Eastern enthusiasm

A visit to Lithuania this week showed me how history and geography make such a difference to attitudes toward the EU.

Lithuania is a land in between. Part of the Soviet Union until just two decades ago, it today finds itself sandwiched between two dangerous and unpredictable neighbours. It’s not a very comfortable geography, to say the least.

To its East lies the pariah state of Belarus - Europe’s last dictatorship and, one might also say, Europe’s last Russian satellite state. To its West lies the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad - a barren, unforgiving place that few dare enter, repopulated by Russians in 1949 after its German inhabitants were killed or expelled.

But to its North and South lie fellow countries of the European Union – Latvia and Poland. The 103km border between Poland and Lithuania therefore forms a perilous land bridge between unfriendly Russian talons. Since2009 the two countries have been part of the EU’s passport-free Schengen area, giving the border additional importance as the only way to get to the Baltic and Finnic countries to the North without a visa.

But despite this pivotal importance, this narrow passageway faces a dearth of infrastructure connections. As I write this I am on a plane flying back from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, where I spent the last two days at a conference devoted to this lack of connection.

Are Europe's conservatives now dependent on the far right?

Yesterday’s news that the government of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had collapsed sent almost immediate shock waves through the world’s financial markets.

Investors, who were already feeling skittish about the first-round victory of French Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande on Sunday, found themselves with something much more serious to worry about. The government of the Netherlands, one of the core austerity-pushing states of the Eurozone, couldn’t even pass the tough medicine they helped design for Europe.

Holland and the three other euro-using countries that still have triple A ratings (Germany, Finland and Austria) have pushed for every eurozone country to make massive cuts by the end of the month. But yesterday Rutte was forced to tender his resignation after it became clear he could not get his own parliament to approve the tough medicine he had helped design for all of Europe.

But perhaps more interesting from a political perspective is who it was that precipitated this crisis – the infamous far right leader GeertWilders. Rutte was only able to form his governing coalition in 2010 by relying on the backing of Wilders and his far right Party of Freedom group, which had polled at 15.5% in that year's election. Wilders has been tried in the Netherlands for hate speech against Muslims, and has been banned from entering the UK in the past.

This isn’t about the UK any more

The markets have returned to panic mode today as their confidence in national governments to approve the new Eurozone financial consolidation treaty wavered. Ratification has hit some bumps in the road, with Finland’s prime minister expressing dissatisfaction with the transfer of authority over national budgets to the EU on Tuesday. In Ireland, the opposition parties seem keen to force a referendum on the issue even if the country’s legal services rule that one is not required.

The euro fell below $1.30 today, its lowest point in a year. Yields on Italian bonds widened to new highs. It’s a familiar pattern we’ve seen repeated several times now: markets rally upon news of a new European Council agreement, but then crash a few days later when they look at the details and realise it’s not as strong as they’d hoped. The UK's abandonment of Europe may have been the big story on Friday, but now the more important story sets in - the markets have not been satisfied.

But there seems to be some confusion in the British media though about what this all means vis-à-vis the UK’s decision to veto the attempt at treaty change on Friday. The Spectator has run a column from the Eurosceptic think tank Open Europe scolding the British media for describing the UK as isolated as a result of the 26 vs. 1 outcome last week. There isn’t really any such divide, Open Europe insists, because many other member states support the UK’s reticence. As evidence that all is not what it seems, they run through the list of objections to the new treaty being expressed in national capitals this week.

Angry birds: Are 'True Finns' about to stage a revolution?

Those who have been tracing the recent rise of the European far right will have their eyes trained on Finland this Sunday, as that country holds a national election. According to recent opinion polls the Finnish nationalist party the "True Finns" could ride a wave of populist fervor to unprecedented electoral success on Sunday.

