<body><script type="text/javascript"> function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) { if(window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener('load', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false); } else { window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }); } } </script> <div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> gapi.load("gapi.iframes:gapi.iframes.style.bubble", function() { if (gapi.iframes && gapi.iframes.getContext) { gapi.iframes.getContext().openChild({ url: 'https://www.blogger.com/navbar/14058325?origin\x3dhttp://croydonian.blogspot.com', where: document.getElementById("navbar-iframe-container"), id: "navbar-iframe" }); } }); </script>

When is a privatisation not a privatisation?

Tuesday, May 05, 2009
ICANN - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - runs the top end of the internet under a contract with the US Department of Commerce. As a user, I'd say it is doing a pretty good job, all things considered, although 'this agreement expires on 30 September this year'. What's more, it is not an arm of the US state, it is 'a private not for profit corporation'. So not really something one could privatise.

However, a certain organisation that lurks in Brussels has a certain Commissar with a track record of not really understanding market mechanisms, and she does not like the ICANN set up one little bit, and wants it 'privatised':

"I trust that President Obama will have the courage, the wisdom and the respect for the global nature of the internet to pave the way in September for a new, more accountable, more transparent, more democratic and more multilateral form of Internet Governance"


Is your skin crawling yet? It gets worse, much worse.


"EU Commissioner Reding also outlined how a new model of Internet Governance could be shaped after 30 September. It could include in particular the following:
  • A fully privatised and independent ICANN complying with the best standards of corporate governance, in particular with those on financial transparency and internal accountability, and subject to effective judicial review".
Which probably boils down to green audits, the odd CSR programme and anything else that looks pretty in the annual report.

And now for the ohnosecond:

"A multilateral forum where governments can discuss general internet governance policy issues, such as a "G12 for Internet Governance" – an informal group of government representatives that meets at least twice a year and can make, by majority, recommendations to ICANN where appropriate. This group would provide swift reaction in case of threats to the stability, security and openness of the internet. To be geographically balanced, this "G-12 for Internet Governance" would include two representatives from each North America, South America, Europe and Africa, three representatives from Asia and Australia, as well as the Chairman of ICANN as a non-voting member. International Organisations with competences in this field could be given observer status".

I think I may have to sit in a corner and shake for a bit.

For the bold, here is a video of the Commissar telling us all about it. She is almost as jumpy on camera as our own dear prime minister:


Labels: , ,

posted by Croydonian

Slumdog millionaire - its success is all down to the EU. Apparently.

Monday, February 23, 2009
At least it says so here:

And the Oscar goes to...: Unprecedented success for EU-supported film "Slumdog Millionaire". 8 Oscars were awarded to "Slumdog Millionaire" at last night's 81st Academy Award ceremony in Hollywood. This UK film was co-funded under the EU's film support programme MEDIA. These include the most prestigious prizes: Best Film and Best Director (Danny Boyle).


And frothing uncontrollably we have your friend and mine, Media Commissar Viviane Reding:

"The EU's MEDIA programme makes sure films made in the EU gets a chance to meet judge and jury, in the form of audiences worldwide and competing for international prestigious awards. The success of Slumdog Millionaire shows, more than ever, that MEDIA funding is money well spent, as it helps Europe's cinema spread its cultural diversity around the globe."

Here they claim to have ponied up €830,000 (£734,000), but last week they were claiming to have handed over € 200,000.

Lest we forget, here are some of the other cinematic delights we paid for last year, but I will spotlight the €202,500 for Le silence de Lorna - "An Albanian woman marries a drug addict in order to obtain Belgian residency". And in 2007 we had this - La question humaine by Nicolas Klotz (€25,000) - A human resource manager in a multinational who is losing his mind is told by his manager to psychologically assess the company's general manager.

Both, shockingly, were overlooked by the Academy.

Labels: ,

posted by Croydonian

Got a mobile? Then it is 'an important vote of confidence of mobile consumers in the health of Europe's mobile sector'

Thursday, September 25, 2008
That particular piece of arrant nonsense comes from my absolute favourite Euro Commissar, Viviane Reding.

And there was I hoping I could sign a contract with NTT DoCoMo or Verizon.

Still, the next time I eat something I will be conscious that I am giving 'an important vote of confidence...[to] the health of Europe's food sector'.

