There is an elephant in the room. During the election campaign, the German politicians pretended it wasn’t there. They tiptoed around it, mouthing their slogans about unemployment and tax reform. But its great bulk left little room for any other issue.

The elephant, of course, is the EU. All the main parties agree about it, and it has therefore hardly featured in the campaign. But absence of this subject lends an unreal quality to the whole election. What is the point of voting Red or Black or Green when 80 per cent of your laws come, not from the German Parliament or Government, but from Brussels?

Friedrich Hayek used to warn for “the muddle of the middle.” That, sadly, is the situation Germany will find itself in during the next four years. Last May, when Chancellor Gerhard Schröder called the elections, his socialist SPD stood at barely 28% in the polls while the Christian-Democrat opposition (CDU-CSU) of Angela Merkel polled at 47%. During the campaign Schröder made a comeback, but no-one had expected the final result of 34.3% for the SPD (38.5% in the 2002 elections) and 35.2% for the CDU-CSU (also 38.5% previously). The biggest winner is the post-communist Left Party, which jumped from 4.0 to 8.7% and from 2 to 54 seats in the Bundestag. Germany has definitely shifted to the left.

The International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has created a precedent with its approval of the .cat domain extension for the Catalan language community. Critics say that by approving ".cat" for Internet sites in Catalan and pertaining to Catalan language and culture, ICANN is giving a ‘virtual’ national status to Catalonia, one of Spain's wealthiest and most powerful semi-autonomous regions, with Barcelona as its capital. The new .cat domain can be used as of January 2006.

ICANN is the internet's key oversight agency responsible for managing and coordinating the Domain Name System (DNS) to ensure that every internet address is unique and that all users of the internet can find all valid addresses. ICANN was selected by the U.S. government in 1998 to oversee internet policies. However, the US Department of Commerce retains a vetoing power over ICANN’s decisions. It has asked ICANN to delay approval of a new ".xxx" domain name as a virtual red-light district for porn websites.

Last Spring it emerged that many MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) were in the habit of claiming their €268 daily attendance allowance without actually spending the day in Brussels. One of my British colleagues was photographed signing the attendance register at 7.30 am, and then immediately going home to his constituency. The parliamentary authorities were quick to respond: journalists and photographers were barred from most of the building, allowing members to clock in in peace. The MEPs were quick to respond too. They quietly increased their other expenses.

Our secretarial allowance was raised by €2,000 a month. It now stands at €14,865 – enough to employ a genuine secretary, and a researcher too, and still have over €100,000 a year left over for your wife. I am embarrassed to say that the habit of hiring family members is especially widespread among British MEPs, almost all of whom have immediate relatives on their payroll. A French colleague once asked me: “What is it about you English? You employ your wives and you sleep with your staff”.

The European Parliament has launched a new web portal that looks like a blog. It is available in the 20 official EU languages. European Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication Margot Wallström has already been running a blog on the Commission's server since January 2005. The new site of the Parliament has been totally redesigned to be more user-friendly with the emphasis on making the site more dynamic and attractive. It aims at presenting "content specially written for citizens", for example "What if the Constitution is dead?"  It is divided into five separate areas: News, Parliament, Your MEPs, Activities and EP live. EP Live allows one to view debates in the European Parliament in real time (webstreaming).

After last Monday’s general elections Norway will be governed by a so-called “red-green” coalition of the social-democratic Workers' Party (Ap) of the future Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, the Socialist Left Party (SV) and the green Center Party (Sp).

The “blue” coalition of the Right Party (H), the Christian-Democrat Party (Krf) of Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, and the Left Party (V) (which in Norway is a center-right party!) has been voted out of power. The rightist Progress Party (Frp), led by the charismatic Carl I. Hagen, becomes the country’s biggest opposition party.

The biggest Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf, had an article today about Esserheem, a prison near the Dutch town of Veenhuizen. The paper got hold of a series of photos of life in jail. The prisoners in Esserheem, who include murderers, bank robbers and drug dealers, live the lives of five star hotel guests. They have no reason for complaint. “Life is nowhere so relaxed as in Esserheem,” Martin K., convicted for two murders, says.

Do you remember the genuine wave of solidarity that swept across the Old Continent when the tsunami devastated six Asian countries last December? Now that the victim is the wealthy USA the scene is completely different. While private citizens have contributed to help fellow Americans to recover, most government officials have carefully avoided sponsoring any initiatives. A few of them also exploited the tragedy as an anti-American propaganda weapon.

It’s funny how quickly things go from being inevitable to being unthinkable. Take the euro. Abolishing the pound has never been popular in Britain. But, when the single currency was launched, three out of four people thought that Britain would end up joining it, even though they personally were against the idea. Pro-euro campaigners used to quote this statistic triumphantly. Once voters had accepted that membership was inevitable, they believed, it would be only a matter of time before they came to support it.

"Down with America" is the title of a recent song by the popular Belgian musician Raymond van het Groenewoud. Written in Dutch and published by EMI , "Weg met Amerika" ("Down with America") will be available in record shops as of next week, and was played on Belgian state radio last Thursday and Friday.  Here is a quote from the lyrics of the song:

Hamburgers and coke, yes you already knew
But do you also know the cause of the general decay?
Short-sighted thinking, loud talking
Sticking to one-liners forever
Down with America! Down with the jerks from America
Down with America! [...]

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