"The last thing Italy needs now is another election", notes the daily. "The country is lumbered with a half-baked electoral system that is likely to produce another kaleidoscope of quarrelling political parties. It urgently needs reform to force the proliferation of parties into broader groups that can produce a more coherent government and opposition. The present Chamber of Deputies - the lower house - consists of 39 different parties, and Mr Prodi's coalition contained nine of them until the latest defection. In spite of that arithmetical nightmare, the government has performed surprisingly well over the past 20 months.Tax evasion has been sharply reduced, and a budget deficit of 4.4 per cent of gross domestic product left by the former centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi has been cut to about 2 per cent." (23/01/2008)

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Stefan Ulrich asks how the 1.4 percent party of ex-Justice Minister Mastella was able to garner so much power. "Because it encourages voting rights. That's how Mastella got the post of justice minister – Prime Minister Prodi needed his splinter party to build a majority. It was a fatal attraction: When state prosecutors began investigating Mastella on charges of corruption, the minister called them 'extremists' on a 'manhunt.' ... Actually, there's more at stake for Mastella than a criminal trial. He fears a voting rights reform that would rob small parties of their power. The old voting rights are better for Mastella. And opposition leader Berlusconi prefers them as well; he showed for five years that he is incapable of leading Italy well. But these days the citizens would let Berlusconi win – not out of enthusiasm for his orientation to the right, but out of concern for Prodi's orientation to the left." (23/01/2008)

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Lucia Annunziata casts an eye over the Italian political crisis in which Romano Prodi is staking his all. "To all those who wonder at how obstinately and fiercely Romano Prodi is fighting to save his government, we advise them to hark back to one of the most decisive battles in the Second World War. At the moment the Prime Minister is readying himself for his own Stalingrad siege. Encircled and outnumbered, he will win if he can trap the enemy in a pocket. ... I apologise to readers for using the huge-scale Battle of Stalingrad to talk about a small event in Italy, but excess helps to understand Prodi's mindset and what is unusual about this crisis that is governmental in name alone. What is truly at stake today is less the executive's survival than the issue of leadership in the country. The crisis has sprung not from a confrontation between right and left. It is, rather, the poisoned apple of the infighting that blights both coalitions." (23/01/2008)

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Austrian journalist Christoph Prantner fears the "re-theologizing of politics" in Europe: "It seems as if the Reconquista is returning: In Spain, France and Italy, political Catholicism is showing new signs of life. … But why is there such an offensive Second Coming of what its detractors used to call 'Pfaffenpolitik' [theo-politics] at this particular time? One underlying reason is the confrontation with Islam in recent years. Anyone who wants to argue against Islamist-inspired terrorism can glibly draw on Christian-based moral concepts, as did President Nicolas Sarkozy in his recent speech. ... But that is exactly what highlights the danger of this discourse: If politics becomes a matter of faith – as with Islamists – then the bargaining room contracts dramatically. Belief is absolutely non-negotiable. This may not frighten people with a terrorist orientation to politics. But Europe's rationalist tradition-bound Catholic Church should take it into consideration." (23/01/2008)

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Spanish essayist Luis Racionero revisits the controversy sparked by the US weekly magazine 'Time', which made the death of French culture its cover story in a November 2007 issue. "Hegemony is now American, for the Enlightenment, which could exert weight only in a pre-industrial, non-globalised world, has lost all influence. Today, there is only mass culture, and it comes from the United States. ... High culture has vanished, stifled by the sterile elitism of the avant-garde and, like the bourgeois elites who cultivated it, it has lost all weight in the contemporary world. In mass society, mass culture is logically predominant. ... There is no reason to rejoice, that is just how it is. And Europeans, including the French, cannot improve mass culture and content themselves with being its consumers." (21/01/2008)

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Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is paying an official visit to Turkey on Wednesday, January 23rd. He is the first Greek premier to do so since 1959. Nikos Konstandaras considers "the visit is a milestone in the complicated relationship between Greece and its largest and most important neighbour. Unfortunately, no one on either side appears to expect any benefit from the visit. … Theoretically, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus should be able to promote a compromise on the Cyprus issue that would be palatable in terms of political cost, as all three governments will have fresh mandates behind them and no elections immediately ahead of them. …For many years, unfortunately, relations between the two countries have been held hostage by memories which are stronger than the need for cooperation and coexistence. The status quo, especially after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, is one of continuous pressure. ... As long as the Cyprus issue remains unresolved we appear doomed to live this way." (21/01/2008)

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In the Czech Republic, opposition to a radar station for the US missile defence system in Central Europe is growing. That doesn't make it easier for the government to win over a majority in Parliament to support the project. It would be helpful if NATO would promote the building plans, says Erik Tabery. "At the NATO summit meeting in April in Bucharest, Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek wants to get the Alliance's public support. But even Czech diplomats admit that it would already be a success if the Alliance would just say it is considering the project. NATO should not completely leave the Czechs in the lurch. Because then the radar and rockets would be built in Poland. But that would draw NATO even closer to the game. Warsaw places great emphasis on good relations with America and pays far less attention to the attitudes of other countries." (23/01/2008)

