In fact I was going to post about Polish moon thieves, but that has to wait a while longer now as I tonight spotted this. It's in Finnish and the original source in Danish, but I'll make an update if I find something in Ingerlish.
First some fresh background. Many of you have surely ran across the petition that urges the EU to locate its parliament permanently in Brussels, so that the Parliament's ridiculous monthly shuttling to Strasbourg could be ended. It would save European taxpayers some 200 million euros a year and as well smoothen the work of the institution. The initiative was originally proposed by Cecilia Malmström, a Swedish MEP, soon joined by several other debuties, and was in most European countries welcomed with applauds. This week the petition, so far signed by more than one million EU citizens, was delivered to EU leaders.
Such an act of sanity would have been hard enough to commit -because France, like any other member state, has got a veto over the issue- but the EU's response wasn't very encouraging either. Today the Parliament signed with the city of Strasbourg a deal that will make it buy the three parliament buildings for the sum of 140 million euros. Despite of the fact that about five months ago it had turned out that Strasbourg, over the years, had been milking a good amount of extra from its wealthy tenant.
So it seems that they're not moving anytime too soon. But what about Joseph Borrel, the President of our representative body? When signing the contract, he also commented the petition and its one million signers. First, he reminded why the Parliament in the first place was quarterly-located in Strasbourg (apart from the fact that France said so): to the Union, forged out of ruins of war, it has always symbolized peace. Remembering the history of Alsace/Elsass, maybe so. Doesn't make this grand allegory of perpetual peace any cheaper, though.
Then Mr Borrell, of whose native country of Spain's contribution to defeating fascism was of course priceless, pointed out that a relatively very large share of the signed names are from the three Nordic members and the Netherlands.
He analyzed that "it's easy to forget the things you haven't gone through; this explains why the signatures are concentrated on certain countries. These countries -and for this they can be happy- didn't have to take part in this bloodshed".
Aha. How interesting. I had always mistakenly believed that Denmark and Holland were under Nazi occupation. And that my dear grandmother is a Karelian evacuee. And that the grandfather, peace to his memory, had been wounded in the front. But maybe she had left just for fun and he was playing paintball in the forest. And maybe Anne Frank lived in the moon.
Thank you for the lesson, Señor Borrell.
PS. The petition is still open for more signatures.
First some fresh background. Many of you have surely ran across the petition that urges the EU to locate its parliament permanently in Brussels, so that the Parliament's ridiculous monthly shuttling to Strasbourg could be ended. It would save European taxpayers some 200 million euros a year and as well smoothen the work of the institution. The initiative was originally proposed by Cecilia Malmström, a Swedish MEP, soon joined by several other debuties, and was in most European countries welcomed with applauds. This week the petition, so far signed by more than one million EU citizens, was delivered to EU leaders.
Such an act of sanity would have been hard enough to commit -because France, like any other member state, has got a veto over the issue- but the EU's response wasn't very encouraging either. Today the Parliament signed with the city of Strasbourg a deal that will make it buy the three parliament buildings for the sum of 140 million euros. Despite of the fact that about five months ago it had turned out that Strasbourg, over the years, had been milking a good amount of extra from its wealthy tenant.
So it seems that they're not moving anytime too soon. But what about Joseph Borrel, the President of our representative body? When signing the contract, he also commented the petition and its one million signers. First, he reminded why the Parliament in the first place was quarterly-located in Strasbourg (apart from the fact that France said so): to the Union, forged out of ruins of war, it has always symbolized peace. Remembering the history of Alsace/Elsass, maybe so. Doesn't make this grand allegory of perpetual peace any cheaper, though.
Then Mr Borrell, of whose native country of Spain's contribution to defeating fascism was of course priceless, pointed out that a relatively very large share of the signed names are from the three Nordic members and the Netherlands.
He analyzed that "it's easy to forget the things you haven't gone through; this explains why the signatures are concentrated on certain countries. These countries -and for this they can be happy- didn't have to take part in this bloodshed".
Aha. How interesting. I had always mistakenly believed that Denmark and Holland were under Nazi occupation. And that my dear grandmother is a Karelian evacuee. And that the grandfather, peace to his memory, had been wounded in the front. But maybe she had left just for fun and he was playing paintball in the forest. And maybe Anne Frank lived in the moon.
Thank you for the lesson, Señor Borrell.
PS. The petition is still open for more signatures.
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