Gustavo Kuhn notes the change in tone of Spanish authorities. "Spain needs immigrants, was endlessly repeated in Madrid, thus defending the collective regulation in February 2005 of some 580,000 underground workers without papers. Studies confirmed it: the country owes its 'economic boom' to its new arrivals. Without them, there would be no 'thriving economic expansion'. Without them Spain would even come up against a recession, according to a statement in a recent report from the Caixa Catalunya bank. Like just about everywhere in Europe, incidentally. But the shock of images in the media will have been stronger than the weight of data. The unprecedented wave of 'cayucos', who landed some 5,000 'Sub-Saharans' on the beaches of the Canaries over one and a half months, has had a very strong impact." (13/09/2006)

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For the daily, "the government's sudden turn around concerning immigration is due to the fact that surveys of voting intentions were starting to reflect the discontent of public opinion regarding the disastrous management of one of the problems that is considered most worrying on the street. ... There is no doubt that the capacity of a society like ours to assimilate foreigners is not unlimited and that past a determined number integration becomes impossible. If the problem is envisaged from this angle, the conclusion is reached that firmness facing the entrance of illegal immigrants is currently indispensable. And it will thus be more easily understood that strong measures should be prepared to guarantee that immigration can in the future become a phenomenon that is controllable by administration and to get countries where immigrants come from to collaborate by feeding the flow according to possibilities that are available on the work market." (13/09/2006)

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"For too long now the Spanish government has simply stood back and watched the Canary Islands being used by refugee smuggling rings as a hub for organised human trafficking," writes Manfred Pantförder. "Over the past few years, Spain has given papers to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, a practice which started in the times of Jose Maria Aznar's government. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero now wants to put an end to this retroactive form of legalisation – known in Spain as 'regularisation' – and is seeking the support of the opposition Popular Party for this move. The fact that this has become a common goal for both Socialists and Conservatives, who have been engaged in a bitter battle over the past few years, underlines how serious the consequences of unregulated immigration are for the social climate in Spain. Zapatero's new zero-tolerance policy is vitally important to Europe as a whole because the Canary Islands serve as a gateway for immigrants to the entire European Union." (13/09/2006)

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"From west London to the Rio Grande to the Canary Islands, people no longer really believe that politicians have the ability or the will to make and enforce rules on immigration", comments Chief foreign affairs specialist Gideon Rachman. "There is plenty of reason for scepticism. In the US, increased border security has made it more difficult, dangerous and costly to enter the country illegally - but does not appear to have affected overall numbers much. In 2005, Spain granted an amnesty to more than 500,000 illegal immigrants. That appears to have encouraged even more desperate people to strike out for Spanish shores. So now the Spanish are talking about mass deportation. ... The correct response to all this is not to continue hypocritically demanding a crackdown on illegal immigration. It is to create more avenues for legal immigration for workers of all types. Without really meaning to, this is what the EU did with its latest enlargement to take in the countries of central Europe." (12/09/2006)

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"To use 'integration' and 'assimilation' as synonyms is not just to misuse language and confuse concepts, but to dissimulate practice”, writes A. Sivanandan, director of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) based in London. "Integration provides for the coexistence of minority cultures with the majority culture; assimilation requires the absorption of minority cultures into the majority culture. The aim of assimilation is a monocultural, even a monofaith, society; the aim of integration is a multicultural, pluralist society... Going against the grain of its history, the UK has taken a leaf out of Europe's monoculturalist book and descended into nativism - conflating multiculturalism with culturalism and ethnicism, assimilation with integration, and extolling British values to the exclusion of all others - foreshadowing a monolithic society and a centralised state." (13/09/2006)

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All available articles from » A Sivanandan

Journalist and novelist Elzbieta Isakiewicz attacks those who criticise Polish patriotism: "Old Europe has taught us to behave egotistically because in the end, such behaviour contributes to the well-being of the community. Journalists shouldn't shed tears and politicians shouldn't complain when we too try to win something for ourselves. They shouldn't tell the nation that you're not allowed to be rebellious in Europe because this weakens our position and is petty and short-sighted. The draft European constitution was detrimental not just to Poland, but to Europe as a whole. It landed in the waste basket because the predominance of certain states over others is a time bomb which threatened to blow up the entire project of integration. Sooner or later, frustrated and humiliated members of the union will do this anyway. The battle for one's own interests is an integral part of the community and guarantees its peaceful existence. The Germans and French are entitled to defend their own interests – Estonians and Poles, too." (13/09/2006)

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The Portuguese writer Eduardo Lourenço analyses the role of Europe facing "The Western empire" of America. "European 'impotence' is not only a negative factor in view of relations between the United States and Europe. This 'impotence' is also a sort of belated wisdom emanating from a continent which, after several suicidal incidents has become the archetypal continent of peace. It is a continent of active peace and not a safe haven protected from conflicts, standing well away from the evils that touch the world, notably those that affect the zones in which Europe has historical responsibilities implying ethical duties. The United States ... tending to intervene increasingly openly in the planet's destiny, presumes its strength. For it cannot achieve its 'providential' mission without the implicit agreement and support of Europe, and this even if it does only seem to be its subordinate". (11/09/2006)

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All available articles from » Eduardo Lourenço

"Making Globalization Work", the new work by Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner for Economics in 2001, is about the drifting of globalization. The author explains to Christian Losson why intellectual property rights are "among the worst mistakes of current capitalism. Because it is a question of life or death, as has been seen in the struggle for low-cost medicine. Men or patents? The initial error was to have left to finance ministers and multinationals the task of crafting 'trips' [trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights] in 1994. Intellectual property has been integrated into commerce, not into the environment and not into work norms either. ... Free access to knowledge - the defenders of open architecture, such as Linux or Mozilla know this- is world-wide public property! A moral obligation." (13/09/2006)

