"For the time being the European Union has destroyed the hopes of many people living in the Balkans that they would soon become EU citizens," the newspaper writes pointing to the "shattering assessment" in the European Commission's progress report. "The main reason for the negative trend is the conflict over the future of the South Serb province of Kosovo, which is paralysing the entire region. ... Yet Europe should not be discouraged by these setbacks. For the Balkan countries, the prospect of integration into the EU is a key incentive for peaceful development and reform. Croatia has proven that progress is possible. Years of pressure from Brussels have encouraged the government to distance itself from nationalist hardliners and cooperate with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. The EU is now trying to apply the same strategy with Serbia." (07/11/2007)

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Adelheid Wölfl takes a look at the negative "reports" the EU delivered on the Balkan states. "Certain Western Balkan states received pretty critical reports from the European Commission. ... Macedonia, Serbia and Bosnia are paralysed by the crisis surrounding Kosovo's unresolved status, because in these countries ethnic criteria still play a key role in the development of political identity and the Kosovo debate is only intensifying this process of ethnicisation. As a result reforms are moving at a very slow pace. Only Croatia has been able to free itself of this post-war complex, and even there the situation of minorities is poor and the past is still being prettified." (07/11/2007)

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The EU's latest progress report bears all the hallmarks of weariness with enlargement, writes Bozo Masanovic. "Despite the EU's declared willingness to open the doors in Brussels once EU candidates fulfil all the criteria, it's patently obvious that the community's enthusiasm for further enlargement is dwindling. And this despite the fact that people in EU countries are aware of how important enlarging the EU to include the West Balkan states is for achieving political stability in this critical region of Europe. So far the prevailing weariness with enlargement has been blamed for slowing down the process of expansion. The current problems with Romanians in Italy will certainly do nothing to increase the willingness of politicians and the European public to open the doors to new members." (07/11/2007)

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The latest assessment of Turkey's application to join the EU says that the country has made little progress on reforms. This is "patronising and mistimed" according to the daily. "The country remains haunted by the glowering presence of the army in the background and the resurgence of Kurdish terrorism in the foreground. But it is precisely for those reasons that the EU's patronising schoolmaster's report is so misplaced. By any standards, Turkey's progress in reforming its economy, liberalising its laws, and beginning to move towards a better accommodation with the Kurdish minority has been truly remarkable ... . The Turkish Prime Minister needs our support at this difficult moment. The real problem has been that the EU itself has been backsliding in its enthusiasm for Turkish entry. ... Upbraiding Turkey for its pace of reform and its reluctance to abandon Northern Cyprus without a deal has become a means of kicking the whole question into the long grass." (07/11/2007)

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The Franco-Morrocan Tahar Ben Jelloun ponders the verdict delivered last week by a Spanish court in the trial of the Madrid bombings on March 11, 2004. "Those preparing to execute deadly suicide missions are beyond everything that was said in court. They may not even recognise the condemned. They aren't their brothers in arms. They are criminals, since they were caught. They have lost the precious death instinct and reverted to being 'normal' people. This is proven by the fact that not one of them committed suicide when in prison, and some even shed tears, baffled by what is happening to them. The death instinct cannot tolerate defeat, doubt, or failure. It should be reserved for superior men, not any old thug. You have to deserve it and follow through this infernal logic that burns up everything it touches." (07/11/2007)

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More from the press review on the subject » Crime and Law, » Spain, » Europe
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Since the murder of an Italian woman by a Romanian Roma gypsy, Italy and Romania have been discussing immigration and deportation policies. Cristian Campeanu says the affair reminds him of the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh: "The murder of director Theo Van Gogh sparked a debate about the limits of multiculturalism in the Netherlands and all over Europe. Multiculturality is a theory according to which all the cultures in a given society have the same rights - regardless of ethnic group, language or religion. .. In other words, there are no universal values; values are defined by the culture, race or ethnic group in question and cannot be imposed by an exterior force. ... The most unfortunate consequence of this ideology is that it makes dialogue between cultures impossible. We live side by side in parallel worlds with parallel rules. The minorities flee to the ghettoes and 'tolerance' generally means nothing more than mutual ignorance. Problems arise when limits are violated and two parallel worlds collide. This is what happened with the murder of Van Gogh, which was committed by an Islamist and culminated in mosques being set on fire. And now, following the murder of a woman by a Roma, it is being repeated with Italy's deportation of Romanians. We suddenly forget that we're cultivated, multicultural Europeans." (07/11/2007)

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Ninety years after the start of the Russian Revolution, journalist Reinhard Meier writes about the restoration of communism in today's Russia. "Nothing symbolises post-Soviet Russia's ambivalence towards its communist past more potently than the continued presence of the embalmed corpse of the leader of the revolution, Lenin, in the marble mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square, which is still on display like the remains of a saint. Boris Yeltsin was the first democratically elected Russian president to toy with the idea of removing the prominent corpse and finally having it buried - just as Khrushchev had Stalin's corpse removed from the mausoleum and buried next to the Kremlin Wall one dark night. But Yeltsin lacked the courage to make this symbolic break, which would not be free of risk, with the Lenin legend. President Putin no doubt has both the power and the popularity to unequivocally distance himself from the legacy of the October Revolution. But the head of state obviously has no intention of doing so." (07/11/2007)