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Simon Heffer, a vehement opponent of the European Union and any future constitution, laments the way Parliament is currently conducting the debate over the Lisbon Treaty. "This, you will recall, is the treaty that our great leader [Gordon Brown] was too ashamed to turn up to sign when everybody else did: he sneaked in while they were having their lunch, rather like one of the under-gardeners hoping for a sly plate of leftovers. ... We can bet the Government will be taken to the wire on ratification. Some of its own backbenchers - but not so many as is hoped - will stand out against it. Some of the opposition parties will attempt to enhance the Government's discomfort by seeking to prevent ratification by joining forces with these rebels. If that does not succeed - and it is hard to see it will, at this stage - then, in the end, the wretched thing will be on the statute book." (23/01/2008)

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The centre of Göteborg briefly resembled a war zone on Tuesday. After a nightime hold-up at the city's largest post office, the perpetrators set autos on fire and put bombs, or dummy bombs, in front of two police stations. As a result, there are increasing calls for a kind of "Swedish FBI", a national police deployment force for such cases. The paper agrees: "The Göteborg police talks about an unprecedented attack on society and they are right. The way this robbery was planned should make it clear that these criminals had access to considerable resources in strategy, equipment and personnel. ... The response from politicians is hardly convincing. ... Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask stressed the importance of cooperation between authorities, including the Finance Ministry and State Prosecutors. That is certainly right, but is it enough for a situation in which the centre of Sweden's second largest city is taken over, even briefly, by criminals?" (23/01/2008)

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Serbia is selling the state-owned mineral oil company NIS to Russia's Gasprom. Thomas Fuster suggests that this deal, which lacks transparency, shows Serbia's privatization policy has failed the "readiness test”. "It's doubtful that economic considerations were paramount in this deal. Rather, the delivery of this monopoly enterprise to Russia should probably be seen as Belgrade's appreciation for Moscow's support in the Kosovo conflict, especially since Kostunica makes no secret of his pro-Russian affinities. ... Once again, prospective European customers for NIS – such as the Austrian OMV company, and the European Union, which had requested in vain that Serbia evaluate bidding on objective criteria – are left out in the cold, in the competition with Russia." (23/01/2008)

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The 'Committee for the Liberation of French Growth', chaired by economist and thinker Jacques Attali, today January 23rd published a report that sets out ways of modernising the French economy. "It brings together all the reforms which French modernising elites have always agreed upon but always failed to put into effect," explains Philippe Frémeaux. "Essentially: an end to corporatism, monopolies, and regulations... [But] is it sensible to draw up a list with 300 recommendations which are bound to bring much if not all the French population into the street without the slightest advice on implementing them ? ... When the committee assumed its duties, President [Nicolas Sarkozy] pledged to implement all its recommendations. He must be beginning to regret that pledge." (21/01/2008)

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Local history is the new rage on Poland's stages. But Joanna Derkaczew finds the current crop of plays neither original nor helpful in developing new ways of seeing Polish history. "To some extent, these disastrous, second-class plays are inspired by the success of Jan Klata's 'Transfer!' – a much lauded project about the memories of resettled and expelled Germans and Poles. Who wouldn't want to be celebrated as Klata is? But the other productions have been engendered purely out of the latest approach to history - the fashion of showing an interest in everything that has to do with the 'nation.' Besides, it was easy to get subsidies for such projects. ... A loud 'We remember' reverberates over Poland, but it sounds more like: 'We remember what we feel comfortable and safe remembering'." (21/01/2008)

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"A quiet revolution is under way in devoutly Catholic Austria. In March the Austrian army will appoint two imams to watch over its young Muslim recruits," writes Maurin Picard, the daily's Vienna correspondent. "The idea was first aired in 2006, but in the wake of fierce debate within the army it has taken two years to put in place the controversial measure [announced on Sunday January 13th]. ... With over 1,000 soldiers, or 3.5 % of the armed forces, of Muslim obedience, Islam is now the second largest religion in the military institution, ahead of protestantism. ... Contrary to the received ideas put about by Austria's far right, it is not the first time that the army has incorporated Muslims in its ranks. With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, whole units of soldiers from the province of Bosnia - annexed after a brief war - were freely able to practice their faith." (23/01/2008)

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Estonians are embroiled in debate over the national anthem, "Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm" (my homeland, my good fortune and joy). It was written in 1848 by German composer Friedrich Pacius, who later settled in Finland. The song became Estonia's national anthem after independence was declared in 1920. But Finns use the same melody for their anthem. So the association of Estonian male choirs has proposed introducing a new anthem. Alo Lohmus takes the side of opponents in the fray: "I can't imagine why this anthem suddenly is subjected to criticism on aesthetic grounds. Do you trade in your grandma if she has too many wrinkles? This question is aimed at politicians, musicians and young poets who are calling for a new anthem to be sung, at least at the flag-raising ceremony on Cathedral Hill. ... An anthem is not party music. Its value lies in its tradition." (23/01/2008)

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