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Guetta, Bernard
5 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Bernard Guetta on the compatibility of Islam and democracy
The French Senate on Tuesday voted in favour of the burqa ban with a clear majority, despite concerns over whether such a ban is fitting for a democracy. The journalist Bernard Guetta discusses in the left-liberal daily Libération to what extent Islam is compatible with democracy: "Many people think this religion is incompatible with democracy. Even some Muslims say that. But that just testifies to a strange reverence for the sacred texts. ... If the Muslim countries on the Mediterranean today ignore democracy - with the exception of Turkey - it has to do with their history and not with the Koran. ... When they gained their independence the countries of the Islamic World wasted so many resources and made such a mockery of civil liberties, they committed so many injustices and so decimated the ranks of the democrats that all that remains is dictatorship and Islamism standing face to face. While the ones continue seeking riches along Algerian or Saudi lines, the others seek historic revenge in an identity-forming return to religion. Both lead to the dead end of the status quo, enduring poverty and violence at the hands of the police and terrorists."
» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » Religion, » Politics, » Global
Bernard Guetta on avoiding the end of the EU
The European Union in its present form is threatened with failure, Bernard Guetta writes in the daily Libération. What the EU lacks is political unity and democratic rules, he says: "The EU could fall apart tomorrow. ... It could very quickly go down in history as a missed opportunity. What threatens the EU most is that its people can no longer follow what is going on. Neither on the right nor or the left does the public understand this thing anymore, and no-one knows who is leading it. The apparatus is complicated, functions poorly, and European citizens are right in having the feeling that they can't control its decisions and cannot punish it via the ballot box. Today the EU brings together too many countries - countries that are too different from one another in terms of development and political culture for them to be able to plan the future. ... An effort must be made to save this creative Utopia by reorganising European democracy. In the European elections the European parties should be discussing real programmes. The winner should be able to advance his candidate as President of the Commission. Then the EU Commission would become a government ... of a political union of Europe."
» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » France, » Europe
Russia steps up the pressure on Georgia
"To prevent Ukraine and Georgia from joining NATO, Russia instead seems to encourage their destruction. It has all the means necessary. There is a crisis brewing in Europe, terrible, but perfectly avoidable," writes columnist Bernard Guetta. "Time is short because gears shifted last Wednesday [April 17th] when Russia announced its decision to 'cooperate with the authorities on the ground' in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the separatist regions of Georgia. It was a message to the West. ... The Kremlin feels that much stronger now that the West has given it a precedent with the independence of Kosovo. ... You have to look beyond each side's reasoning, these reminiscences for a long gone Century, and a good way to do it would be to make a deal rendering Ukraine and Georgia neutral."
» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Russia, » Europe, » Georgian Republic
Should NATO accept Georgia and Ukraine ?
A fortnight prior to the NATO summit in Bucharest, the columnist Bernard Guetta proposes a solution regarding Ukraine and Georgia's request for NATO accession, something opposed by Moscow. "Rather than contemplate the problem, we could bypass it by asking Russia for the neutrality of its former possessions, Georgian, Ukrainian and Moldavian too, in exchange for a continental stabilisation and cooperation agreement. ... The European Union, America and Russia now have convergent economical and political interests. If they knew how to build-up this complementarity on the trust represented by their common respect for the complete neutrality of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldavia, they would be far better off and the world at large too. It is this path towards the Finlandisation of these countries that needs to be pursued."
» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Russia, » Europe, » U.S.
Europe's return to grace
The chronicler Bernard Guetta judges that the Middle East represents 'a chance to bounce back' for Europe. "It was thought dead, unlikely, anyway to resurrect before a while. Between its institutional dysfunction and its innumerable divisions, the European Union had all the ingredients, it is true, of a lost dream. But all of a sudden here it is, as the back-bone of the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, taking the lace that no one else would, or could take. ... What conclusions can be drawn from this ? The first is that a single superpower is evidently not enough. ... You have to be at least two, more in fact, but at least two, to organise this century and only Europe is at once close enough to and different enough from America. The second conclusion is that the Union will lose its chance of imposing itself as a global actor if it doesn't take advantage of this opportunity to increase its military capacities."
» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Europe
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