European Union

The Council adopted conclusions reaffirming the EU support to the democratic process in Lebanon and welcoming the recent election of President Michel Aoun and the formation of a new  government led by Prime Minister Saad Hariri. It calls on the country to hold timely legislative elections in 2017 and ensure a smooth and transparent process.

The Council also reiterated the importance of Lebanon's ongoing commitment to a policy of  dissociation  from all regional  conflicts, as well as to commend the country's extraordinary efforts in hosting more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees.

Plenary session in Strasbourg

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

In November 2016, after what was by any measure a tumultuous year for Europe and the world, Oxford Dictionaries chose ‘post-truth’ as its Word of the Year. Oxford Dictionaries define the word as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.

In the immediate aftermath of a six-month period which saw the success of Brexit campaigners in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, it is certainly tempting to conclude that truth has ceased to matter.

In these two campaigns, facts and expert opinion seemed to count for nought, to be replaced by appeals to existing prejudices against immigrants, minorities and the political elite. As a result we have been forced to re-examine our conventional understanding of the relationship between facts and voting behaviour. It is not surprising that new terminology is needed to describe this situation.

There are reasons to be cautious about accepting the idea of ‘post-truth’ as the new normal. And there are perhaps even stronger reasons to resist the word itself.

The first fallacy of the idea of the world having entered a ‘post-truth’ era is the implication that an era of absolute truth existed at some earlier point in time. This view is ahistorical and in many ways unfounded.

“Before ‘post-truth’, the practice of deliberately trying to shape public opinion was called propaganda”

‘Truths’ have always been shaped by power struggles. Whether or not we accept that the phenomenon of absolute truth – such as an objectively verifiable event – exists, any attempt to communicate this truth is subjective to some extent. Communication is bound to language and cultural convention. It consists of choices made in an attempt to convey the message. Truth becomes an interpretation, rather than an absolute.

Communication and interpretation have been tied to power structures throughout history. These structures, in turn, aim to influence people as they communicate with each other. Before ‘post-truth’ there was a different word for the practice of deliberately trying to shape public opinion through appeals to emotion, personal belief and prejudice. It was ‘propaganda’.

Today, we see many of the major traits of propaganda at work in ‘post-truth’ practices such as fake news spreading on the internet and the endless repetition of unverifiable claims as ‘facts’. The mechanisms may have changed and evolved, but the goals remain largely the same.

The second fallacy about the notion of ‘post-truth’ is to do with the word itself and its potential impact. It would be a mistake to see ‘post-truth’ as a neutral label for an existing phenomenon. Words do not simply describe reality; they also actively help us perceive, understand and construct the reality we live in. Therefore, every time we repeat the notion of a ‘post-truth’ era, we give more power to the idea that truth has ceased to matter.

Rationality has been the basis of Western democracies since the Enlightenment. In many ways the technological, scientific and social progress made in Europe over the past 300 years is built on the notion that facts are relevant to the choices we make as individuals, as societies and as an international community.

If you remove the notion that truth – or at least, a sincere attempt to convey the truth with as little bias as possible – matters, the very foundation of our democracies crumbles under our feet. We are left susceptible to whichever way the next populist wind blows.

“Simple and catchy words are rarely capable of capturing complex realities, and our reality is increasingly complex”

So at its most dangerous, ‘post-truth’ has the potential to turn into Orwellian newspeak. It normalises the situation where facts no longer have any weight to them. It neutralises the sinister undertone of fake news and online hate speech. It paralyses us, leaving us feeling like there is nothing to be done since the blade of our best weapon, truth, has been made blunt and rendered useless.

This is precisely what fake news and other ‘post-truth’ practices seek to achieve. They are meant to leave us feeling confused and powerless. They are designed to divide and weaken. This confusion benefits those seeking to implement the simple-sounding solutions offered by authoritarian rule rather than solutions that actually work.

It is crucial to develop a new awareness of how ‘post-truth’ practices operate, to strip their mechanisms bare and place them under scrutiny. To do this, it may be necessary to launch an international discussion on a possible code of conduct for the ethics and responsibilities of spreading information online, where conventional ethics of journalism do not apply.

The notion of a ‘post-truth’ era may sound catchy, but perhaps this alone tells us something about the nature of the term. Simple and catchy words are rarely capable of capturing complex realities. And we live in an increasingly complex reality.

We may choose to look at it through a simplifying lens, or strive for a more nuanced understanding. History has shown that the latter is usually a more laborious way but less disastrous in the long run. We can let the notion of ‘post-truth’ politics numb us or we can resist it and turn this into an era of reclaiming the truth.