Labels: ,

posted by Croydonian

A really, really poor point of comparison

Monday, August 11, 2008
Who is this mysterious woman, who painted it, and where does it hang?



I would say answers on a postcard please, but there can be scarcely anyone, worldwide, with any pretence to culture who would not know.


However, a nameless organisation that hangs out in Brussels is worried that folk are insufficiently familiar with the Gioconda. It has come up with a plan to create a European Digitlal Library (which I am not going to condemn out of hand), but check what that woman Vivianne Reding has to say:

"The European Digital Library will be a quick and easy way for people to access European books and art – whether in their home country or abroad. It will, for example, enable a Czech student to browse the British library without going to London, or an Irish art lover to get close to the Mona Lisa without queuing at the Louvre".

Sigh. Our lucky Irish person is unlikely to stumble upon the painting at the EDL and for it to come as a surprise, I would think, and the plastic arts do not lend themselves to being digitised in the same way that the written word does. That said, having seen the painting up close (behind roughly inch thick glass) it is fairly unimpressive - perhaps through gross over familiarity, before everyone shouts 'Philistine!' - and I was far more taken by Le Radeau de la Méduse.

Footnote - given the speculation that Mona is Leonardo, the chorus from Little Milton's 'Grits ain't groceries acquires a twist. Judge for yourselves:

"If I don't love you, baby
Grits ain't grocery
Eggs ain't poultry
And Mona Lisa was a man"

(Sounds better sung, honestly)

Labels: , ,

posted by Croydonian

Where your money goes

Monday, May 26, 2008
The EU meeja commissariat is rather pleased by how some of its part funded projects have fared at the Cannes film festival. Rather thoughtfully, one line synopses of the winners have been included. And they are beyond parody:

Le silence de Lorna - "An Albanian woman marries a drug addict in order to obtain Belgian residency". This got €202,500 of our money.

Eldorado (aka Léa) - "Yvan grows a strange affection for Elie, an adolescent who breaks into his house, and decides to drive the teenager back to his parents". €51 000

Gomorra - "A Neapolitan mafia drama based on a novel by Roberto Saviano". Doesn't sound too bad, all things considered, and this was the the Culture Commissar (the deeply irritating Viviane Reding) and her entourage chose to watch. €45 000.

Tulpan - "Bulat has done military service in the Russian Navy and returns to the Kazakh step (sic) to become a shepherd. For that, he has to learn the shepherding trade and get married". €40 000.

Entre Les Murs - "The story of a French teacher at a secondary school in a difficult area". €30 000.

Les Bureaux de Dieu - "Day-to-day functioning of the family planning centre where women come to inform themselves about a choice they have or want to make". €16 000.

They put out a similar release this time last year, which also received some mockery here.

Labels: , , ,

posted by Croydonian

A EuroDelight the BBC has shunned. For once.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
And I am certain that it would have been invited to join in this:

"From April 2008 on, day in and day out,16 radio stations from 13 countries working in a consortium and 7 associate radio stations will co-produce and simultaneously broadcast programmes devoted to current affairs and society in the Europe of 27.

Broadcast daily, the programmes of this EUROPEAN (sic) network will include daily news reports, interviews, debates, magazines looking at subjects in greater depth and coverage of live events. The first broadcasts will go out in April 2008".

Pity the poor wretches of not just Slovenia and Bulgaria (their state radio stations are in the loop, and as newish boys, sucking up to the beak in the form of Margot Wallström was only to be expected) but of France, Germany and Spain, inter alia. But NOT Luxembourg. That terrible Reding woman will be most miffed.

While the BBC is not involved (yet...), there is a UK participant - CUR 1350 Cambridge University. I am sure that students will be gluing the tuning knob to 1350 that they will run no risk of missing europrogs. Mind you, the station's website does not want to load at present.

Labels: , ,

posted by Croydonian

Rewriting history, EU style

Monday, February 11, 2008
From a Deutsche Welle interview with Viviane Reding, EU InfoSoc commissar:

"....that there was a lot of criticism of past EU expansions -- huge criticism of those countries that went from Communism to democracy. But it was the most wonderful reunification project you could imagine in world history. It was the first time that such a large number of people moved into freedom and self-determination; and that, not through war, but on a voluntary, democratic basis".

