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December 09, 2011

Croatia in the EU

Today Croatia officially signed the EU accession treaty, thus finalizing the process of becoming EU's 28th member. Despite my very strong reservations about the EU (and the future of Europe in general), this is a welcome and good development. Years of waiting in the wings to join this elite club, stymied by hurdles and obstacles, have finally come to the end. Joining the rest of Europe in "ever closer union" is the only way forward for my small homeland.

However, the timing of the accession probably couldn't have been worse. EU is reeling under the strain of its financial and economic troubles, and just today another overarching attempt to get the act together seems to have failed thanks to the British veto. All of this has a feeling of finally being let into a cool private club party at 4 am. All the good booze is gone, most of the guests are drunk, they are arguing with the bartenders about the bill, and no one is really happy to see you come in. The whole situation is a wee bit awkward, to say the least. Let's just hope that the morning coffee and some donuts manage to sober people up somewhat.

December 06, 2011

Croatian Parliamentary Elections and the fall of HDZ

This past weekend has witnessed several shakeups in the parliamentary elections across the eastern and central Europe. The voters in Slovenia, Russia, and particularly in Croatia, have expressed their frustration and anger at the polls. Croatia's long-time ruling party, Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), suffered perhaps its worst defeat since it first came into power in the early nineties. Only a miracle saved it from being completely humiliated and becoming de-facto irrelevant in political life.

To be honest, I haven't been following Croatian politics all that closely in years. The years of living abroad are certainly a major factor, but even more significant is my complete disillusion with the corruption and the venal nature of my homeland's politics. Political parties have become little more than patronage networks, operating both within and outside the legitimate channels. Sure, each party has a nice-sounding and elaborate party program, but they are little more than ideological talking points. The parties try to differentiate themselves along a variety of social issues, but even this is done tepidly and without any clear plan of acting on those aspirations. When it comes to the economy, I personally don't see any major differences between various political options. They all promote to various degrees some form of European-style social state. I've never heard any Croatian politician talk passionately and with conviction about free markets, fiscal restraint, deregulation (*particularly* deregulation!), or any such topic whish can have a major and direct impact on the economy as a whole.

All things considered, it is still hard for me not to feel a considerable doze of regret that HDZ has been reduced to such a sorry state. When it was formed in the early 1990s, as communism was collapsing and countries in that neck of the woods started opening up to democracy and political pluralism, HDZ managed to mobilize hopes and aspirations of the vast majority of Croatians. In those days HDZ was more of a movement than a political party, and had a distinctly modern and future-oriented flavor. When it came in power it led Croatia to its freedom and international recognition, and under the leadership of Dr. Franjo Tuđman guided the country though a bloody war and some of the most difficult days in our nation's history. It paved the way for the path of joining the EU which is finally bearing the fruit as Croatia is scheduled to sign the accession treaty this Friday. Unfortunately, Tuđman was also an old-school authoritarian, and after his passing away in 1999 HDZ lost power for several years. When Croatian voters eventually gave it a second chance there was a lot of hope that HDZ had evolved into a more refined and forwad-looking party. For a time it looked like those hopes were well justified – the country seemed to be prospering, there wa a lot of construction and infrastructure development everywhere, and people started feeling better off. However, much of that was just a facade. Underneath it all was cronyism of the worst kind (calling it crony-capitalism just wouldn't do it justice), and right now many of teh highest ranking government officials (including the former prime minister dr. Ivo Sanader) are standing a trial for corruption. I might be a cynic, but it's not very likely that many of the corruption charges will in the end stand. Most of the big actors were too good and too smart to leave any paper trail behind them.

For the sake Croatia, I hope that when it enters the parliamentary opposition HDZ will find ways to reform itself and get rebuilt with copetent and capable talent. I might be overly optimistic, but I still believe that there are people out there who wish to enter politics for the sake of selfless public service. Croatia deserves and needs such people. Now more than ever.

December 03, 2011

A Wee Bit of Shameless Self Promotion

If you've known me for a while you probably know that I am a very active reviewer on Amazon. What started out as a casual activity motivated by informing others about the quality of some books that I've read, has by now become one of my main personal projects. I've managed to make it into the top 10 reviewers list, and this has imbued me with a decent sense of personal accomplishment. However, the competition for the top few spots on that list is a fierce contact sport – maintaining that ranking takes a lot of effort, and as I try to invest more of my time to some of my other projects it's very likely that I will not be able to maintain a top 10 spot in a long run.

This is why I've been trying to diversify my online reviewing efforts. I've started posting on all of Amazon's various international sites (UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain), started posting my reviews on Barnes and Noble's website, weRead, Goodreads, Lunch, Google books, etc. In addition, I've created a Twitter account and a Facebook page for my reviewing activities.

One of the product categories that I particularly enjoy reviewing is the consumer electronics. Like every other normal guy, I love them gadgets and can't get enough of them. I've been fortunate enough that I've been able to obtain many electronic devices for review though Amazon's Vine program, so I don't have to bust my bank balance in order to feed my gadget cravings. I've also decided to start a separate website where I'd be able to post just my electronics and technology reviews (as well as tech books) – Tunguz Review. I expect to use that website to also blog about anything and everything that catches my attention in the wide world of technology. Hopefully I'll be able to post blog updates there on a more or less regular basis. For my personal blog you can still check this site, rarely as I post here.