A Gallup poll last month put the True Finns in second place at 18.3% of the vote, just behind the ruling centre-right National Coalition Party. Led by MEP Timo Soini, the party has all the ingredients of today's far right in Europe: anti-immigration, anti-EU and pro-nationalism. They also display all the anomalies of today's far right: pro social welfare (but for ethnic Finns only), relatively pro gay rights, and working hard to project a respectable, PR-friendly image.

It is the same formula that has led to success for the Sweden Democrats in neighboring Sweden, the Danish People's Party in Denmark, the Freedom Party in the Netherlands, the National Front in France and the British National Party in the UK. And in the same way as all of these other countries, the main parties of Finland have been working to co-opt much of the far right's message in order to blunt their electoral impact.

While the right leads in Helsinki, the left is sidelined in Athens

Center-Right

Center-Left

Liberal (Libertarian)

Europe's two main political groupings – the center-right European People's Party (EPP) and the center-left Party of European Socialists (PES) – are today holding dueling summits in Helsinki and Athens, respectively. The simultaneous timing of the two-day events, a bit like the party conferences in the UK or US – is highly unusual. But they are coinciding because they are both meant to get each side singing from the same hymn sheet at next Friday's incredibly important European Council summit. And given Europe's current political reality, the choice of a Northern capital for the right's meeting and a Southern capital for the left's meeting seems entirely appropriate.

But despite the fact that these are nominally meetings of Europe's two main political groups, the reality is that the Helsinki summit will effectively be a meeting of those running Europe while Athens will be an ignored meeting of those sitting on the sidelines. Because the European left has been pushed to Europe's geographic fringes and marginalized by the debt crisis, the Athens meeting will be a meeting of politicians "in opposition". In Helsinki, German chancellor Angela Merkel will lead a meeting of representatives of the governments of 17 of the 27 EU member states. At the Socialist conference in Athens only five governments will be represented.

In addition to national leaders like Merkel, Berlusconi and Ireland's incoming prime minister Enda Kenny, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy– both from the EPP – are also in Helsinki. The president of the European Parliament, EPP politician Jerzy Buzek, may come tomorrow. They will be discussing the Eurozone Competitiveness Pact drawn up by Merkel and Sarkozy as well as the debt relief fund. They will also discuss a united European response to the events in North Africa. In effect it will be a sort of mini European Council summit.

What will they talk about in Athens? Who knows. Who cares? Whatever is on the agenda, it will have little consequence for the direction of EU policy.

Is David Cameron forming an Anti-European Union?

Nicolas Sarkozy's plans for a "Mediterranean Union" may be floundering, but at the other end of Europe British Prime Minister David Cameron is just getting started with plans to form a 'Northern European Union.'

The leaders of Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are all meeting in London today to discuss the potential for a grouping which Cameron is calling an "alliance of common interests". He wants to boost trade between the UK and the Nordic and Baltic countries, but also to increase the flow of ideas. These include ideas on technology and economic and social policy, areas in which Northern Europe has similarities and expertise that are not necessarily shared by many countries in other parts of Europe.

Cameron insinuated as much yesterday when he said a northern grouping could become an "avant garde" for economic growth in Europe. And of course, Northern European countries have deep historical ties as most were ruled by Denmark at one time or another. And before the EU came along the Nordics had their own attempted intergovernmental union, the Nordic Council.

Homegrown piracy

As video was played over European airwaves this weekend of the Russian defense minister proudly reporting to President Medvedev that the navy had gloriously rescued the Russian freighter that had gone missing in the English Channel, there were many in Europe who weren’t feeling as visibly reassured as the Russian president appeared to be. Though Russia has tried to portray the rescue of the apparently hijacked ship as an unparalleled success, the reality is quite different. This hijacking– thought to be the first incident of piracy in European waters since the 17th century – could herald a dangerous new era for European shipping.

Details about what exactly happened in this mysterious ship disappearance have been slow in coming. The 4,000-ton ship, named the Arctic Sea, first left Finland with a load of timber bound for Algeria in late July. However after passing through the Baltic and North Seas, it disappeared from radio contact in the English Channel. There was wild speculation for a few days about what could have happened to it. Because the Russian shipping industry is permeated by organised crime, people immediately thought it had something to do with drug or weapons smuggling, or perhaps political intrigue. Wilder theories speculated there could be nuclear equipment on the boat.

