Goals And Geopolitics

The next Prague post should be up tonight. In the meantime, some humourous observations on the intersection of politics and football...

Nothing unites Europeans like football, and this year’s Euro 2008 tournament is turning out to be one of the best in a long time, maybe ever. What else could have us feeling sorry for Switzerland and cheering for Austria? Isn’t Europe a more harmonious entity without the English [who failed to qualify]? Would Brussels be paralysed by protests today if Belgium had qualified? And would Ireland have voted No if they were in the tournament?

Part of the fun of football is the way in which it overturns the international order of power politics.

The US, Russia and China can be expected to top the medal charts in the Olympics, as usual, but Croatia had already triumphed over two of the Great Powers – England and Russia – in qualifying before beating Austria and Germany last week. Up next: Turkey, the former Ottoman Empire.

Most of Europe got a, er, kick out of Croatia’s victory over Germany last week, in what everyone was too polite to call the Group of the Third Reich. We could all feel sorry for Poland once again as Germany beat them with two goals from a player born in Poland, Lukas Podolski. More surprising was the sense of joy when hard-working Austria levelled the match against Poland in the final minute, an emotion brought on in part by the dismay at seeing co-hosts Switzerland get knocked out the night before by a last-minute Turkish strike.

[...]

The second round throws the question of who’s In and who’s Out into stark perspective. France will be less enthusiastic about new EU member Romania after failing to beat them in the so-called Group of Death. Croatia’s defeat of Germany, on the other hand, sparked by 20-year-old Ivan Rakitic, is enough to guarantee them a welcome across the rest of the Continent. The long-standing question of whether Turkey should be In our Out looked to be resolved with 15 minutes to go against the Czechs, before the Turks over-came all odds and their own ambivalence to get themselves definitively In.

This is one European project that will go ahead without France, and, quite possibly, Germany. France are decidedly Out, having been too loyal to aging stars, a policy that nearly also cost Italy a place in the next round.

In the quarter-finals Germany may not be able to cope with the vibrant Cristiano Ronaldo, still only 23, while Spain can count on 22-year-old attacking midfielder David Silva and the creative skills of the even younger Cesc Fabregas. Whoever wins out of Russia and Sweden [it was Russia] will struggle to cope with Holland’s youthful exuberance. In this European project at least, if not the now stalling wider one, it’s youth and new ideas that bring success.

H/t Sullivan

Sheep

Spotted in Radio Netherlands' Press Review:

Two Calvinist schools in the town of Zwolle have asked a taxi company which brings their pupils to school to remove all orange flags and European Championship knickknacks from two of its vehicles. The drivers must also stop playing football songs such as "We love Oranje". A school principal told De Telegraaf: "We refuse to go along with this mass hysteria." In a letter to the taxi company the school wrote: "We have nothing against football, even though there's a lot of swearing during the games. We object however to the herd-like behaviour." The taxi company has complied with the school's request. [emphasis added]

The Calvinist principal then went off to his/her Calvinist church, where he/she read out a collective, monotonous prayer with the rest of the congregation, as is the norm on every Sunday.

Three Up, Three Down

Who am I kidding--I can't stop blogging about football.

The Netherlands started a second-string lineup tonight against Romania, as their passage to the next round was already secured by wins over France and Italy. The second-stringers refused to be showed up; the Romanians were shut down, 2-0.



That means the Dutch went through the round robin undefeated and outscored their opponents 9-1, including games against the two World Cup finalists. Unbelievable! Now they enter the playoff tree and their first game will be against either Russia or Sweden, depending on how things go tonight.

Meanwhile, the tournament is being hosted in Switzerland and Austria. Both host teams are out, so who are all the locals going to cheer for?

The Swiss may be famed for their neutrality but a fair proportion have now switched allegiance to the Netherlands – 22 per cent according to a poll in three Swiss newspapers, which has Portugal in second on 15 per cent. [...] Austria, meanwhile, is united in its wish to see rivals Germany knocked out at the first opportunity. Twenty-four per cent of people polled by Ö3 radio station are pinning their hopes on Portugal, though the Netherlands come out on top with 36 per cent. Fans in both countries have clearly warmed to the free-flowing attacking football played by Marco van Basten's side, whose supporters have turned Berne and now Zurich orange on matchdays.

Lisbon

Correction added to this post.

No I haven't been to Portugal.

I'm referring to the Lisbon reform treaty, an European Union treaty that was set to advance the development of the EU, giving it a permanent president, a more unified foreign policy, and less veto-power for individual countries.

In order for the treaty to pass it needed to pass referendums in all EU countries. The first country to hold one was Ireland.* Since coming into the EU the Irish have seen explosive economic growth--not solely because of EU membership, but certainly helped by it. Irish voters rejected the treaty.

(* A commenter below points out that this is not quite factually correct--all countries need to ratify the treaty, but not necessarily put it to a referendum. Ireland decided to go the route of referendum.)

This is enormously frustating for so-called Europhiles--those who would like to see the European Union become a more cohesive and strong leader in the world, a check on American power and a bulwark against authoritarian Russia and China. Two years ago a similar EU reform referendum was rejected by Dutch and French voters; Lisbon was supposed to be the answer.

I'm obviously just summing up the conventional wisdom on the topic, but I've learned a lot about the insanely complicated project of building a "United States of Europe" over the past year and it's a fascinating thing to watch.

Anyway, all of this as a set-up for a few paragraphs from Anne Applebaum on why the treaty rejection was pretty much inevitable, and will be for a while yet.

For as long as I've been paying attention to these things, Europe has been "in crisis," "in chaos," or "in despair" because yet another European country failed to ratify yet another European treaty. Invariably, something cataclysmically important was at stake, like the creation of a European currency. Often, the difficult country was a small one—Denmark , say, whose voters rejected the treaty that helped create the European currency in 1992. At that time, France and Germany bemoaned the fact that some tiny number of Danes were "holding up Europe." The Danes were duly sat upon, negotiated with, and granted "opt-outs" until they voted the right way a year later. Order was restored—until the French voted against the European constitution in a referendum in 2005.

[...]

But this, too, is now traditional: During doomed referendum campaigns, the political class, whether Irish or Danish or French, is always unable to sell some complicated institutional reform to the general public and is never able to explain to the voters why they should care. And perhaps this should no longer surprise anyone. Maybe someday there will be a country called Europe whose citizens feel as deeply about the institutions of Europe as they feel about their own national institutions, but there isn't yet. As a result, national referendums on European issues are easily hijacked by rumor, hearsay, and single-issue campaigners, however insane.

More to the point, they always will be, at least for the foreseeable future. So, perhaps it would be better all around if Europe's leaders accepted this, came to terms with it, and moved on. As it turned out, there was nothing wrong with a Europe in which some countries adopted a common currency and others did not. The same is doubtless true of "European" foreign policy, which is always at its most successful when several powerful nation-states—some combination of Germany, France, or Britain and two or three others—get together, make a decision, and stick to it. By contrast, "European" foreign policy is often at its weakest when it is carried out by functionaries who owe no allegiance to any particular electorate.

So, pay no attention to the wailing in Brussels: If the most enthusiastic Europeans in Europe didn't care enough to read the treaty they've just rejected, then maybe it's just as well that it didn't pass.