The choice, and the future built on that choice, is ours.

IMAGE CREDIT: Bigstock – devon

The post Why we should resist the idea and practice of ‘post-truth’ appeared first on Europe’s World.

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Bill English, New Zealand’s prime minister for a month, made his European diplomatic debut this week and sat down with the FT. He is here to remind folks that European decisions “wash up on our shores, even at the other end of the world”. And when it comes to Brexit, they certainly will.

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DRAFT REPORT on the 2016 Commission Report on the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Ivo Vajgl

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Monday 16 January 2017
Zagreb
10.10 Bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković
11.00 Speech at the ceremonial session on the occasion of 25th Anniversary of the International Recognition of the Republic of Croatia (photo opportunity)
11.45 Bilateral meeting with President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović
12.00 Bilateral meeting with the Speaker of the Croatian Parliament Božo Petrov 

Tuesday 17 January 2017
09.30 Meeting with Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat (photo opportunity) 

Wednesday 18 January 2017
Strasbourg
15.00 Report to the European Parliament on the European Council of 15 December 

Friday 20 January 2017
10:00 Meeting with Minister of State of the Principality of Monaco Serge Telle (photo opportunity)

The priorities of the Maltese Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers are being outlined to parliamentary committees by Maltese ministers at a series of meetings taking place in January.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
Committee on Legal Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The priorities of the Maltese Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers are being outlined to parliamentary committees by Maltese ministers at a series of meetings taking place in January.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
Committee on Legal Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Following an exchange of views with the members of the Committees on Budgets, Budgetary Control and Legal Affairs, a majority of the committees’ coordinators were satisfied that Commissioner Günther Oettinger is in a position to assume the portfolio that is transferred to him and look forward to a close working relationship.
Committee on Legal Affairs
Committee on Budgets
Committee on Budgetary Control

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Following an exchange of views with the members of the Committees on Budgets, Budgetary Control and Legal Affairs, a majority of the committees’ coordinators were satisfied that Commissioner Günther Oettinger is in a position to assume the portfolio that is transferred to him and look forward to a close working relationship.
Committee on Legal Affairs
Committee on Budgets
Committee on Budgetary Control

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Identity crisis. The Socialist rose as seen by Plantu in spring 2005.

On a study trip to Brussels about fifteen years ago, a major French socialist MEP gave a good lesson in French political semantics to my student group. In a nutshell, she explained that she and her group were perfectly at ease working with all the Social-Democrats from Germany or Sweden and elsewhere, as well as with colleagues from Labour in Britain or the Netherlands etc. As a matter of fact, she said, the French MEPs from her group actually were‘ social-democrats’ in all but name. And the she concluded, with a sigh: ‘But if we said so at home in France, we’d get lapidated in no time’.

In January 2017 the French Socialist Party is probably in its worst state ever since I’ve been actively following French politics (and that’s a worryingly long time already). Over recent weeks I have not met with anybody who does NOT think the primaries organised by the socialist party are close to irrelevant. The question is even no longer whether the winner of the primaries might have a chance or not to make it to the second round, but whether he (and it’s revealing there’s not even a credible ‘she’ in the line-up) will finish a humiliating fourth or fifth in the first round, distanced not only by Fillon and Le Pen, but also by two men who left their socialist past behind.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon was an active member of the Socialist Party in 1976 to 2008, before demonstratively leaving a party he considered no longer in line with leftist convictions. Whatever one may think of his demagogic temptations, sour aggressiveness, and paranoid Germanophobia, one must recognise he is coherent. And credible over time. (And a brilliant public speaker, too, by the way). Now that he more or less managed to incorporate what is left of the Communist Party into his movement La France insoumise (‘Unsubmissive France’), he will be a serious contender and make sure his voice will be heard throughout the campaign.

Emmanuel Macron, never was a member of the party, but owes to the years he spent in Hollande’s Socialist government much of the limelight he is currently enjoying. Like Mélenchon (but without saying it out loud) he considers French Socialism as has-been, whose leaders have been unable to decide what they actually stand for and who as a result neither have Mélenchon’s guts and ideological coherence nor pragmatic solutions for the challenges of a world that no longer fits into their traditional patterns.

Mélenchon and Macron are the proverbial ‘rock’ and ‘hard place’ between which the Socialist Party finds itself in early 2017. In other words: they are flaring red warning signs of implosion.

In 2005 the referendum on the EU institutions revealed the sheer depth of the dividing line along European integration and globalisation that runs through the party. I was dumbstruck to see just how much many of my friends, colleagues and neighbours with leftist sympathies virtually despised ‘what Europe had become’ and violently condemned the German term ‘social market economy’ as an essentially dishonest oxymoron.