Over the weekend the Russians revealed they had tracked down the ship near the islands of Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa. The 15 Russian crew members were rescued and eight hijackers - from Russia, Estonia and Latvia - were arrested. They said the rescue effort had been a joint Russian, Swedish, Finnish and Maltese (the ship was flying under a Maltese flag) operation, and that no media had been informed about what was going on for the hostages’ safety. According to the Russians, the crew reported that they were boarded by a group of men in an inflatable boat while they were in Swedish waters. The men claimed to be police looking for drugs, but then forcibly hijacked the ship and forced it to go to West Africa. The ship’s insurance company says they were contacted with a $1.5 million ransom demand, threatening to blow the ship up if they didn’t receive it.

Guns in Finland

Yesterday's school shooting in Finland are interesting to look at from an American perspective, considering that the United States has an extensive recent history with school shootings and gun control is such a controversial issue in the US. Finland provides an interesting illustration, when compared to its European neighbors, of the possible links between the availability of guns and the frequency of gun crime.

In the US, gun control advocates often point to Europe as an example of an area where it is much harder to get a gun, and conversely there is much less gun crime. This is generally true, in the UK for instance even the police don't carry guns - and I saw first hand how rare and serious crimes involving guns are when I saw the police response to my getting mugged in January.

But there is one major exception to the restrive gun laws in Europe, and that is Finland. In Finland it is actually quite easy to get a gun, and owning one is very popular. There are 1.6 million firearms in private hands in Finland, and the minimum age for owning one is only 15. Only the US and Yemen have higher civilian gun ownership.

Now after yesterday's shooting, which closely followed another horrific school shooting in Finland in the past year, the country's prime minister has called for gun laws to be tightened. Matti Vanhanen said today that Finland should consider banning private handguns.

"In terms of handguns that can easily be carried about, we have to think about whether they should be available for private people," Vanhanen said. "In my opinion, they belong on shooting ranges."

Eleven students died in yesterday's shooting, and nine died in a similiar shooting in the town of Tuusula. Both of the gunmen had valid licenses for owning a gun, and both were young men who had posted videos on youtube with their weapons before the shooting. After last year's attack the Finnish government said it would consider changing the gun ownership laws, but no change was ever made.

School shootings haven't been very common in Europe, but they have occured. Outside of Finland there have been only two major ones. There was one in Scotland in 1996 that preceded the Columbine shootings, and another one in Germany in 2002. Though Finland has had several school shootings, gun crime in the country is relatively rare (although crime in general in Finland is rare). According to goverment figures, 14 percent of homicides in Finland involve a firearm.

Like the United States, Finland has a long and deep connection with hunting and personal gun ownership. But unlike the United States, there is no way of interpreting Finland's constitution as guaranteeing the right to gun ownership, and there is no powerful gun lobby. It could be that having these two shootings so close to one another could be the catalyst.

Helsinki

One of the most striking things about Helsinki is the dominance of its skyline by two very different churches. Approaching the city from the sea, you see the blazing white Helsinki Lutheran Cathedral to the west, and the glowing red Uspenski Orthodox Cathedral to the east. Inside the two cathedrals, the differences couldn’t more striking. The Russian Orthodox cathedral is littered with golden Byzantine iconography, while the Lutheran church is a sparse, monotone mass of white walls.

Given their geographic locations, its not hard to see the two as symbols of a country torn in two different directions, between the Lutheran Swedes to the west and the Orthodox Russians to the east. Finland spent 300 years under Swedish rule, followed by a century under Russian rule after Russia wrested the territory from the Kingdom of Sweden in 1809. It was only in 1917 following World War I that Finland declared its independence and became an independent country for the first time in its history.