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UFOP e.V.: Berlin (ots) - Die Vision einer weltweiten Energiewende hin zu 100 Prozent Erneuerbaren Energien hat durch die Beschlüsse des jüngsten G7-Gipfels deutlich an Konturen gewonnen. Auch wenn in diesem Zusammenhang der Kohleausstieg von zentraler ...

Copal Amba: Frankfurt am Main (ots) - Juni 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- An die Redaktion: Weitere Informationen über diese Mitteilung finden Sie beim Herunterscrollen. Heute veröffentlichte Performance Financial seine Research-Berichte über die Forbo Holding AG ...

Copal Amba: Frankfurt am Main (ots) - Juni 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- An die Redaktion: Weitere Informationen über diese Mitteilung finden Sie beim Herunterscrollen. Heute veröffentlichte Performance Financial seine Research-Berichte über die Cerner Corp (ISIN: ...

This week I’m in Moldova, for a workshop of our TEMPUS project INOTLES. You’ve probably not been to Moldova, but Chisinau is a very pleasant city around which to walk, albeit one in which the local UNDP office looks like one of the more important buildings.

To be here – in a country that has possibly the lowest GDP per capita in Europe and a geographical location that might best be described as exposed – the world looks a lot different from the view afforded to those living in the UK. Which makes it all the more important to reflect on those differences.

Over the past couple of weeks David Cameron has continued to get his proverbial ducks in a row on the EU referendum. That’s meant both more talks with counterparts elsewhere in the EU and an increasingly fraught passage of the referendum bill through Parliament. That Tory backbenchers are not going to let Cameron get away with anything at all is now very evident, their obstinacy only being encouraged by his apparent unwillingness to defend any position for long.

But the issue for the external observer – perhaps in the Moldovan foreign ministry across the road from where I write – is that the entire enterprise of renegotiation and referendum looks ill-timed and ill-conceived.

For Moldova – and for a lot of other places like it – the EU remains a veritable cornucopia of economic opportunity and safety. This is a country that has suffered at the hands of various forms of external rule, colonialism in all but name. The Transnistria conflict remains frozen after 15 years, and the ructions in Ukraine feel too close for comfort. The EU might be a difficult partner, but at least is one that offers an implicit security guarantee and an institutionalised voice at the table.

That might sound like it’s all well and good for Moldova, but so what for the UK?

The argument would be that the UK is just as exposed as Moldova, albeit for very different reasons. The latter can get by through virtue of being small and having (relatively) small objectives. The former has much bigger objectives – to be a consequential player on the world stage – and so it has to play a different game.

Where the UK has continued to struggle is in its view that the EU is an ‘either/or’ proposition: either you put all your eggs in the one basket with other member states, or you have nothing to do with them.

A moment’s regard to France – still pursuing its own foreign policy – or Germany – still accessing export markets – should demonstrate that the Union is actually a ‘also/and’ organisation: membership is an occasion to further bolster one’s objectives. As I’ve argued here before, European integration can be largely understood as a way for states to secure things that they cannot by themselves.

In addition, there has to be a recognition that the fates of individual European states are bound up together: Moldovans will know this better than Brits, but it’s true for both. As the absolute tragedy of Greece is demonstrating, what happens in one part of the continent matters for everywhere else.

This is not to preach some kind of universalism about European integration, that it accommodates everyone, all the time. However, in a globalising and changing world, the song that drifts across the western Steppe sounds particularly mellifluous: we would do well to listen to it harder across the Channel.

The post The view from Chisinau: Cameron’s fantastic(al) luxury of choice appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Copal Amba: Frankfurt am Main (ots) - Juni 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- An die Redaktion: Weitere Informationen über diese Mitteilung finden Sie beim Herunterscrollen. Heute veröffentlichte Performance Financial seine Research-Berichte über die BioTelemetry Inc ...