In the opposition years up to 2012, the Socialist party wasted the chance to make up its mind about Europe and globalisation and opt for a coherent doctrine. Instead the party preferred to stick to its perfectly contradictory obsessions with both national sovereignty and the usual lip service to European integration. Timid tentative discussions about a possible change of name – from ‘Socialist’ to ‘Social-Democrat’ – were quickly dismissed as secondary or premature by some, and as high treason or blasphemy by others.

There was a fixation on keeping truly antagonistic positions under one roof. The ‘pluralist left’ (‘la gauche plurielle’) of Lionel Jospin – punished by many socialist voters in 2002 for ‘not having been leftist enough’ (‘pas assez de gauche!’) as I was told many times – has in the meantime turned into what Manuel Valls recently called ‘the irreconcilable factions of the left’ (‘les gauches irréconciliables’). In his years at the helm of the party, François Holland even took pride in calling himself ‘the man of the synthesis’, as if fifty shades of rose could coexist forever without any clarification what the base colour was.

There is a price to pay for always refusing to reconsider basic assumptions and binding doctrines. For not having a Bad Godesberg moment like the German Social-Democrats, who in 1959 got rid of hypocrisy and absolute truths of Marxist obedience. (True enough, this was easier for them with the East German scarecrow in sight).

The French Socialist Party will not disappear overnight, and observers will be well advised not to underestimate the legitimacy a big party with a great tradition can endow a candidate with, nor the loyalty it is able to command in a national election with high stakes. But chances are 2017 will be seen as the moment when the PS started its slow slide into irrelevance.

Is the French party system then moving towards a ‘quadripolarisation’, as Thomas Guénolé recently put it in a quality interview with the Figaro? In Spain, this is what seems to be happening – and the loser is: the Socialist Party! In France, it could be even worse: a four-party system with two extremes and two moderate visions of society, one of which would be of Gaullist and Christian-Democratic obedience, and the other of Liberal inspiration in both economic and societal preferences.

The challenge for the PS is now threefold: a) survive the presidential election without ridicule; b) limit the damage in the legislative elections and form a relevant and respected opposition in the parliament; c) sit down and define who you are and who you want to be.

The Belle-Alliance (sketched by Tardieu in June 1815).

They don’t seem too optimistic about it themselves. In an attempt to sound inclusive and brighten up the primaries, they named them ‘Les primaires citoyennes de la Belle Alliance Populaire’. Spontaneously, ‘Belle Alliance’ reminded me of the name of a modest country inn which had the misfortune to be located on the battlefield of … Waterloo. A subliminal premonition?

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

This is post # 10 on the French 2017 election marathon.
All previous posts can be found here.

The post France 2017: The Party Formerly Known as Socialist appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : From drones to medical equipment, robots are increasingly becoming a part of our everyday life. But although some 1.7 million robots already exist worldwide, their use is still not properly regulated. A report being voted on today by the legal affairs committee calls on the European Commission to produce a legislative proposal to deal with issues such as who should be liable if someone gets hurt due to robots. We talked to report author Mady Delvaux, a Luxembourg member of the S&D group.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : From drones to medical equipment, robots are increasingly becoming a part of our everyday life. But although some 1.7 million robots already exist worldwide, their use is still not properly regulated. A report being voted on today by the legal affairs committee calls on the European Commission to produce a legislative proposal to deal with issues such as who should be liable if someone gets hurt due to robots. We talked to report author Mady Delvaux, a Luxembourg member of the S&D group.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

EU rules for the fast-evolving field of robotics, to settle issues such as compliance with ethical standards and liability for accidents involving driverless cars, should be put forward by the EU Commission, urged the Legal Affairs Committee on Thursday.
Committee on Legal Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

EU rules for the fast-evolving field of robotics, to settle issues such as compliance with ethical standards and liability for accidents involving driverless cars, should be put forward by the EU Commission, urged the Legal Affairs Committee on Thursday.
Committee on Legal Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The European Parliament will elect a new President, for the second half of this legislature, on 17 January. Outgoing President Martin Schulz will preside over the election of his successor, who will in turn oversee the election of the 14 Vice-Presidents and the five Quaestors, on 18 January.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The European Parliament will elect a new President, for the second half of this legislature, on 17 January. Outgoing President Martin Schulz will preside over the election of his successor, who will in turn oversee the election of the 14 Vice-Presidents and the five Quaestors, on 18 January.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Timab Industries and CFPR v Commission
Competition
The Court confirms the fine of nearly €60 million imposed on the Roullier group regarding the phosphates cartel