A Europe without planes

How fragile our modern society has become. One natural event, albeit a most unusual one, has not just disrupted European life by shutting down most of its air transport. It has in effect shut off Europe from the world. As a result there is the inevitable churn of news, speculation and comment about the immediate events. What on earth is happening? Have we done as well as we should, and if not, why not? What are the practical ways in which we can plod back to some sort of normality?

But there should be something more. These events should make us ponder about the very nature of how we have organised the way we live now. Europe will eventually be back in business but it will not, I feel, be business as usual. Or at least it ought not to be, for once the airlines have struggled back to their usual service we should try and learn how to run the rest of our economy, and indeed our society, more wisely.

The central huge lesson of the past few days is clear. It is that if you want to move people around long distances it has to be by air. Sure, the sea lanes are still open and the giant container ships continue to bring in goods and raw materials, and take away our exports. It is possible, though laborious, to get around Europe by land and ferry, though the latter are under great pressure. But Europe is huge, as I have been discovering right now.

This column is being written at the home of some friends in Helsinki because the most promising way of getting back from a conference in Tallinn on Friday seemed to be to take a ferry over the Gulf of Finland and set off back to Britain from here. The plan is, if things don't clear today, to take an overnight ferry to Stockholm, drive a rented car down through Sweden, Denmark and Germany and get on to the Harwich ferry in Holland. So it should be perfectly possible get from near the Russian border to London by land and sea, even given the present pressures and even without the services of the Royal Navy. It is just going to take a while. Read full article in The Independent...

European Union

No-fly ban empties EU institutions

"Empty seats are not uncommon in Brussels, but the closure of EU airspace has resulted in an unprecedented level of absences, and the cancellation of numerous meetings," reports Le Soir, which publishes a list of European meetings that have been cut short, cancelled or postponed. The meeting of European agriculture ministers in Luxembourg initially scheduled for Monday 19 April has been postponed indefinitely. Last weekend's meeting of EU finance ministers in Madrid went ahead, but there was a dramatic reduction in the number of participants on Saturday, which was directly attributable to "ministers' eagerness to return home as soon as possible." The Brussels daily also has a few sympathetic words for "journalists covering the event who faced a 20-hour journey back to Brussels in a bus thoughtfully provided by the Spanish Presidency of the EU."

Writing in his blog Coulisses de Bruxelles, Jean Quatremer reports that the decision not to call off a plenary session of the European Parliament scheduled for 19 April enraged MEPs who are none too pleased with Parliament President Jerzy Buzek. Buzek who was in Poland to attend the funeral of Lech Kaczyński "was unable to decide on the cancelation of the plenary session," which appeared to be "in jeopardy." A little more than one hundred of Europe's 736 MEPs actually turned up, notes Quatremer, while most of their colleagues who were grounded by the air traffic blackout remained at home. "In view of this monumental glitch," the session has been cut short and will end on Wednesday instead of Thursday. In the absence of a quorum, all the votes have been postponed. On Tuesday morning, MEPs will discuss the consequences of the ash cloud. "A quick glance at the empty seats in the parliament might lead to some very pertinent observations," remarks Quatremer, who wonders: "Just for a laugh, would Parliament be willing to inform Europe's taxpayers on the cost of this session for nothing?"