msg 73
Excellent news.
Perhaps the threat of Brexit brought them to their senses
Excellent news.
Perhaps the threat of Brexit brought them to their senses
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As far as I understood it, there was never any deliberate decision to 'defund' the orchestra specifically: they were the collateral damage caused by the overall changes to EU culture funding. Since Juncker became their patron when he took office, there was probably a lot of scurrying around to find ways to save what is obviously a huge EU asset.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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No surprise - just another small example of the gross idiocy of Brexit .Last edited by Barbirollians; 11-10-17, 12:05.Comment
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I expect EUBO (European Union Baroque Orchestra) will also leave their UK base (Hordley, Wootton, Woodstock) soon. Very sad.Originally posted by Barbirollians View PostComment
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This should be a contingency plan, not an operational implement. Very bad business decision, although it ''may not be about what it's about''.Comment
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How long Italy - or any version of it - is in the EU remains to be seen.
So too the extent of restriction on any work permits for British people following a hard Brexit if and when that occurs. The immediate post war generations of the middle classes who first enjoyed the privilege of not only travelling to but residing and working on the "Continent" did so while Britain was not a member of the EEC. Mostly still alive, their recollections will be sufficient for us to contrast the openness of individual countries at that time and the openness or insularity of those and other countries as they are arranged by the EU today.
In 2009, the British immigration rules were changed to enable a greater flow of global talent into key British sectors. One such was British orchestras where for the first time musicians from China and the Middle East, among other places, were provided with easier access than they had before. It was not, and this was fully accepted by those who made the change, that there was a shortage of musicians from Britain and the EU. Rather it was felt that the earlier policy had been too restrictive and it needed to accommodate new areas of obvious rapid growth. With hindsight, that change sits very well with the creation in 2011 of the United Nations Orchestra which also draws on global talent and has been represented at CERN, IFCR, UNCTAD, UNHCR and UNICEF while enhancing the international reputation of Geneva. Additionally there is a UN Symphony Orchestra which is currently based in New York.
It is worth noting - and it is in the newspaper article - that the EUYO had its funding removed just a couple of years ago, such was the EU's huge commitment to classical music. This decision, which was subsequently described by EU officials as bureaucratic, was actually based on a significant policy change in which no individual arts projects were to be further assisted but rather each would compete for a pool of money. Fiercely resisted by those who believed in the EUYO, it took the personal intervention of Jean-Claude Juncker to re-introduce the previous arrangements as an exception to the rule. All well and good for the orchestra but not perhaps for democracy as it is precisely here where the extent of almost regal power in one individual is revealed. The decision to move the orchestra away from Britain is not about business contingency or implemented organisation but instead it is about the fear of one man, with historical family links to the Nazis, and the knowledge that he could remove funding from it should it remain in Britain whatever the outcome of negotiations.
Arts Council, March 2017 - "Brexit is viewed as a challenge by many working in British arts and culture but it also heralds opportunities.....Interestingly, the British Council’s latest survey data of young people in the G20 suggests an overall increase in global likelihood of engagement with British arts and culture resulting from the referendum, with negative reactions in Europe being outweighed by positive reactions in the rest of the G20. This suggests important opportunities for the sector to engage more with the rest of the world"
Last edited by Lat-Literal; 12-10-17, 03:11.Comment
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''it's never about what it's about''Originally posted by Lat-Literal View Post
Btw, some immediate post-war working class people also enjoyed the 'privilege' of freely moving, residing and working throughout Europe, without the EU.Comment
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Thank you.Originally posted by french frank View Post
There are several things in that article I didn't know but it is also written in a most peculiar way, especially when it comes to Britain.
This is the section that provides the most difficulty for me:
"Then in the 1950s, when Europe was beginning to recover from the devastation of World War II and experiencing a period of intense economic growth, labor mobility was again encouraged. Because the lack of skilled workers was seen as a threat to the economy, freedom of movement of qualified industrial workers was included in the treaties founding the European Economic Community (EEC), the predecessor of the current European Union, in 1957.
