Obama's loss: the view from Europe

Given that I wrote about Europe's reaction to Obama's win in Iowa last week, I thought it logical to now write about its reaction to his loss this week. Just from personal observation, I've been surprised at the huge level of relief being expressed by most people I know here in the UK. It seems that though they were impressed with and surprised by Barack's win, they are still rooting for Hillary to win the Democratic nomination. In fact I don't know a single European who actively wants Obama to win.

Part of this of course is that they know Hillary, they adored Bill Clinton and are eager to see a return to the Clinton years. They know almost nothing about Obama, and being removed from the domestic situation in the US they can't quite understand the enthusiasm for a man who has outlined little of his actual platform or policy plans.

Obamania: the view from Europe

It’s been interesting to watch the European coverage of Barack Obama’s mammoth victory in Iowa over the past few days. Beyond the fact that it is such big news here, what has been notable is what the European press is emphasizing in their coverage.

Had the Iowa caucus passed without any extraordinary result, say with a Hillary and Mitt win, it still would have been a major focus here. After all, US presidential elections are followed worldwide with great attention, and this is particularly true in Europe. With the US being the world’s lone superpower, it’s just a bizarre quirk of history that the decisions made by a few thousand people in Iowa every four years have a dramatic effect on the entire globe. Yet the European coverage of the primary season has switched into hyperactive gear this year not only because the continent is so eager for new leadership in the US, but also because of the surprise ascendancy of two previous unknowns in the first contest.

Of course, the fact that Huckabee and Obama won the Iowa caucuses wasn’t a huge surprise to many living in the US, as this result was largely expected weeks before the vote (though the margin of the victories was a surprise). But here in the UK, for instance, nobody knew who Huckabee was until Thursday and only the most current events-savvy Brits knew much about Obama. In fact the presumption here has been that Hillary Clinton was guaranteed to be the next US president.

French president to marry supermodel

The French press reported today that President Nicolas Sarkozy is going to marry the celebrity model Carla Bruni in February, just two months after they met.

French media first breathlessly reported the budding relationship in December when the two made a highly visable trip to Euro Disneyland. The relationship is all the more interesting because Sarkozy was just divorced by his wife Cecilia in October. At that time the public also learned that the marriage had been effectively over throughout the presidential election but it was kept a secret for fear of how it would affect the vote.

The Elysée Palace refused to comment yesterday on the news, but Bruni's mother, Marisa Borini, told the Italian press last week that President Sarkozy had asked her for her daughter's hand.

Iowa: what it all means

For everyone in London who is asking me - yes, I was as surprised by the Iowa primary result as you all were! For the past several days I’ve heard speculation that Hillary was going to come in third in the first US primary in Iowa but I didn’t believe it. After all, Hillary has been the natural front-runner for the entire contest up to this point, and the recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto was only supposed to shore up her inevitability as she portrayed herself as the candidate of strength and experience.

But the result I woke up to this morning is truly shocking, and has to have sent the Clinton camp into a tail spin. But it isn’t there mere fact that she placed third that has to have them in a panic, it’s the sheer magnitude of the way she was beaten. In fact when you look at the exit polling, the numbers are truly astonishing.

Today Eastern Europe wakes to no borders

It’s official. As of this morning you can now drive from the Russian border in Estonia to the Atlantic beaches of Portugal, across 24 countries, without passing through a single border crossing. As of midnight, the 2004 EU entrants are now part of the Schengen Zone, the border-free area that allows you to pass through European countries as easily as if you were going from Indiana to Illinois.

Considering the post-cold war implications of this day (all but one of the 2004 entrants are former Warsaw Pact countries), the scenes last night were dripping with symbolism. As Canada’s Global Mail reports, at the border of Germany and Poland the guards spent yesterday removing kilometres of tall steel fence, leaving unmarked and unguarded fields between them. Fireworks lit up the border bridge between Poland and Germany in Frankfurt on Oder early this morning. On the road between Vienna and Bratislava, Austrian and Slovakian leaders met to saw through border-crossing barriers. And in Estonia, the government put its border-inspection stations up for auction. Perhaps nowhere was the scene more striking than on the Czech-Slovak border, as the countries were split apart just in 1993 and now find themselves without a border between them once again.

King steps in to end Belgian crisis

Belgium’s King Albert II has interceded in order to resolve the long-running crisis in Belgium, which has had no government for six months now as the Dutch-speaking north and French-speaking south have been unable to form a coalition government.

An emergency interim government has been formed, which can stay in office for no more than three months. Then the situation may be back to square one.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the whole situation is that for the most part life has gone on as normal while the country has had no government, which has made many Belgians begin to question the point of having a government in the first place. But the situation was starting to affect the economy, and last week the European Commission warned that the political paralysis was beginning to affect Belgium's economy.

For more information on the history of the Belgian crisis you can read my blog entry about it here.