It seems that the dictum of “getting good services in good and bad times” being the price for higher taxation, not to mention being the modern-day equivalent of a serf, just doesn’t work:

The education sector in Europe has been hard hit by cuts in budgets, personnel and investment. Some universities, e.g. in the UK, might even have to be closed down. And some leading institutions could soon lose their top international rankings.

Students and pensioners to fill vacancies

Even the northern nations have felt the pinch. In the Netherlands, fiscal 2010–2011 will see 20% cuts in several sectors, including higher education, according to a study put out in February by John Aubrey Douglass from the University of California, Berkeley. Among other things, student scholarships are to be transformed into a system of bank loans for young people. The proposal sparked protests in February, in which over a thousand students occupied lecture halls in Amsterdam, Nijmegen, Utrecht and Rotterdam.

Wipe Europe off world rankings

Straight from the “Look, Paw, we kann reed!” department:

A study for the European Commission suggests growing biofuel crops can create more greenhouse gases than it saves.

Where it all Falls Apart

Years of lefty and Euro-hyperventilation on the matter of imprisoning prisoners of war have always come down to this:

According to an Interior Ministry spokesman, Berlin is talking to Washington about relocating suitable detainees after they get released from the US-owned Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

An unnamed Interior Ministry official said on Saturday, March 27, that his ministry had "opened talks anew with the United States on this matter."

Last year, Germany had considered accepting prisoners but later backed off amid concerns that the men could prove dangerous.

Charter of Fundamental Rights to be re-written as epic poem

The European Commission is bracing itself for the prospect of politically sensitive requests from EU citizens once a key direct-democracy clause contained in the Lisbon Treaty takes effect.

In a move that is likely to provoke the ire of francophones, already smarting from what they view as the galloping advance of the English language within the EU institutions and European communication with citizens at the expense of French, the tender required that poem be composed in the language of Shakespeare as English is, according to the tender document, the "literary language".

We’ve touched on this idea of European talking heads “crowding out” to the point of absurdity any international confab. Never mind that they try to create and host as many of these moronic distractions as possible, or that they are a fantasy of a world long gone, where a head of state can merely accept the terms of any such event and force them on his population.

We’ve pointed out here on several occasions that there is also a desire to have it both ways. Sometimes they’re 27 members + the EP + the EC + OECD + whatever, and yet they want to be a singular, benevolent, apparently legitimate, über-power that the world bows to for simply appearing involved in so many worldy-world things, and you know, being European and saying what nice things the plebes should get for free from someone. Else.

You know it’s bad, when a European actually notices it too.

PASCAL Lamy, the formidable Frenchman who runs the World Trade Organisation, has a cunning plan to make Europeans less annoying as they crowd around the table at global gatherings like the G20. If they cannot agree to speak with one voice (by allowing a single envoy to represent the European Union), what if they agreed to speak with one mouth? If half a dozen European leaders will insist on turning up to the G20, could they divvy up the agenda ahead of time, and agree that one leader would speak (and only one) on each topic in the name of the EU?

It is a neat suggestion. Would it help?

When the G20 next meets, Europe will be represented by the national leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Italy (who are full members), plus Spain (which is an invited special guest), plus representatives of the union. The Dutch, who managed to sneak into the first G20 leaders' summits in Washington and London as Spanish-style guests, seem to have been axed from the list this time.

The new President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has convinced EU colleagues that he must attend meetings of the G20 to represent the union's 27 national leaders, in addition to José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission (who is to represent the EU in areas where the commission's centralised bureaucracy has the lead, such as trade policy). In a nod to the rest of the world's impatience with the number of Europeans in the G20, the two presidents have agreed to share a sherpa, and to sit behind a single name-plate at the table. I don't think there are plans for anyone to sit on laps.

In a bid to avert default on its sovereign debt, the Greek government is to sell off portions of its islands to Turkey

Minister of Finance Giorgos Papakonstantinou claimed “accounting errors” before making the surprise offer, estimated in the region of €40 billion for 49% ownership of the Dodecanese islands of Patmos and Agathonissi, close to the Turkish coast.

Hermann’s Observer notes a high pressure front.

Elsewehere: Europeans loved for who they really are. What the hell – the old ways always worked for them.