Never underestimate a woman. Angela Merkel will be the politician to watch next year. Her two predecessors as German chancellor, Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder, derisively called her “das Mädchen” (the girl). Through sheer ambition, however, this workaholic has made her way to the top in Germany. She is now on her way to the top in Europe. At last week’s European Union summit in Brussels, Ms Merkel brokered the budget deal between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jack Chirac. The deal gave nothing to Blair and everything to Chirac. Merkel, however, succeeded in giving Blair the impression that he had saved his face, while at the same time she gave Chirac the impression that he – and not “the girl” – had persuaded Blair to the budget deal. “Il faut le faire,” as they say in Jack’s language.

East European countries regard the Russian-German agreement to build a gas pipeline on the Baltic seabed with misgivings. Though it is far cheaper to build an overland pipeline through Lithuania and Poland, the North European Gas Pipeline Company (NEGP) will directly link Russia and Germany, bypassing transit states. The 1,200 km long seabed pipeline from Vyborg to Greifswald will allow Moscow and Berlin to cut off gas supplies to the countries lying between Germany and Russia if they should ever wish to. This has prompted some to compare the NEGP gas deal to the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. In addition to the geopolitical objections there are serious environmental objections to building a pipeline on the seabed.

The Council of Europe (CoE), an organisation of 46 European countries, has criticised the Danish government for invoking the “freedom of the press” in its refusal to take action against “insulting” cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The CoE Committee of Ministers discussed the case during a meeting in Strassburg last week. In a statement the Committee said that “a seam of intolerance” is noted in certain Danish media – a reference to the Danish cartoon case.

Victor de Bruijn and his two wives

Stanley Kurtz of the Hudson Institute has a long and interesting analysis in this week’s Weekly Standard on the Dutch “trio marriage” that was reported on the Brussels Journal (BJ) three months ago. The marriage between Victor de Bruijn and his two “wives,” Bianca and Mirjam, was not a case merely of polygamy, but one of polyamory, Kurtz explains. Contrary to bigamous/polygamous relationships, where one person has a sexual relationship with multiple partners, polyamory denotes a relationship in which all partners have sexual relations with one another. This is the case in the Dutch trio-marriage, where the partners sleep in the same bed and where the two women, who are bisexual, have sex with Victor as well as with each other.

In this respect the de Bruyn marriage differs from the relationship of the Belgian Serge Régnier, which was recently reported in the Belgian press (Het Laatste Nieuws, 17 November) and which is also referred to in the Kurtz article. Régnier lives with three women, but sleeps with each woman separately, while the latter (two of whom are sisters) do not engage in lesbian sex. This is an instance of traditional polygamy, as it is practised by some Mormons and Muslims, and also – one might argue – by Western men who have mistresses (though in that case the women do not live under the same roof, let alone share the same bed).

Let’s get a couple of things straight. Even after the rebate, the United Kingdom remains the second-highest contributor to the EU budget. Indeed, for most of the 34 years since we joined, the British and the Germans have been the only two nations to make any net contribution at all.

In the 21 years since Margaret Thatcher secured the abatement, Britain has handed over £120 billion gross (£50 billion net) to Brussels. A billion here, a billion there – after a while it starts to add up to real money. If Britain were to withhold this tribute, it could give the entire country a two thirds reduction in council tax. Or, if it preferred, it could abolish inheritance tax and capital gains tax, and still have enough left over to scrap stamp duty.

“EU averts crisis as budget talks end in success,” EUobserver writes today on the late night settlement of the budgetary crisis. “We have an agreement on the financial perspectives,” said Tony Blair, the British PM at 3:00 a.m. in Brussels on Saturday (17 December) after two days of nervous negotiations.

Calling the negotiations a success shows how low expectations are in Brussels. Though the deal averts the threat of deep political rifts within the EU and delays in further enlargement, with Macedonia gaining EU candidate status on Saturday, simply avoiding political rift is hardly sufficient to call the deal a success. Unless of course the targets are so low that just having the EU Heads of State agree on the lowest common denominator qualifies as a huge success. Unfortunately, if the European Union is to secure economic growth it needs more than a stalemate on the budget – it needs genuine reform.

Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac

To prevent Britain’s European Union presidency from becoming a failure, Tony Blair surrendered more of Britain’s EU rebate on Friday night. The British Prime Minister increased his offer of foregoing £5.5 billion over seven years in return for a promise of French President Jack Chirac to review EU spending – including farm subsidies – in 2008. However, as the Roman poet Virgil wrote 

“I fear the French, even though they offer promises” (or suchlike).

The deal was arranged in private talks between Blair and Chirac. They were later joined by German chancellor Angela Merkel. She seems to be making a habit of putting pressure on British politicians. Earlier this week she wrote a letter to Tory leader David Cameron to tell him what a naughty boy he was. Yesterday, she told Tony what a good boy he was for making his peace with Jack.

Last week, Ante Gotovina, the Croatian general wanted for war crimes, was arrested on the Spanish island of Tenerife. He has meanwhile been flown to The Hague, where he has to stand trial before the United Nations war crimes tribunal. Gotovina was indicted in 2001 on charges that he was the commanding officer responsible for atrocities committed in 1995 when Croatian forces attempted to reclaim control of the Krajina region.

Carla Del Ponte, the UN tribunal’s special prosecutor said last week to the Associated Press that “she had known since September that Gotovina was in Spain, though she kept it secret.” This is a very interesting admission, shedding light on the impartiality, or rather the lack thereof, of the UN prosecutor.

Bogdan Golik sits as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Samoobrona, (the self defence league) and was this week accused of rape. According to Jos Colpin, spokesman for the Belgian public prosecutor’s office, a complaint had been filed by a Brussels prostitute. The prosecutors however questioned the credibility of the allegation but there was now an investigation into the case.

Golik claims that he is the victim of a conspiracy. He said the “incident is just a provocation resulting from, among the others, actions undertaken by him against Russia-Germany gas pipeline project.”

A great element of living in a nation’s capital is the types and variations of people you get to meet. Last week I had the distinction of meeting with a noted Arab legal scholar. The conversation covered many topics, one of which was the idea of secularism, notably the differences in how this concept is handled in the Arab world, the US, and Europe.

The remark which caught my ear and got me thinking was the claim that secularism in the Arab world is much more aligned and similar to the idea of secularism in the US. Europe was catalogued as having a very different concept of secularism.