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Tourismusverband Braunau im Inn: Als in Braunau am Inn eine Brise Meeresluft wehte. Braunau am Inn (ots) - 100 Jahre Marineakademie Braunau am Inn - Manfred und Tamara Rachbauer auf den Spuren der Marineakademie Braunau "Die Erinnerung an eine historische Besonderheit in Braunau ...

Macédoine : le gouvernement s'attaque (enfin) au problème des migrants
Balkans : l'épopée des migrants et l'hypocrisie européenne
Balkans, sur les routes des migrants : À Lojane, au centre des trafics (1/6)
Lenche Zdravkin, une citoyenne de Macédoine solidaire des migrants
Macédoine : la police enquête sur des kidnappings massifs de migrants
Macédoine : 14 migrants tués par un train

/ Courrier des Balkans, Serbie, Société, Relations régionales, Défense, police et justice, Migrants Balkans

Macédoine : le gouvernement s'attaque (enfin) au problème des migrants
Balkans : l'épopée des migrants et l'hypocrisie européenne
Balkans, sur les routes des migrants : À Lojane, au centre des trafics (1/6)
Lenche Zdravkin, une citoyenne de Macédoine solidaire des migrants
Macédoine : la police enquête sur des kidnappings massifs de migrants
Macédoine : 14 migrants tués par un train

/ Courrier des Balkans, Serbie, Société, Relations régionales, Défense, police et justice, Migrants Balkans

Macédoine : le gouvernement s'attaque (enfin) au problème des migrants
Balkans : l'épopée des migrants et l'hypocrisie européenne
Balkans, sur les routes des migrants : À Lojane, au centre des trafics (1/6)
Lenche Zdravkin, une citoyenne de Macédoine solidaire des migrants
Macédoine : la police enquête sur des kidnappings massifs de migrants
Macédoine : 14 migrants tués par un train

/ Courrier des Balkans, Serbie, Société, Relations régionales, Défense, police et justice, Migrants Balkans

Macédoine : le gouvernement s'attaque (enfin) au problème des migrants
Balkans : l'épopée des migrants et l'hypocrisie européenne
Balkans, sur les routes des migrants : À Lojane, au centre des trafics (1/6)
Lenche Zdravkin, une citoyenne de Macédoine solidaire des migrants
Macédoine : la police enquête sur des kidnappings massifs de migrants
Macédoine : 14 migrants tués par un train

/ Courrier des Balkans, Serbie, Société, Relations régionales, Défense, police et justice, Migrants Balkans

Copal Amba: Frankfurt am Main (ots) - Juni 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- An die Redaktion: Weitere Informationen über diese Mitteilung finden Sie beim Herunterscrollen. Heute veröffentlichte Performance Financial seine Research-Berichte über die Oberbank AG (ISIN: ...

Copal Amba: Frankfurt am Main (ots) - Juni 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- An die Redaktion: Weitere Informationen über diese Mitteilung finden Sie beim Herunterscrollen. Heute veröffentlichte Performance Financial seine Research-Berichte über die Oberbank AG (ISIN: ...

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Sequa Petroleum N.V: London (ots/PRNewswire) - Sequa Petroleum NV ("SPNV") is pleased to announce that an agreement has been reached for the acquisition of Tellus Petroleum Invest AS and its subsidiary Tellus Petroleum AS (collectively "Tellus") a company registered in ...

Statistisches Bundesamt: Wiesbaden (ots) - Im Jahr 2014 wurden in Deutschland rund 245 300 Wohnungen fertig gestellt. Wie das Statistische Bundesamt (Destatis) mitteilt, waren das 30 500 Wohnungen oder 14,2 % mehr als im Vorjahr. Damit sind die Wohnungsfertigstellungen zum ...

Statistisches Bundesamt: Wiesbaden (ots) - Im ersten Quartal 2015 haben in Deutschland insgesamt knapp 835 000 Personen Elterngeld bezogen. Das Statistische Bundesamt veröffentlicht damit erstmals Ergebnisse zu aktuellen Leistungsbezügen aus der Bestandsstatistik zum ...

