There have been many to claim that a change is needed in how economic growth is being sustained and managed. An essential component of this change would have to be the deceleration of growth in some economic sectors while others are given a greater impetus forward.

The question that arises is whether specific economic sectors can be held back without the pain spreading to the overall economy. Which is why many believe that the only feasible way is to apply the brakes slowly. However one also notes that frequently when this was done, or when it was announced to be in progress, nothing actually happened.

The argument is that if the government sets out to apply sudden brakes  for one sector, the risk is that the whole economy will stall overnight. Perhaps closer to the truth is that the risk for the government will be coming from the promoters of the economic sector at issue: they will do their best to conjure up the stormiest weather possible and send it the government’s way.

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TWO STATES

One understands how and why Israel went all out to destroy Hamas after the abominable attacks mounted in October from Gaza. Still surely nobody can approve the way by which the civil population of Gaza (and not Hamas) has been at the receiving end of attacks and atrocities that amount to criminal acts of war.

So now, another sequence has been opened of atrocity and counter-atrocity in the development of Palestine’s modern history. As the leading military power in the region, Israel should have been exerting the greatest efforts to find some solution to this destructive problem. Israel was not always responsible for the setbacks that occurred but during recent years, its governments have shown themselves less than interested in facing up to this challenge.

If an Israeli government does not accept in good faith a two-state solution for Palestine, I cannot see how one can have hope that the “Middle East”  will ever find peace.

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RED LINES

In the European Parliament when a resolution is being voted, this is done on the individual articles of the text and at the end, on the text as a whole. A vote is registered by the chair of the meeting who takes note of where the preferences of the political groups lie. Otherwise, when the need arises or when a specific request is made, the deputies present vote directly on the article under consideration. In this way they register one by one whether they approve or not that article. At the end, a vote is taken on the resolution as a whole, including the constituent articles as they have been approved.

A political group or an MEP can believe that an article or articles that have been approved are so obnoxious that they vitiate the resolution as a whole.They consider them as a red line. So they vote against the resolution. For instance, a deputy can consider that an article regarding abortion against which he voted but which made it into the text of the resolution is totally unacceptable. It has crossed a red line. If he votes for the resolution as a whole, he then shows that the abortion issue is not for him a red line.