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All available articles from » Joseph E. Stiglitz

"There is something paradoxical about seeing Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal fight over Tony Blair's spoils at the same time as the Prime minister is being shown the way out by his brethren, half way through his third mandate", remarks Pierre de Gasquet in an analysis. "Why is Blairism suddenly selling better in export than on its own market? No doubt because the champion of New Labour - even if these days he finds himself being cut off from part of his own family - is still rightly perceived as a reformer in the field of political communication... By presenting themselves as declared sympathisers of Blairite pragmatism, Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal no doubt hope to distinguish themselves from all sectarianism by giving themselves a 'modern' image. Even if this means incurring accusations of ideological zigzagging and unclear discourse." (13/09/2006)

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Tensions between Slovakia and Hungary mounted recently following reports of an attack on a Slovak student of Hungarian descent. Now the Slovak police has reported that the attack never took place. Apparently, the student misled the investigating officers. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico lost no time in reacting to the police report and announced that his government has been the victim of a large-scale manipulation. The party representing Hungarians in Slovakia (SMK), on the other hand, has expressed doubts about the validity of the results of the police investigations. Peter Javurek comments: "If both sides had announced that they were committed to combating all forms of nationalism and racism it would have helped to improve the situation… However, the fundamental problem continues to be Robert Fico's government coalition with Jan Slota, leader of the ultra-right National Party." (13/09/2006)

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The Hungarian newspaper also comments on the police report according to which the attack on a Hungarian-speaking student never happened but was invented by the student herself. The daily points out that there have been other attacks and that the hostilities between the two sides are a sad fact which the Slovak government should not try to conceal. The daily contends that yesterday's report "was aimed at supporting the official Slovak version according to which extremist political forces in both countries are jointly responsible for the crisis. This makes Slovak nationalism look like a justified response to Hungarian aggressions. But there have been cases in which Slovak extremists have carried out racially motivated attacks on the Hungarian minority. There is a real danger that victims could be cast in the role of accomplices or provocateurs." (13/09/2006)

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Plans to implement a new policy of austerity have triggered a heated debate in Hungary, with government and opposition accusing each other of betraying voters. Ulrich Schmid comments critically, "It has become routine for political rivals to respond even to serious accusations simply by pointing to similar transgressions on the part of their accusers. This blatant cynicism appears to have become the norm among politicians. Laszlo Akar, president of the financial think-tank GKI, confirms this indirectly by saying elections in Hungary can't be won without making completely unrealistic promises and that anyone who fails to adhere to this principle is hurting his own chances of success, as events over the years since the end of communism have clearly proven. In this context, it's interesting to observe that Hungarian voters, who so obviously want to be deceived, regard their politicians as a thoroughly unreliable breed and often turn their backs on politics in disappointment. Could it be that this thoroughly disheartening atmosphere is one of the reasons why, according to a recently published study by the European Evaluation Society, Hungarians are among the unhappiest Europeans?" (13/09/2006)

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The Latvian government has decided to raise minimum wage from 130 to 170 euros per month. Peteris Strautins sees this as a sensible move and says claims that it will boost inflation are unfounded. "The battle against inflation should not be fought out on the backs of those who receive minimum wages. That would be callous and unproductive. The average wage in Latvia is around 430 euros per month, so the minimum wage is just 40 percent of that. A much greater risk is that raising minimum wage could lead to the exclusion of less productive people from the labour market, which in turn would increase unemployment. However, when we look at other countries we can see that minimum wages at this level hardly pose a risk." (13/09/2006)

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The Pompidou Centre in Paris has dedicated an exhibition to Polish artist Pawel Althamer, featuring additional work by eleven young french artists.Talking to Dorota Jarecka, Althamer criticises the star cult in art: "There is a star model in art today. There are great artists who owe their fame to galleries and whose work is exhibited by large museums. And then there are the lesser-known artists who want to get close to them. The milieu knows nothing of integration; it only encourages juxtaposition, loneliness and competition. My project takes up the phenomenon of the Bohème, which no longer exists. I'm not trying to create a group of snobs who walk around Paris wearing black hats and form an exclusive enclave, but a group of friends who know each other well and help each other. We know about this tradition from the impressionists and the Bohème of Picasso's times. This was once a lively tradition in France but it doesn't exist any more." (13/09/2006)

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Author Alexander Cammann pays tribute to journalist and Hitler biographer Joachim Fest who recently passed away. "With his death the Republic has lost one of its most influential conservative intellectuals who at the same time embodied the German bourgeois way of thinking after 1945 like no one else. Fest's obsessive preoccupation with the brown dictatorship in numerous books and essays was not the product of a strategy of exculpation but rather a kind of immunisation programme for the German bourgeoisie. It conjured up Hitler's image as an eternal warning not to give in to such opponents." Cammann also points to Fest's "immense contribution to the politicisation and improved status of the Feuilleton in Germany. His column in the German daily 'Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung' played an important role in shaping intellectual debate in Germany. The 'historians' debate' of 1986 over the comparison of National Socialism and Stalinism is the best-known example of this." (13/09/2006)

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The Venice architecture Biennale, which opened last week-end, is this year devoted to the theme "City architecture and society". The Italian architect Vittorio Greggotti is delighted with this choice. He considers that it is high time to put an end to unbearable housing estates, to the endless expansion of metropolises, especially those of the Third World and that it is preferable to improve already-existing architecture. "Social cohesion can be improved thanks to urban planning ... . Good architecture, good public transport, compact and bearable urban forms, well-designed public spaces. All this, along with good governance, can contribute to building a better society". (13/09/2006)

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All available articles from » Vittorio Gregotti