Over 8 million work permits were issued to foreigners in Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany (the original six members of the EEC) during the guest-worker period of 1958 to 1972. One-third of the foreign workers came from within the EEC; mainly from Italy, which was lagging behind in industrialization and suffered from high unemployment.
Workers were recruited through bilateral agreements from outside of Europe as well, especially to work in dirty, dangerous, and dull — the so-called 3D — jobs in the building, mining, and transportation sectors. Significant numbers of guest workers, for example, migrated from Turkey to Germany, from Algeria to France, and from the British Commonwealth countries to Britain.
The oil crisis that started in 1973 put an end to the open-doors policy regarding migrant workers, who were welcomed when the economy needed them but were expected to leave when times were hard."
I was talking about how easy it was for very many British people to live and work in the EEC prior to Britain's membership of the EEC/EU. I am happy to refer to that period as 1958 to 1972 seeing that is exactly the period that is mentioned in the article. In that article this is described as "the guest-worker" period. There is no distinction whatsoever in that term between foreign workers moving from one EEC country to another and foreign workers from non EEC countries moving to the EEC. Consequently, the implication is that the restrictions were no greater on non EEC citizens and, in fact, we are told that two thirds of those issued with work permits were not from the EEC. So far, so good. The figure of 8 million work permits issued in the period seems suspiciously low but at least in principle what is said seems to support the knowledge that many British people went to work in the EEC during that period. Except that we are then advised that, quote, "workers were recruited through bilateral agreements from outside of Europe as well......significant numbers of guest workers, for example, migrated from.......the British Commonwealth countries to Britain." Well, no. Certainly many people emigrated from British Commonwealth countries to Britain but they were not guest workers in the EEC sense of the phrase which is, in fact, the only sense of the phrase. Britain wasn't even in the EEC so what is presented is at best a sleight of hand.
That not necessarily deliberate obscuring of Britain's external status, albeit following a list of the six countries who were actually members, prevents any comment on the numbers of British people who were working in the EEC during that period. That could imply to some that there were hardly any British people there but, again, experience suggests the opposite. Much has been made in the past of how Italy suffered from the loss of its workers to northern EEC countries in that period but that country merely provided a majority of the one third of workers who were from the EEC and given work permits. As for the other two thirds, it might be that the official number from Britain, if that could ever have existed, was at times at least as high although instinctively I feel that many British people were probably working in the EEC without work visas in a system which wasn't especially enforced. One needs to bear in mind that the original six were still very independent and no doubt blase about much of the EEC's requirements on them. If nothing of these foundations implies that citizens in EEC countries had exceptional migratory benefits as a consequence of their own countries being members of the EEC at that time, then also nothing of them implies that what we now comprehend as "freedom of movement" was ever originally thought of in the quasi-religious terms it now enjoys. As the article reveals, the introduction of the concept of guest-workers whether from inside or outside the EEC occurred for wholly pragmatic reasons such as a shortage of skills. With 1973 and the oil crisis the instinct was to row back on it. Furthermore, guest workers had always been expected to be there in the short term although that expectation like many others turned out to be patently wrong. Intriguingly - and we can put it down mainly to coincidence rather than British voters being deliberately misled : that is, Britain joined the EEC in January 1973 and the oil crisis didn't occur until October 1973 - it was in the same year that Britain joined the EEC that the number of work permits for foreign workers both inside and outside the EEC was seemingly reduced.
So......yes, British people who wanted to live and work in the EEC had plenty of scope to do so in the period 1958-1972 when Britain was outside the EEC. From 1973, did they initially have less or more scope? That is not entirely clear to me. The position in the mid seventies on work permits for EEC citizens is not explained. However, it is possible to make educated guesses. We are told that a key principle after 1973 was that workers in the EEC had to be able to show that they could sustain themselves. That among other things made a distinction between workers and mere travellers. As for those who sought to travel and pick up very short term jobs along the way - lorry driving, nannying, performing in occasional concerts or whatever - then Britain's membership of the EEC probably was more restrictive than the climate in the 14 years prior to Britain's membership. As the article states, it was only later if prior to 1990 that, quote, "the definition of "worker" was gradually expanded to include not only workers in industry, but those in seasonal or short-term employment and apprenticeship placements in Member States as well". In the following decade and a half, the EU grew an Empire with the extension of rights as we had given the Commonwealth.
One more thing which has some application not, as much of the above does, to any work in the musical sphere per se but to the rights of students to study music in the institutions of the EEC/EU. The article confirms that "In 1990, freedom of movement came to be guaranteed for students, pensioners, and the unemployed, as well as for their families". On the surface, that represents a sea change in terms of students' ambitions to study abroad whether they wish to study music or any other subject. However, note that word "guaranteed" for what it does is imply that prior to this arrangement it wasn't as if students didn't already have considerable scope. To take just one example, the British Parliament has for many decades been stuffed to the gills with MPs who were students in EEC countries either prior to Britain's membership of the EEC or long before the 1990s. Norman St John Stevas, born 1929, spent six months at the English College, Rome, a seminary for the Roman Catholic priesthood; Dale Campbell-Savours, born 1943, was educated at the Sorbonne; Iain Duncan-Smith, born 1954, spent a year at the Università per Stranieri, and so the list could go on. Severe EU restriction on British students following any hard Brexit would, of course, be ostensibly venomous. It might well also show very clearly that "freedom of movement" whether a country is inside or outside the EU is still not a high principle but rather as it has always been expedient and ever subject to change. In the modern day, that means ensuring that Germans and other citizens have sufficient workers to pay for their pensions which in turn does not bode well for those who simply wish to study abroad. But more than any of these things, what such a restriction would be is entirely without historical precedent.Last edited by Lat-Literal; 12-10-17, 17:47.Comment
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Lat, that's far too long to answer each point thoroughly. But just to take students: I studied at the Sorbonne too. IDS famously distorted what his 'study' consisted of. Special short courses for 'foreigners' are different from studying in respected institutions for degree-level qualifications. If a country needed what you had to offer you would find yourself welcome, but none of these pre-EU activities were based on a right to be able to do so, as EU citizens.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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Well, it's shorter than the article and all of the paperwork that emanates from the EU. One of the problems these days is that the general public have been made to feel that they are required to be in receipt of documents few will ever want or be able to read - often, although not in this case, legal - and those who do read them have to restrict their comment to 140 characters. That is an organisational double whammy against the very brief period when there were greater opportunities for individual expression and life was far less legalistic.Originally posted by french frank View Post
IDS claimed that he studied at the University of Perugia. The institution I have mentioned is where he actually studied. I don't know quite what your experience was of the Sorbonne. However, at the very least, modern language students traditionally have an additional year at a university abroad and mainly it is in the rest of Europe. That is very much a component of their university degree. Common sense would suggest that it is extremely unlikely that such a process would not continue, not least because it also works in the opposite direction. But then there is the point about students wishing to study full time abroad, a consideration that may apply more specifically to music as well as other areas.
Surely the question that arises then is "who defines the need?" When an institution decides that it needs a person from another country as a student - and rights have only ever been handed there as there has never been any right for, say, the non musically inclined to study at a musical establishment - then is the country in which that institution sits realistically going to oppose it? If so, the main problem will not be one between academics and potential students but rather between academics and their own governments and especially the EU if those governments are being EU-compliant. I have never met anyone who has claimed he tried to study in the EEC in the 1960s and was rejected for being British. The moment that such people appear we can reassess. But, in their absence, the line should be that the application of key principles must not be historically inconsistent.
(I doubt this is a point that could be won in international law as it sits beyond agreements but culturally it would persistently locate for all where restrictive practices actually reside)Last edited by Lat-Literal; 12-10-17, 19:07.Comment
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