"...The idea of putting the constitution to French and Dutch voters again is preposterous," the newsweekly asserts. "There is no reason to believe that voters' objections have disappeared - if anything, the EU is less popular today than it was a year ago. ... A better course would be for Europe's leaders to forget the constitution and concentrate on their bigger worries. Top of the list must be improving their sclerotic economies, best done through a programme of serious liberalisation and deregulation. Linked to this should be the preservation of the single European market and its compeition rules, which are under attack from economic nationalists. ... the EU's real failure is not a democratic or institutional deficit - it is what the Centre for European reform ... has termed a 'delivery deficit'." (26/05/2006)

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A year after the rejection of the constitution, Swiss columnist Jacques Pilet describes a Europe that is functional, but which is weighed down by the internal crises of its member states. "It is true that the project has broken down. The Union is spinning its wheels. It is about to come completely undone, to be sure. ... Nonetheless, the construction has suffered a heavy blow. Because it crystallises every fear. That of the French who are panicked by globalisation, that of the Poles who are clinging to their paranoid worldview, that of the Dutch and Danish who are disorientated by immigration... and so many others. There is no longer any rational reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of the edifice: each projects his own anxieties into a poisonous nest." In order to get out of this impasse, the columnist sees as necessary "a reminder of its [Europe's] usefulness. Something its leaders never offer. ... Let them explain to us why Europe should be built!" (26/05/2006)

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In the daily's leading article Cornelia Bolesch demands that Europe's politicians "stop being cowardly in the face of the people". "The dictates of democracy do not require that the European constitution project be dropped like a hot potato at the first, unexpected sign of resistance from the populace. And it's not enough to worry about how best to disguise the object of contention, so that it can somehow be smuggled through at a later point in time. Politicians are elected to lead the way and give us direction. They're not there to act as proxies for wavering public opinion, and they shouldn't seek refuge in cheap tricks. Nobody can prohibit a politician from fighting for a cause in which he truly believes." (26/05/2006)

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"How can we put an end to the current gloomy mood? Should we do a better job of 'selling Europe' to Europeans?" The French philosopher Jean-Marc Ferry, a teacher at the Free University of Brussels, takes stock of the rejection of the constitution. "Far from slamming the brakes on a Europe seen as excessively liberal, France's negative response ended up playing into the hands of the enemies of social-democracy: the extreme right and extreme left, as well as the ultraliberalism of the anglo-saxon approach. A ludicrous pretention of a 'left-wing No vote' that would serve as a 'wake-up call' to the other members! At a time when the Union is in danger of regressing into a free-trade zone, no major political voice is being raised to shake up inertia, and chauvinism is regaining lost ground. ... In order to give itself new legitimacy, the Union will have to prove capable of providing a credible political response to economic globalisation as well as to the new geopolitical order which risks becoming unipolar. No nation acting single-handedly will be able to provide an answer." (26/05/2006)

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Talking to Wawrzyniec Smoczynski, British political scientist Paul Taggart describes the impact populists have on a country's political system. "Populists destroy democracy by suppressing debate. Representative democracy is based on pluralism, but when a populist walks on to the political stage, he polarises opinion. The remaining parties start to define themselves in terms of the populist, and pluralism disappears. A lack of diversity of opinion doesn't make for good politics. On the other hand, populism is short-lived, so its impact is naturally limited." (26/05/2006)

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Bestselling British author Antony Beevor has rewritten "The Battle for Spain", a book he published in the 1980s about the Spanish Civil War. In an interview with Jenny Aschenbrenner, Beevor explains that the opening of the Russian files made it necessary to reassess the events described in the earlier book. "When a nation is trying to put a difficult period in its history behind it, wounds are often bandaged over even though they can become infected under that bandage. After the death of Franco, Spain wanted to forget its past as quickly as possible, and therefore only looked to the future. Since then, however, interest in finding out what actually happened has grown continually. The left, in particular, feels the need to mourn. The older I get, the more clearly I recognise that history is more about questions than final conclusions." (26/05/2006)

