Tuesday, March 20, 2012

We strongly condemn this event or product

EU statement --


Joint statement by President Barroso and the President of the European Council Herman van Rompuy following the tragedy in Toulouse

"We strongly condemn recent violent attacks against a number of religious communities in Europe and outside Europe. Any form of persecution and violent acts against religious communities have no place in Europe and, indeed, in the World!

Europe has fought a long and painful battle to achieve freedom of thought, freedom of religion and belief and the respect for the individual. These human and fundamental rights form part of the Charter on fundamental rights which is at the heart of our European values; the EU will continue to foster these rights."


You'd think that a bureaucracy so focused on elite recruitment would get better quality press-releases. Perhaps reacting to the mess that Catherine Ashton found herself in (when, in her defence, she departed from prepared remarks to explicitly condemn the Toulouse murders), this new statement from the EU heads is a condemnation of ... everything. And therefore of nothing. It only mentions Toulouse in the title (which did not appear in the original version), and the statement is self-titled as "following" Toulouse as opposed to reacting to it.

Since the end result is just a generic denunciation of bad staff, why bother issuing any statement at all?

No comments: