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| THE YEAR IN REVIEW |
| (2009-12-24) |
| Last updated: 2009-12-30 17:51 EET |
2009 has been dominated by the world economic crisis, the most serious in the last 70 years. The economic decline that started in 2008 in the rich states and spread to developing states led to a decrease in investments, trade and credits. Despite the anti-crisis measures taken at world level to stimulate consumption and rescue big companies from bankruptcy and the thousands of billion of euros allocated by the world's governments, the results fell below expectations. The financial banking sector remained fragile, loans were still blocked and the unemployment rate was rising. It wasn't until this autumn that the United States, Germany and France first showed some timid signs of recovery from the severe recession.
2009 will go down in European history as the year when the Lisbon Treaty, meant to reform the European institutions, came into force. It took the parliaments of the 27 member states two years to ratify this document. At the same time with the enforcement of the Treaty on the 1st of December 2009, there also began the 2 and a half year term of the first permanent president of the European Union to replace the Union's rotating presidency, and the term of the Union's first high representative for foreign policy. The Treaty gives the European Parliament more decision making power and increases the role of the Union's citizens. From now on, the vote of the European Council will be based on qualified majority instead of unanimity, which is restricted solely to sensitive areas such as taxes and defence. Another new provision of the Treaty is that a member state can leave the Union. 2009 also saw the elections for the European Parliament at the beginning of June in all EU member states. An east European, namely the former Polish prime minister Jerzy Buzek, was elected for the first time as the president of the European Parliament. He was proposed by the European People's Party, the biggest
This year, the world has been faced with the first pandemic in the last 4 decades, caused by the AH1N1 flu virus. The World Health Organisation decided to declare the pandemic as a result of the large number of deaths and infection cases and the large area to which the virus spread. Since the first case appeared in Mexico in March, almost 11,000 people have died worldwide. The most affected regions were North America, Central and Eastern Europe and South and Central Asia. To prevent the spread of the virus, the authorities in the entire world have taken prevention measures and national vaccination campaigns started this autumn.
25th of June was the saddest day in 2009 for millions of pop music fans across the world. The man known as the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died at the age of 50 in Los Angeles from a heart arrest. An emblematic and influential figure in the music industry, Jackson had a brilliant career, won numerous Grammy awards and sold over 750 millions of albums. One of the few artists to make it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, Michael Jackson is also in the Book of Records as the most successful performer of all times. After 1990, his career was affected, however, by many scandals and revelations of his eccentric life style.
From this year on, Iraqis will celebrate Sovereignty Day on the 30th of June. This is the date when US troops started pulling out from Iraqi towns and cities, 6 years after Washington's armed intervention to oust the former dictator Saddam Hussein. While Iraq's democratisation process has generally been a success, the eyes of the international community are now focused on Afghanistan, which seems to concentrate now the violent extremism practised by the Al Qaida and the Taliban insurgents. 2009 has been the bloodiest year since the removal of the Taliban regime. The target of their attacks included civilians, the military and the international troops stationed in this country to ensure security. The United States and NATO allies were forced to change their strategy and increase the number of troops in Afghanistan, to combat the increasingly virulent Taliban insurgence and prevent threats to America and its allies in the future.
The former pro-European opposition in the Republic of Moldova, an ex-Soviet state with a majority Romanian speaking population, managed with difficulty to put an end to the 8 years in power of the communist president Vladimir Voronin. The communists' victory in the legislative elections in April was widely challenged by the opposition and many Moldovan citizens who took to the streets. A new election was held in summer which this time was won by a narrow margin by the four anti-communist opposition parties that formed the Alliance for European Integration. They secured 53 parliamentary seats of a total of 101, which was sufficient to elect a Parliament speaker and form a new government, but not to elect a new president, which required 61 votes. Since then, the communist parliamentarians have kept blocking indefinitely the election of a successor for Voronin, who already served the two terms in office he was entitled to under the Constitution. As a second attempt to elect Marian Lupu as the president of the republic failed in December, the next step under the Constitution is holding early elections, but this is not possible before July 2010.
The Nobel peace prize was surprisingly granted this year to the American president Barack Obama for what the Norwegian Nobel committee viewed as extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy. The decision to grant this prize to the White House leader, less than a year since taking office and without having any major international success to his name, gave rise to heated controversy. Some saw it as a “victory of ideals”, others as a political decision. Moreover, two Americans out of three believe Obama does not deserve this prize. However, in his acceptance speech in Oslo, the American president defined this prize more as a confirmation of the desire to see America taking on the role as a 21st century leader rather than a tribute to his achievements.
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