Right. Let us say that '89 was the year that Central Europe freed itself from Soviet tyranny, and Eastern Europe broke free from Moscow in 1991. It was not until 2004 that eight nations from Central and Eastern Europe joined the EU. Is the Reding woman seriously suggesting that the Czechs were in limbo for some 15 years before they joined the EU, and the Latvians for 13? Or still worse that pre-EU they were neither free nor possessed of self-determination? Yes, I think she is, because I am unaware of anyone bar tankies thinking shrugging off the red wheel was a bad thing, so she can only be referring to controversy over the eastern / central eight joining the EU.


Labels: ,

posted by Croydonian

Attention bloggers: blog better and read more blogs - the EU Infocom commissar demands it.

Friday, December 21, 2007
Oh yes she does:

"In a digital era, media literacy is crucial for achieving full and active citizenship," said Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding. "The ability to read and write – or traditional literacy – is no longer sufficient in this day and age. People need a greater awareness of how to express themselves effectively, and how to interpret what others are saying, especially on blogs, via search engines or in advertising. Everyone (old and young) needs to get to grips with the new digital world in which we live. For this, continuous information and education is more important than regulation."

Maybe all those degrees in media studies have a value after all.

Meanwhile, in a disturbing development my old sparring partner La Redding makes a comment I largely agree with, "I believe that especially with regard to advertising, promoting media literacy is a much more appropriate approach than advocating advertising bans, which I oppose". I am sure it will not happen again any time soon.

Labels: , , ,

posted by Croydonian

The European of the Year Awards

Friday, November 30, 2007
Will anyone make it this far, having read that headline? I'll assume I am not talking to myself.

European Voice, an organ of the Economist Group, has been dishing out awards for Europeans of the year, at what was doubtless 'a glittering gala occasion', with throngs of eurofans cheering their favourite commissars to the echo. Perhaps the reason why our media has kept it so quiet is because a recording of the event will be the centrepiece of the Saturday night schedule on BBC1 or ITV1. If so, I will be rooted to the couch.

Among the Britons nominated were David Miliband as Diplomat of the Year: "UK foreign minister – for taking a firm line on Russia, challenging it to bring the Litvinenko case to justice". Yes, the lack of contenders was such that Millipede was in the frame. The winners were not peacemakers or anything that big, but rather Waldner & Steinmeier for the Bulgarian medics in Libya affair, even though it was Mr & Mrs Sarko who actually did the deal. Hey ho...

Elsewhere, the Bearded Attention Whore that is Branson was Businessman of the Year, "for taking the lead on reducing airline emissions, announcing plans for annual carbon cuts on Virgin flights and setting up Virgin Fuels for developing renewable energy sources". As with all Virgin initiatives, 'check against delivery...'

European is used pretty loosely, as Schwarzenegger was campaigner of the year, and Clara 'Stock Exchange' Furse was nominated for business leader of the year.

The entrants for Statesman/stateswoman of the year were pretty feeble too, with achievements including 'for taking a firm, measured attitude towards Russia' and 'for setting France on a path to reform'. All rather thin, isn't it?

However, the ne plus ultra has to be the award for Commissar of the Year, and yes, it is Viviane Reding for her ill-thought out roaming tariffs move. Mentioning this to Dizzy, and having warned him to brace himself, he MSN'd thus: "/me smashes head into keyboard".

Labels: ,

posted by Croydonian

An 'all-inclusive digital society'

Thursday, November 29, 2007
It is that woman Reding up to her tricks. Again. She is not at all happy that some folk are just not interested in the internet:

"Only 10% of people aged over 64 are Internet users while the average in Europe is 47%. Without further intervention, the gap will only be halved in 2015 instead of 2010. The latest assessments conducted for the Commission show that accessibility of websites, communication terminals, TV sets and other ICT remains problematic, with lower-educated, economically inactive and elderly people at the greatest risk of being left behind".

This, bear in mind is a technology that only went mainstream - in this country at least - about 10 years ago, so the take up is pretty impressive. Note also that the EU-27 includes pretty underdeveloped places like Bulgaria. As a case in point, the first radio stations opened just after WW1, and Tonga would not appear to have got one until 1960.

Perhaps the most spectacularly stupid element of EU policy on matters digital is the wish to make broadband available for *all*. Methinks they have no understanding of the technology at all, and Dizzy's post on the EU's desire for overnight ISP switching makes that abundantly clear.

Anyway, that villainous 90% of late / non-adopters? Are they to be chivvied into going to the library to log on, or maybe have ISP subscriptions deducted from their bank accounts in order to compel them to have access? (even if they choose not to use it?). From family experience (hello Mum) I know that folk falling into that demographic will get internet access if they consider it worth having, but it ill-behoves the Commissar to insist that people /should/ have it.

Labels: , ,

posted by Croydonian

">EU to the world: "Silence those who oppose freedom of speech"

Tuesday, July 10, 2007
At least that is how it looks, judging from this speech by Viviane Reding (Yes, her. Again).

In a broadly worthy discourse on freedom of the press etc etc etc she drops this little bombshell:

"Even if freedom of expression and freedom of information may appear self-evident to many in Europe, these freedoms nevertheless require constant confirmation. Let me give you only a few illustrations why.

It is just a couple of weeks ago when politicians in a major EU Member State (she's talking about Poland. C) called for the BBC children series "Teletubbies" to be banned, for the strange reason that it would encourage homosexuality".

Admittedly the Poles getting hot under the collar about the Teletubbies is not exactly a new story, my point is more that Viv clearly regards certain forms of freedom of expression as being a bad thing. If freedom of speech is to have any meaning at all, it has to include expressions thereof that are unpopular, boneheaded or both.

And while I'm at it, guess which organisation has just decided to block comments on its videos at youtube? Yup...

Labels: , ,

posted by Croydonian

A telling slip up by the EU?

Wednesday, May 30, 2007
I tend to think that the relationship between the fourth estate and anything it is writing on should be approximately that of a dog and a lamp post, otherwise the result will be something like Pravda, or in UK terms the copying and pasting of press releases which are then 'bylined'.

However, my old sparring partner Viviane Reding, a journalist prior to becoming the EU media commissar, seems to have gone just a little bit too native:

"Nine editors-in-chief discuss the future of the written press with Commission. How to improve the role of the written press in boosting public perceptions of Europe? How do editors-in-chief receive the Commission's recent media pluralism initiative? What is the impact of Web 2.0 features such as user-generated content and enhanced cross-media competition? These are topics for debate at a high-level meeting in Brussels today between Media Commissioner Viviane Reding and the written press". (My emphasis).

Among those presents are the editors of serious newspapers from Belgium, Spain and Austria. If they really are going along with that part of the EU's agenda, they owe their readers an apology, and La Redding needs to ask herself whether there is just the teeniest conflict of interest between the foregoing and this gallery of bromides:

"The written press faces excellent prospects in Web 2.0," says Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media. Many newspapers enjoy the deep trust of their readers. Free newspapers and user-generated contents will continue to gain ground, but I also think at the same time that journalism which is based on editorial discipline and on verifying the facts, will become even more important. The quality of editorial content has never been so important as today, as society overflows with information.”

Labels: , , ,

posted by Croydonian

The EU speaks on mobile roaming costs

Wednesday, November 08, 2006
As everyone is all to well aware, it is more expensive to use one's mobile abroad than at home. However, the EU in the form of Viviane Reding (Commissioner for information society and media) has threatened thus:

"I hope this is the last time that a European Commissioner is forced to recommend that consumers turn of their 'phones when they holiday abroad".

So do I Viv, mainly because price setting is best done by the market rather than by regulation. Perhaps you would like to tell me what a 'fair' price for a mobile phone call is, as your extensive career in politics and journalism in Luxembourg must have given you so much insight into telecoms economics.

It does, however, get worse: "It is unacceptable that the cost of international roaming continues to be borne by consumers". Er, who is a better cost avoider than the person with the 'phone? Where else might the money come from? A lottery, some sort of eurobursary? Perhaps this is all some of naked special pleading by Viv as the six figures she doubtless trousers from you and I, and heaven knows what else in expenses, gets 'unacceptably' dented by her mobile bill.


Meanwhile, the Sego/DSK/Fabius debate last night was too dull to merit a post.

Labels:

posted by Croydonian