Copal Amba: Frankfurt am Main (ots) - Juni 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- An die Redaktion: Weitere Informationen über diese Mitteilung finden Sie beim Herunterscrollen. Heute veröffentlichte Performance Financial seine Research-Berichte über die Wacker Neuson (ISIN: ...

Copal Amba: Frankfurt am Main (ots) - Juni 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- An die Redaktion: Weitere Informationen über diese Mitteilung finden Sie beim Herunterscrollen. Heute veröffentlichte Performance Financial seine Research-Berichte über die Cadence Design ...

There’s of course nothing wrong with the commemoration of historical battles. Quite the contrary: each time I took students to the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy, they got a better idea of why European integration might actually be a good idea. And most of the four-year-long commemorative flow on World War I is produced, if not always in perfect taste, at least with mostly good intentions.

The bicentenary of Waterloo, however, seems to produce the kind of re-enactment and narrative that leaves a sour aftertaste. The very name of the battle is already too closely linked to the Napoleonic epic, and commemoration almost inevitably drifts into the realm of myth and legend. All over the 19th century literature, music, art and historiography have patiently and steadily built the Napoleonic myth of ‘the Great Man’ – whether despised as megalomaniac tyrant or glorified as hero – and it’s difficult to emancipate from this heavy cultural conditioning.

Waterloo has been the object of works by the most prominent novelists and poets of the 19th century. As early as 1815, some months only after the actual event, William Wordsworth, Clemens Brentano and Casimir Delavigne already had made it the topic of their poetry, Lord Byron followed one year later. In the 1830s and 1840s, Balzac, Stendhal, Grabbe, Chateaubriand, Thackeray and Victor Hugo also gave in to the morbid fascination of a battle that had left a minimum of 47,000 dead on a single day.

Emile Erckmann and Alexandra Chatrian.

The best antidote to any temptation of nostalgic glorification of historical warfare, however, can be found in the very credible account of a fictitious French conscript named Joseph Bertha created by Emile Erckmann (1822–1899) and Alexandre Chatrian (1826–1890) from Alsace-Lorraine. Published in 1864 (and quickly sold in over 1.5 million copies to a mostly rural public), their Waterloo takes the form of a ‘flashback’, in which an old man recollects his memories, emotions and lessons from fifty years ago.

The anti-militarist and anti-nationalist attitudes expressed by the protagonist, who is drawn by force into a war he does neither understand not approve, are a remarkable counterpoint to the zeitgeist of a late 19th century rather characterised by jingoism and revanchism. And the utter realism of his account of battle – clearly based on extensive research by the authors – made even Emile Zola refer with admiration to the authors’ ‘extreme power of description’.

Joseph Bertha as old man. Illustration to the Erckmann-Chatrian novel by Riou (1833-1900).

What is particularly convincing in Joseph Bertha’s narration is the fact that he must admit that as young man he had not been insensitive to ideas of ‘grandeur’ et ‘gloire’, rather easily manipulated by demagogic nationalist brainwash, and even prone to a certain admiration for ‘L’Empereur’. Fifty years later, however, his judgement is unambiguous:

‘I know well that these things are called “glory”, but people would be well advised not to glorify individuals of this kind…’

Erckmann’s and Chatrian’s seemingly ‘naïve’ novel of 1864 is a more than interesting companion through the commemorative frenzy of 2015. It is a stunning account of the reality of war at an age where there were no photographs or amateur videos. And it is a most welcome reminder that ‘greatness’ or ‘glory’ are dangerous and altogether meaningless categories, both for individuals and entire nations. In the Europe of the 21st century they sound hollow and empty, and it’s good to know that they already did for some enlightened Europeans a hundred and fifty years ago.

Albrecht Sonntag, EU-Asia Institute, ESSCA School of Management.

The post An antidote to any nostalgia of ‘grandeur’ or ‘glory’ appeared first on Ideas on Europe.