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In an essay which has appeared in several European papers, Andre Glucksmann says the Clearstream Affair is the latest symptom of a malady which has been afflicting the French Republic for 30 years now. "If the French no longer believe in the sacrosanct left-right alternative, it's because they see that in several decades of cohabitation, alternation, mobilisation and counter-mobilisation, neither the left nor the right have done a thing to solve France's problem of problems: the unemployment rate. Here France is the long-standing Western European champion. As long as the country has 10 percent unemployment (over 20 percent among young people and almost 40 percent in disadvantaged neighbourhoods), the situation will not improve. But there is no superhuman fate preventing the world's fifth-largest economic power (cock-a-doodle-doo!) from coming off any worse than Denmark, Finland, Ireland or the UK. The responsibility here is borne by the leadership teams on the right as well as the left. They have accompanied and reinforced society's blockade against itself. Electoral abstentions and votes for the extremes can be interpreted as an exasperated message from the population: "Thirty years is enough!" (26/05/2006)

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In a week's time, the Czechs will elect a new parliament. Belgian political scientist Jean-Michel De Waele talks to Radek Honzak about Brussels' reaction in the event of a victory by the conservative opposition, the ODS (Civic Democratic Party): "It 's very difficult to tell what the ODS's position is on Europe. Outside the Czech Republic, the ODS is simply seen as the party led by Vaclav Klaus, who has a reputation for being a Eurosceptic. The same label would automatically be applied to a government led by the ODS. It would be a problem for the EU if the Czechs vote for an anti-European party just two years after joining the EU. But a similar trend can be observed across Central and Eastern Europe, with the exception perhaps of Hungary. The Union must reflect on why this is happening. It must also accept part of the blame for this trend." (26/05/2006)

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In an interview with Philippe Broussard, Vanja Luksic and Paola Genone, the newly elected [May 10] Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, expresses his desire to see Rome make Europe a priority once again. He adds that he does not think Italy is any worse off than some of its neighbours. "The centre left often criticised the previous government [for not caring enough about Europe]. It is true that we did not get the sense of any sort of coherent commitment to Europe on the part of the previous government. Even if Italy was among the first to ratify the constitutional treaty, this is not enough. Traditionally in Italy, there has always been a balance between European commitment and a friendly relationship with the United States. But Europe must now be the priority again. ... Insofar as concerns the competitivity and modernisation of the social state, the deficits of the Italian economy are similar to those of France and Germany." (25/05/2006)

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The Spanish daily asserts in an editorial that it is "unfair to say the Spanish government has done nothing in the face of the avalanche of illegal immigrants landing on the coast of the Canary Islands. ... What Vice President Fernandez de la Vega obtained during her visit to Brussels is better than nothing. We must not minimise the fact that the European Commission promised that it would immediately implement a series of 15 emergency measures," the daily points out. Nevertheless, "this visit underscored an obvious fact: the narrow wriggle room available to the European Commission. Its president, Portugal's Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, understanding and determined as he may be, was not able to offer us a whole lot more because the so-called community executive as yet possesses very limited decision-making authority where immigration is concerned." (26/05/2006)

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The daily comments on the Labour government's proposals, unveiled on Thursday, May 25, to avert a future pensions crisis by dramatically boosting state spending on pension plans, while raising the retirement from 65 to 68 by 2046. "British workers are thus going to have to work longer, save harder and in the longer term pay more tax to achieve a more secure old age than many now face. Even so, state spending on pensions, while rising by 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product between now and 2050, will still be below 7 per cent, half the level that a significant number of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries will face on current trends. ... Doing nothing, however, on current trends, carries certainties: falling pensions saving, excessive means-testing and pensioners who in future will be worse off. The package is a coherent one and needs to be enacted." (26/05/2006)

