LUXLEAKS — POACHER TURNED GAMEKEEPER: Luxembourg is gearing up for its presidency of the EU, starting July 1. At one of many press briefings Tuesday, Christian Braun, the country’s permanent representative to the EU, put a positive spin on how the LuxLeaks tax-shelter scandal has affected the Grand Duchy’s international reputation. “This can be seen as an advantage,” Braun said dryly at the presser, when asked how the Luxembourg presidency plans to go after tax evasion. The perm rep also complained that the EU’s rotating six-month Council presidency “is so tough” that countries holding it should be paid extra for it. Another solution: collect more taxes. If it’s good enough for the Greeks…
LUXEM-BISCUIT: When Luxembourg cooked up its EU presidency logo, its design gurus may have found inspiration from a popular French cookie that uses the same LU in white print on a red background. Perhaps they should add a riff on the tagline, too, changing “véritable petit beurre” to “real little better,” as they’re not making big promises for their six-month term.
GOSS FROM THE SCHLOSS: Angela Merkel chose a fascinating venue for this year’s G7 summit. The relatively new (it opened in 1916) Schloss Elmau has had a history as an anti-Semitic spiritual center, military hospital, and hostel for concentration camp survivors, and is now is a luxury spa. You can stay there this weekend from €546 a night.
LONELY LEADERS: The press couldn’t get within 50 meters of leaders at the Schloss, except for during their press conferences. Those official photos were all taken with long-range paparazzi lenses as the leaders stood on a small deck on a huge mountainside. This may have been good for Bavarian tourism promotion, but not so much for journalism. Reporters were penned in the 1936 Winter Olympics stadium, 45 minutes away.
FOLLOW THAT HELICOPTER! The press got a treat on Sunday. Told to assemble three hours before a press conference by Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk, we grumbled with coffee in hand to the meeting point, to be greeted with army waiver forms. Then it was out past a children’s swimming center onto an alpine meadow and into a Sikorsky military helicopter. After a flight with anti-sniper officers hanging head-first out the back of the chopper, we were deposited in another field that had never seen more action than a picnic. Another hour later we got to ask a total of five questions to the leaders.
G7 POLICE OVERKILL: The police presence at the G7 was originally supposed to be 5,000. It turned out to be 17,000 to 23,000 depending on who you believe and whether you include security (non-police) in numbers. That’s more than the number of summit participants and protestors combined. Police convoys included 60 or more vehicles at times.
SUMMIT WINNERS:
Angela Merkel — avoided Greek and Russian crossfire, got her way on climate, health and women.
Beer diplomacy — a cold brew beat out talk of U.S.-German phone-tapping and Russian drama.
Climate Change — the world is more likely to decarbonize after leaders rallied against Japanese foot-dragging to push the world towards an agreement in Paris in December.
SUMMIT LOSERS:
Russia — isn’t welcome back anytime soon.
Greece — on the verge of losing Jean-Claude Juncker, its last friend left in the Troika.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — not invited to the summit and wallowing in losing his majority at home in the Turkish parliamentary election.
BLUE PARTY, GREEN THUMBS: We hear the European Parliament’s power isn’t the only thing Klaus Welle is growing; the assembly’s secretary general also loves to grow roses.
WHICH DISH: Which group of Brussels power brokers have been abandoned by their wives this week for a girls getaway in Barcelona…?
RUSSIANS ON THE LIST: Russians may have banned a slew of MEPs from entering the country, but they were certainly on a party list in Brussels. Parliamentary staffer Franco Panciera threw a Russian decadence party on Friday night where a dress code of furs and bare chests was strictly enforced. With enough vodka flowing to satisfy a dictator, Vladimir Putin would have felt at home in the downtown loft.
SCHAAKE SHAKES UP IRAN WITH HER FASHION: Playbook likes giving hat-tips — so it seems do Iranian media. They felt that Marietje Schaake, a Dutch Liberal MEP who recently visited Iran, was worthy of discussion not for her ideas but for her clothes. Her outfit of black leggings, a tight jacket with a zipper front and a blue scarf, led the front page of Haft-e Sobh, and was dubbed “extremely strange clothes” by the news website Nasim Online. “It is as if she is wearing underwear,” the conservative Mahdi Kouchakzadeh wrote on his Instagram page. Schaake told Volkskrant: “I gained my inspiration from the Iranian street, where you see women wearing the most creative headscarfs.”
BIKINI WEEK: If your wallet is tighter than your pants then entering the always classy UK Sun’s bikini contest might be your ticket to the beach. In a desperate attempt to build up its stock of Page 3 girls, the paper is offering a free holiday to Greece at (only!) a four-star hotel to “Britain’s best bikini girl.” Don’t worry about your pasty Brussels complexion. As the Sun says, “You don’t need the perfect body to look good in a bikini… just a big smile.”
SCOT IN THE LION’S DEN: Nicola Sturgeon’s grand plan to boost her international profile on a four-day jaunt to the United States ended with the newly minted Scottish National Party leader being compared to Saddam Hussein. When Sturgeon joked on the Daily Show that she had ordered an inquiry into the three seats that her party didn’t win in the recent UK election, American satirist Jon Stewart called her out for her unbridled ambition. “What? You think you’re Saddam Hussein? You get 99 percent?” he asked, leaving the rising star awkwardly fumbling in her chair.
ADD THIS TO YOUR LEXICON: Being Schulzed: (v) When a president of the European Parliament buries a report 18 hours before a vote at a plenary session.
PETTY CHANGE: There’s been another French defeat at Waterloo. Earlier this year, France blocked a Belgian plan to mint a €2 coin commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo — a touchy subject for the French because it marked the end of the Napoleonic era — by claiming that Europe needed to focus on unity instead of glorifying wars of past. The Belgians who proposed the coin weren’t deterred, and mounted a new offensive: They can mint any coin they want for an irregular value, so they resubmitted the coin as a €2.50 piece. Fortunately for the French, it will only be available in Belgium.
SPITZENFIBBER OF THE WEEK: Anti-TTIP campaigners have been off-loading apples onto MEPs and Brussels commuters. The apples have a tag on them “DO NOT SWALLOW: may contain bleach, chlorine, GMOs.”
NO SECRETS IN SWEDEN: This could kill your dating life! Ratsit — a website that collects financial information on individuals via the liberal Swedish freedom of information laws — plans to publish a quarterly report listing the income and credit score of every adult in Sweden. So don’t even think about bluffing about your hefty bonus!