If you really like apple pie, and you could have one-third of a 2 pound pie or half of a 1 pound pie, which would you choose? This grade school math problem is very similar to the problem politicians and economic policymakers face in deciding whether to distribute smaller pieces of a bigger pie, or vice versa. Their decisions tell us much about their real motives.

Sweden is often hailed as an example by the greens and the left for creating a “green welfare state” and eliminating all non-renewable energy resources by the year 2020. This certainly sounds very comforting for a European Union facing an energy crisis. “If Sweden can do it, so can we,” one could say. Unfortunately, mostly the cheerful reports of Sweden’s switch to renewable energy sources only look at government communiqués.

The liberalisation of healthcare in the Netherlands appears to be successful. In an attempt to reduce the cost of healthcare the government has allowed the existing sickness funds to compete as of 1 January. Within two months one quarter of Dutch families have switched to different health insurers. There is no sign of the chaos which the leftist parties predicted.

Poland and Hungary are quarrelling over the definition of vodka. For the Poles vodka is “an alcoholic beverage derived from cereals or potatoes.” Historically vodka is a colourless liquor made from grain. Traditionally it was made in Russia, the Ukraine, Poland and Scandinavia. However, the fact that potato vodka is also considered to be vodka, though potatoes were only introduced in these regions in the 18th century, indicates, according to some, that vodka can also be distilled from other products than grain or potatoes.

It is the least cited passage in the Treaty of Rome – so at odds with the rest of the text, in fact, that when I quote it, my fellow Eurocrats usually think I am making it up. It comes in the Preamble as one of the founding objectives of the European Economic Community, and it reads as follows:

Desiring to contribute, by means of a common commercial policy, to the progressive abolition of restrictions on international trade.

The two major parties of the Dutch government coalition, the Christian-Democrat CDA and the Liberal VVD, are quarrelling about the nature of the culture war waging in Europe.

The Liberal MP Hans van Baalen, the VVD’s parliamentary spokesman for Foreign Affairs, criticised Agnes Van Ardenne, the minister for Development Cooperation and a member of the CDA. Last Saturday, in the London based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, Mrs Van Ardenne wrote that the Danish cartoon affair is being abused by “fundamentalist secularists.”

According to the Danish online newspaper eJour, 143 newspapers in 56 countries around the globe, including Christian and Muslim ones, have so far republished one or more of the Muhammad cartoons, first published by the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in September. (See the twelve cartoons here, halfway the page) A list of the countries can be found here. 13 newspapers in 9 countries, including Egypt, had published one or more of the cartoons before the Norwegian Christian newspaper Magazinet republished them on January 10.

In an interview with Eesti Päevaleht (Estonian Daily, one of the largest papers in Estonia) on Monday, 28 February, Joaquin Almunia, the European commissioner for economics and finance, dashed the hopes of the Estonian government for quick accession to the eurozone, the group of countries using the euro as their currency. Mr Almunia said that there are two obstacles to Estonia joining the eurozone on 1 January 2007 – Estonia’s inflation is too high and its Constitution does not allow it. Some experts, however, think that Brussels and Moscow agreed that Estonia is not allowed to join the eurozone.

Today twelve international authors, most of them (former) Muslims, such as Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but also a couple of “French philosophers,” published a manifesto in the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. An English version of the manifesto “Together facing the new totalitarianism” was posted yesterday evening on the website of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

The manifesto states that

“After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism. We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.”

Bukovsky and Belien

Vladimir Bukovksy, the 63-year old former Soviet dissident, fears that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. In a speech he delivered in Brussels last week Mr Bukovsky called the EU a “monster” that must be destroyed, the sooner the better, before it develops into a fullfledged totalitarian state.

Mr Bukovsky paid a visit to the European Parliament on Thursday at the invitation of Fidesz, the Hungarian Civic Forum. Fidesz, a member of the European Christian Democrat group, had invited the former Soviet dissident over from England, where he lives, on the occasion of this year’s 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. After his morning meeting with the Hungarians, Mr Bukovsky gave an afternoon speech in a Polish restaurant in the Trier straat, opposite the European Parliament, where he spoke at the invitation of the United Kingdom Independence Party, of which he is a patron.

In his speech Mr Bukovsky referred to confidential documents from secret Soviet files which he was allowed to read in 1992. These documents confirm the existence of a “conspiracy” to turn the European Union into a socialist organization. I attended the meeting and taped the speech. A transcript, as well as the audio fragment (approx. 15 minutes) can be found below. I also had a brief interview with Mr Bukovsky (4 minutes), a transcript and audio fragment of which can also be found below. The interview about the European Union had to be cut short because Mr Bukovsky had other engagements, but it brought back some memories to me, as I had interviewed Vladimir Bukovsky twenty years ago, in 1986, when the Soviet Union, the first monster that he so valiantly fought, was still alive and thriving.