"To distinguish a formerly controversial writer is one thing. To not have seen that such an action would risk causing a stir in Islamic extremist circles is quite another", noted editorialist Gérald Papy. "Nearly twenty years after the publication of 'The Satanic Verses', nearly ten years after the scrapping of the deadly fatwa, the honour bestowed on Salman Rushdie shouldn't be making more waves. But liberty, tolerance and openness towards others, which are defended by democratic and must never be abandoned, are values which have little resonance - less and less, we are tempted to write - in certain Muslim countries. These states made sick by their extremists in the sense that their leaders are often tempted to compromise, in one way or another, with them". (22/06/2007)

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Dominic Lawson considers Salman Rushdie's recent knighthood in the light of some of its more infamous recipients, like Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe. Rushdie's title isn't as disgraceful as some make out. "Only two years ago Iqbal Sacranie, the former chairman of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, was awarded a knighthood. This is the same Iqbal Sacranie who, when the Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa on Rushdie, announced that 'death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him'. There were, shamefully, no expressions of outrage when the contemptible Mr Sacranie was made 'Sir Iqbal'. On Tuesday night I attended Salman Rushdie's 60th birthday party. There were a number of congratulatory speeches - but while all mentioned his age, none referred to his knighthood. Perhaps that is not so surprising. For a man who had been sentenced to death in the name of an entire religion, to have reached the age of 60 at all is a much greater achievement than any bauble." (22/06/2007)

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18 years after the word 'fatwa' was adopted into the West's vocabulary, Salman Rushdie can still cause a stir, writes Gudrun Harrer. "The Rushdie hysteria took on epidemic proportions, became chronic and, as tends to happen with such diseases, still flares up every now and then. After a partially state-controlled foundation put a bounty on his head Rushdie spent years underground... This was a long time ago. Since he published his Parodia Sacra (which follows Western tradition while in Islamic cultural circles blasphemous or un-Islamic content generally takes the form of lyrics) Rushdie has written countless other novels, but the Islamic world is still obsessed with the 'Satanic Verses'." (22/06/2007)

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The Spanish daily republishes a column from The Guardian in which Priyamvada Gopal, a professor of postcolonial studies at Cambridge, takes issue with Salman Rushdie's political views. "Sir Salman is partly the creation of the fatwa that played its role in strengthening the self-fulfilling 'clash of civilisations' that both Bush and Osama bin Laden find so handy. Driven underground and into despair by zealotry, Rushdie finally emerged blinking into New York sunshine shortly before the towers came tumbling down. Those formidable literary powers would now be deployed not against, but in the service of, an American regime that had declared its own fundamentalist monopoly on the meanings of "freedom" and "liberation". The Sir Salman recognised for his services to literature is certainly no neocon but is iconic of a more pernicous trend: liberal literati who have assented to the notion that humane values, tolerance and freedom are fundamentally western ideas that have to be defended as such." (22/06/2007)

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The newspaper prints a speech delivered by Polish journalist Adam Krzeminski last week in Prague on the subject of a European public sphere. "A European public sphere is a reality and at the same time an illusion, if not indeed a philosophical impossibility. It is only with some difficulty that the circuits of national discourse join together to become communicating tubes in a common discourse that is pursued as their own by people from Poland to Portugal, and from Cyprus to Lapland. ... And yet, in spite of everything, slivers of a European public sphere are part of our daily experience... Europe has taken on the function of a huge corrective, monitoring body - and even an educational institution. It acts as both a litmus test and a catalyst for national debates and domestic disputes. Can we rely on Brussels in the final instance to stop inept autobahn freaks who are prepared to destroy unique ecosystems, or legislators who in their frenzied desire to get even with the communists and with their political opponents undermine human rights?" (22/06/2007)

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In an interview conducted by Yves Steiner, historian Jacques Rupnik analyses the political evolution of the eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004. "There is a paradox. The transition towards democracy and the market economy is a veritable success. The population's quality of life rose before and after joining the EU. But at the same time, a rejection of the elites is establishing itself. It's a rejection of those who orchestrated the entry into the EU, from Poland to Hungary, via the former Czechoslovakia. ... This stays inline with a new political situation, characterised by polarisation and a push toward populism. These populist currents criticise the consensus that animated all the governments, on the right and the left, since 1989: adhesion to a market economy, development of the rule of law and the adhesion to NATO and the EU. By attacking this, we are setting upon the post-communist legacy, not the communist one". (15/06/2007)

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Columnist Thomas Ferenczi notes that the idea of a Europe that preserves "national sovereignties" has replaced the project to break nation-states' monopoly of political legitimacy. "The debates between the 27 on a new institutional treaty confirm that the European idea has run out of steam. Under pressure from eurosceptics, who strengthen this determinism, the Union moves away, little by little, from the federalist spirit. The new generation of leaders on the old continent willingly assume this evolution. Nicolas Sarkozy in particular, considers the European institutions as an instrument of co-operation between governments. ... The Europe that is being developed is different from the one which the federalists dreamed of. This is what is believed by those who don't renounce the idea of an overarching authority. But today, these people are a minority." (22/06/2007)