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Thorsten Jungholt is not entirely convinced by the German government's bill on new regulations for telecommunications surveillance. "While MPs, clergymen and defence counsellors are to remain exempt from secret surveillance operations, the telephones of doctors, journalists and lawyers can be bugged. ... However these operations are to be carefully justified. The government's draft bill leaves something to desire regarding carefulness. For one thing, it creates a two-class society based on professional secrecy and for another it extends data retention with the argument that it is only implementing an EU directive. But the fact is that an action against this directive has already been brought before the European Court of Justice. Why not wait for the court to make its decision?" (07/11/2007)

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The day after the Queen's speech outlined the government's agenda on November 6th, Simon Jenkins criticizes English leadership. "Here is a government unpopular and in trouble over terrorism. Its civil rights lawyers are up in arms. Its leader postpones a general election and summarily arrests anyone he sees as a danger to his state. He butters up the military by promising them more nuclear weapons. He announces changes to the constitution without consultation, imposes central rule over dissident local districts and extends imprisonment without trial. To soften up the public, he even gets his head of security to make a blood-curdling speech depicting every child as a potential suicide bomber. ... Scaring the public as an act of policy may win a few headlines but it is stupid. It ... may prop up yet another terrorism law in yesterday's Queen's speech, a law presumably requested by MI5 [extending the time police can detain suspects]. But it can only damage British liberty in the long term." (07/11/2007)

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The management of the new Acropolis Museum, due to open in Athens by the end of 2008, has requested the destruction of an Art Deco building in the centre of Athens along with a building belonging to the Greek composer Vangelis, claiming these buildings are blocking the view. The writer Takis Theodoropoulos is outraged. "Modernity refuses to be tarnished by obstacles. These two buildings spoil the view from the new museum's restaurant. A part of our contemporary history should thus, according to the Ministry of Culture, be effaced, to make room for the design of Bernard Tschumi [the museum's architect] and please Japanese tourists. And to think that this museum was conceived to better value Antiquity! Since nothing is beyond modernity, why not shift the Parthenon a few metres..." (04/11/2007)

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"Italy is backward-looking and ignores contemporary art", complains Monique Veaute, the new director of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, the property of the French François Pinault. "We are a country without leadership, even in the field of the arts. ... It is clear that the conservation of artistic heritage is fundamental. But we can no longer ignore the contemporary. Italy panders to the glorification of its artistic past. It does not exhibit contemporary artists who have to go to Paris or New York to become known ... . Today's Italy is going through a series of identity crises: other than the political crisis it is experiencing an artistic crisis where gallery owners have been transformed into mere shopkeepers." (07/11/2007)

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All available articles from » Monique Veaute

The French financial daily 'Les Echos' was taken over on November 5th by the luxury giant LVMH. The group already owns the economic daily 'La Tribune' which is due to be sold in turn. Newsrooms are protesting and Les Echos has not been on sale for the past two days. For Dominique Quinio, "The vulnerability of the press in France, especially the daily press, illustrated by this takeover, is not only bad news for 'Echos' journalists. It is adding to doubts about the independence of the press regarding political and economic power ... . Bernard Arnault, managing director of LVMH, has promised to leave 'Les Echos' its independence. It is clearly in the interest of LVMH for the daily to maintain its editorial quality, its credibility. It is also in the interests of the financial world and society at large. The quality and credibility of the media are priceless." (07/11/2007)

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The Belgian writer Thomas Gunzig considers the European Press Freedom Day celebrated this week. "One tends to assume that the press is terrorised in Erythrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan. ... But, the good old methods of violence and intimation are back on home turf too. A few days ago Mehmet Koksal's excellent blog 'Humeur Allochtone' finally drew to a close. And yet this was good investigative journalism, tenacious, courageous, intelligent, free. Nothing but qualities...or defects, according to differing points of view. Mehmet Koksal spoke about everything and everyone, in other words he bothered more than a few, from all political backgrounds, shedding light on double-talk, hypocrisy and cynicism. ... He had followed the recent demonstrations of young Turkish extremists. This cost him a few punches and kicks in front of the American embassy in Europe's capital." (07/11/2007)

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The Plattenbauten (pre-fab concrete residential blocks) built by the communists, often written off as relicts of the socialist era, are experiencing a renaissance in the Czech Republic, Karolína Vitvarová-Vránková reports. "In the early 1990s it was predicted that the estates made up of pre-fab buildings would become even more impoverished and dreary than during socialist times, but this has not been the case. On the contrary, the pre-fab buildings have been more or less well-renovated and in some places even turned into respectable and pleasant residential units. ... The concept of 'consolidation' of these housing estates by adding more buildings is aimed at preventing social decline in these districts. ... In short: the local housing estates have been lucky. Despite their undeniable ugliness and architectural poverty, and in spite of their grey tones and impersonal atmosphere, they were never reduced to ghettoes for the underclass." (07/11/2007)

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A recent American university study on the negative effects of sleep deficiency amuses the Spanish columnist Roas Montero. "At last I understand what is going on in this country: grumpiness, clearly primitive ferocity, the stifling magma of irrationality, the insults, the moaning and permanent anger. It is not because of a nefarious sociological and cultural heritage, it is simply because we don't get enough sleep. Everyone knows how the Spanish are proud of being insomniacs, of dining late and going out all night long. Pleased with ourselves we laugh at the 'tourists' who wonder how we manage to sleep. Well now we have an answer for them: we don't manage. And that is why we are a furiously excessive population." (06/11/2007)

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All available articles from » Rosa Montero