, where a Dream, any Dream, is more important than the People isn’t a nice one for people to inhabit.