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Nurses in Warsaw have been on strike since Tuesday. They demand a pay rise and more money for the health care system. Igor Janke comments on the situation the Polish Prime Minister is facing in the realm of domestic policy. "The demonstrations are hindering the government's efforts to prepare and supervise the talks in Brussels, but that's the government's problem, not the nurses' or the doctors'. The government is there to solve problems. It has the appropriate instruments to take care of 20 different problems at the same time. We can expect this of our government, because that's why the nation 'hired' it in the first place. It's unfair to criticise the nurses for staging their protests the day before the summit in Brussels because for them the square root and double majority problems are abstract notions." (22/06/2007)

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The calls of Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, on the "new EU member states not to make the life of the EU more complicated" remind Rodica Culcer of a much more vicious comment made by French ex-President Jacques Chirac in 2003. Back then, the issue at hand was the participation of EU countries in the Iraq war, and Chirac said the new NATO members should keep their mouths shut. "While Romania couldn't shut up back then, it's now behaving like a model pupil... There is no discussion about either the new EU treaty or the voting system. At least head of state Traian Basescu explained shortly before he left for Brussels,... that he didn't intend to support the positions of either the Poles or the British. But what good does it do us to uncritically adopt the position of the major Western European states? Perhaps we should be a little more eurosceptic, even if it means getting a dressing down from Barroso?" (22/06/2007)

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"The intransigence with regards to national interests in the debate about the new constitution, the games played by the Kaczynski brothers over the past few days and the general conditions for the drawing up of the new document - all these problems have no doubt convinced many veterans in Brussels that the EU enlargement of 2004 came too soon", writes Bojana Rozic. "The confrontation, which is increasingly taking the shape of a Polish-German dilemma, has escalated this week as a result of certain remarks made by leading Polish politicians that border on bad taste and recall the kind of dialogue Putin employs in Brussels. In view of all this, a number of leading European politicians, in particular Angela Merkel, must be wishing someone would simply turn around and say to Poland, Great Britain and the other Eurosceptics: 'Well there's the door'. The European Union can no doubt get along fine without them." (22/06/2007)

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Protests continue in France against the creation of a 'Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-development' by newly elected president Nicolas Sarkozy. A petition has been launched calling for a name change. Laurent Joffrin, the daily's director, supports the initiative. "In republican France, the name of this ministry is a dangerous symbol. ... The French state proclaims that the presence of foreign minorities on its national soil is a problem - a menace? - to the very being of the nation. .. This idea directly contradicts the tradition and principles of our country, which are our highest ideals. Since the revolution, France has been a country of immigration. ... A government which is actually open to 'visible minorities', much more than any other, would find it easier to conserve its coherence in this domain." (22/06/2007)

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A recent poll indicates that 60% of people in Luxemburg think that national identity isn't respected by foreigners living in the Grand Duchy. For Jacques Hillion, editor in chief of the weekly, these results sound the alarm on latent xenophobia. "What more does this poll tell us? That the tensions are strong, that public opinion is largely divided, opposed notably in that which concerns the future of national identity and its durability faced with the European Union and immigration. ... Politicians, but also the whole of civil society must speak up and debate identity and immigration, in order to define a framework for the nation in which everyone can fully find their place without any bitterness, and bring about a more social approach". (21/06/2007)

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After the call for the first postal strike in over a decade on Thursday, June 21st, by the British Communication Workers Union, the daily congratulates the "union pragmatism" practiced in this week's deal in Germany with Deutsche Telekom (DT) that saw workers agree to a 6.5% pay cut. "Such flexibility is the best response unions have to globalisation, but better industrial should not mask the need for further structural reform. ... The unions are helping DT to survive, not giving up their claim to a share of its resources. ... The willingness of unions to trade pay for job security - exemplified by the 2004 agreement at Siemens to work more hours without extra pay - has contributed to the revival of the German economy. The unions, however, need to go further [and] ... surrender some of their board level power". (22/06/2007)

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As if it wasn't bad enough that Kassel's street cleaners removed the work of Chilean artist Lotty Rosenfeld, the documenta 12 exhibition is also having to battle against the elements. The most popular work of art at the exhibition, Ai Weiwei's sculpture titled "Template", consisting of a tower made of old doors and windows that have fallen victim to the Chinese construction boom, collapsed after a storm. The artist from China thinks his work is even better now, and Niklas Maak was also impressed by the results: "Visitors to the ruin could give it the following interpretation: Ai made a sculpture using bits of destroyed houses, thus transforming the destructive energy of globalisation into a new free-spirited aesthetic form, and now this work of art has been deformed by the forces of nature unleashed by climate change... Productive failure is one of the fundamental themes at this documenta, and Ai Weiwei's collapsed cathedral of ruins fits in well with this art history of resignation and form liberated by deformation. From this perspective the weather gods have ultimately presented Roger M. Buergel and his documenta with the perfect work of art." (22/06/2007)

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The EU parliament has ruled that in the future, vodka may be made from raw materials other than grains and potatoes, while many other spirits must continue to meet a "purity requirement". Björn Mansson comments angrily: "They argue that vodka differs from other spirits in that it is pure alcohol and therefore it doesn't make any difference what it's made out of. However 'pure alcohol' means it has to be pure, and how can pirate products guarantee this? Altia and other producers of classic vodka could choose to regard the decision as a challenge and begin to develop new products. How about whisky made out of turnip? And beetroot would at least give Campari the right colour - the rest is just chemicals anyway." (22/06/2007)

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