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The president of the Liberal faction in the European parliament, Graham Watson, believes the European Commission made a mistake in rejecting Lithuania's bid to enter the euro zone 2007. "We are applying much stricter criteria to Lithuania than to the current members of the euro zone. Lithuania currently fulfills all the criteria, and is only 0.1% above the inflation ceiling. The fact that the Lithuanian economy is growing at a faster rate than that of other European countries was clearly not taken into consideration. Which is paradoxical, since it is this growth that is responsible for the high inflation rate. Should Lithuania have to brake its growth in order to be able to join the euro zone? This makes absolutely no economic sense. ... If the Commission wants to be so intransigeant, why doesn't it apply the same strict criteria to France or Germany as regards the stabilisation pact?" (26/05/2006)

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In his first major foreign visit, Pope Benedict XVI is visiting Poland, the homeland of his predecessor, John Paul II. Commentator Jan Turnau writes enthusiastically about the first day of the visit, saying the most positive impression left by the leader of the Catholic Church was that of "his gentle smile, especially when talking Polish. It was like a mixture of embarrassment and self-irony, but also inner warmth... And generally the so-called "battle tank cardinal" is capturing people's hearts with his gentleness and his cultivated mind: this is a university professor in the best sense of the term. There's not a trace of the provincial vicar in him – or of the professor in the negative sense of the word. At the airport he said that he not only wants to strengthen us in our faith, but also to gain strength from our faith." (26/05/2006)

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"I don't think one can speak of censorship here. That is not to suggest that I approve of dropping Peter Handke," writes the Serb playwright Biljana Srbljanovic, referring to the Comedie Francaise's cancellation of a play by the Austrian writer Peter Handke. "Mr. Handke was at least very lucky, for if what he has suffered is censorship, he has at least avoided a Slobodan Milosevic-style censorship. What I mean is this: every time Mr. Handke's (now deceased) friend decided to censor someone, he did so with greater efficiency and less noise: a bullet in the back of the neck, generally at the front door, or in front of a ditch that had been dug in advance, deep in the forest, a ditch into which the censored person tumbled. ... To be for Slobodan Milosevic has never meant - and certainly not now - to be for Serbia." (26/05/2006)

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There will be no increase in state funding for film in the Czech Republic. The Czech Parliament's attempt to override President Vaclav Klaus's veto on an amendment which would have boosted funding has failed. In an initial reaction to this news, Czech film production companies at the film festival in Cannes closed their stand and lowered the national flag. "Now it looks like there could be even more trouble" writes Mirka Spacilova, and quotes Pavel Strnad of the Czech Film Chamber: "'We refuse to stand behind a country that doesn't fund cinematography.' Strnad, producer of the film 'Stesti' (Happiness), which has won many prizes in the Czech Republic, is now contemplating withdrawing the film from the competition for the European film prize in protest. Other producers are debating whether to boycott their own festival in Karlovy Vary in protest against the politicians' decision." (26/05/2006)

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The new railway station connects Berlin with the rest of the world and is now trying to connect with the city," writes Claudia Schwartz on the opening of Europe's largest interconnecting railway station. "In future, rail passengers will arrive at the strangest place Berlin has to offer. The new main station lies in the heart of the city, yet at the same time in the middle of no-man's-land. The area surrounding the great station building looks as if the Wall had only just fallen. It's not only the symbolism of the station that makes it a latecomer in the process of Berlin becoming capital: a station which was planned neither in the east nor the west, but in the so-called 'new centre of the city. Whereas the 'bond of the nation' symbolises the German-German reunification, the station's design, with its tentacles extending in all directions, symbolises the city's opening itself to the world after four decades on the sidelines." (26/05/2006)

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In the centre of Tallinn stands a bronze statue of a Soviet soldier. Prime Minister Andrus Ansip says this monument to the occupation of the country must go – but his plans have met with opposition, in particular from the Russian section of the population. Kalle Muuli advises the two sides to remain calm. "For 15 years now, the Russians in our now independent Estonia have laid their flowers before the bronze soldier every May 9, and although this is not a pleasant sight for most Estonians, it's not so unbearable that they can't put up with it for a couple of days each year for the sake of peaceful coexistence. Moreover, Estonians, too, have come to the statue to mourn, so why all the fuss?... For sure, the government should remove the statue from the Tonismägi, but this shouldn't be done under these circumstances, because then it would be perceived as provocation." (26/05/2006)

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