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Schmid, Thomas
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2 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Bosnia's electoral winner must amend Bosnian constitution
The moderate Muslim Bakir Izetbegović emerged the surprise winner of the presidential and parliamentary elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Sunday. The 54-year-old son of the first Bosnian president Alija Izetbegović promised to stabilise the divided country, but for that certain things are indispensable, writes the left-liberal Berliner Zeitung: "Bosnia-Herzegovina will only be fit to join the EU once it has tossed its constitution into the dustbin of history. This constitution divides the country into two ethnically-defined parts - the Bosnian-Croatian Federation and the Republika Srpska. ... What the country needs, however, is a constitution that gives the federal level more power than it has now, while at the same time creating a federal state with cantons or regions whose borders are neither forced on it militarily nor ethnically defined. This could finally pave the way for the reform of the police and the judiciary which the EU has been calling for for some time, and which is a precondition for fighting the biggest evil faced by the state: the corruption that prevents any and every form of economic development."
» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Elections, » Federalism, » Europe, » Bosnia and Herzegovina
New ETA attacks in Spain
Spain was hit by a series of ETA attacks at the beginning of the week after Spanish courts banned two Basque separatist parties for supporting terrorism. The daily Berliner Zeitung comments: "For the first time since the Socialists took power all the parties represented in parliament as well as the employers' associations and trade unions have jointly condemned the recent attacks in a communiqué. Up to now the conservative opposition leader Mariono Rajoy had refused to make any joint statements until the Socialists ruled out any kind of dialogue with ETA. Now he has attended the funeral of the murdered soldiers together with Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero. This was an important message. These most recent attacks may be ETA's response to a ban against two parties with which it has close ties, but that doesn't explain why a sergeant has to die because a judge imposes a ban. Incidentally, the advisability of such a ban is just as debatable as the appropriateness of banning the [ultra right] NPD [in Germany]. But perhaps the attacks were first and foremost intended as a message to its [ETA's] own uneasy ranks."
» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Domestic Policy, » Spain, » Europe, » Southern Europe
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