"Yesterday Austrian voters, like their German counterparts in 2005, tried to vote reality out of office," Christian Ortner notes in a guest commentary. "Presumably the unexpected strength of the Austrian and German Social Democrats reveals a deeper political structure in Europe that transcends national particularities. It would seem that in addition to all the local factors that play a role in voting behaviour there is a considerable number of voters who perceive globalisation, with all its facets (immigration, the fear of losing one's job, the need to reform the social budget), as a massive personal threat. They therefore yearn for policies which promise less market, less competition, less effort and more security, more social safety nets and more protection against the intensifying global competition for jobs and income. And, if possible, that the 'the rich' should pay for it all." (02/10/2006)

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Boris Jausovec comments on the success of the right-wing populist parties in yesterday's general elections in Austria. "The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) used nationalist and chauvinist slogans and demands – sometimes against each other – to win votes in the election campaign. They both promised to remove 300,000 foreigners immediately from the country and to rid Europe of Islam and Carinthia of the Slovenian language. Together, the two parties managed to garner 15 percent of the vote. Not all too long ago, results like these would have set off alarm bells across Europe. Nowadays, unfortunately, it's quite normal." (02/10/2006)

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Reinhard Olt examines why right-wing extremists were able to win around 15 percent of the vote in the Austrian elections: "Telling themselves that the 'bogeyman of Islam' and the widespread feeling of discontent with alleged EU centralism guided many voters at the ballot won't be of any great consolation to the major parties. Schüssel and the ÖVP obviously failed to use Austria's EU presidency to boost their citizens' pride and self-confidence. Moreover, Schüssel has failed to soothe voters' fears about EU enlargement and to convince them of the country's economic opportunities which are immense for a country which has shifted to 'Europe's centre'." (02/10/2006)

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The Austrians voted yesterday. The Czech Republic's elections took place four months ago, but the governing Conservative government has virtually no chance of winning the parliamentary vote of confidence tomorrow. This prompts Lubos Palata to draw a comparison between the situation in Austria and in the Czech Republic. "People call the Austrians German-speaking Czechs. The close results in the elections confirm this. Nonetheless, the Austrians need not fear a political stalemate as seen in the Czech Republic, where they are left for months without a government and then get a government that does not have the confidence of the parliament, and in the end after half a year new elections are held. The feuds during the election campaign in Vienna were essentially objective debates about the country's future course. In Austria, too, the negotiations for the formation of a new government could go on for months, but in the end the country will have a functioning government. Yes, the Austrians are like the Czechs – but only a bit." (02/10/2006)

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The manager of the Portuguese daily contributes to the debate on 'Iberianism' in the wake of a survey showing that one-third of Portuguese were in favour of a political union with Spain. "Some people see a shared destiny [shared by Spain and Portugal] within a Europe of Nations. Mario Soares, for example. He wants the Iberian Peninsula to acquire political weight within the EU. Economic integration has made great progress. Ditto relations arts and culture. We share the same stars in literature and football, etc. ... The sheer size of Spain is frightening. That is tempered if the notion of Iberia is approached as dialogues between autonomous provinces. Then, even Castilla, with its two million inhabitants, seems harmless compared with our ten million ... The idea of an Iberian federation is not a mirage is we look at Spain not only from Madrid, but from its different capital cities." (02/10/2006)

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All available articles from » Antonio José Teixeira

"It would be false to claim that the political culture of Western Europe is irreconcilable with that of Eastern Europe," British sociologist Frank Furedi stresses in the newspaper's Europe magazine. He points out that in both Eastern and Western Europe not all citizens endorse the EU's philosophy of a multicultural society. "It's not just in Poland and Slovakia that there are right-wing extremist and populist parties. The right-wing extremist NPD registered a major success in the state elections in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, and there are large bases of support for right-wing nationalist parties in Belgium and even in France... The reason why European bureaucracy reacts so sensitively to Eastern European populism is because it expresses values that also exist in Western Europe, albeit in a more civilised form. The EU feels safer confronting nationalist and populist forces in Bratislava than in 'old' Europe because it's easier to discredit the former owing to their ties with right-wing xenophobes." (30/09/2006)

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"The Geneva appeal created a big stir," notes journalist Denis Robert on the tenth anniversary of the appeal launched by the European magistrates against corruption and tax havens on October 1st 1996. "Magistrates called for the lifting of banking confidentiality and the setting up of a European legal network so that they could freely transmit information to each other. One European official said: 'You are ten years ahead.' Ten years, here we are. Thanks to the Geneva Appeal we now have an international arrest warrant and Eurojust, a fledgling institution for cooperation between judicial systems ... Is there such a thing as a European criminal justice system? Are white collar crooks less safe? Do prosecutors and judges communicate more effectively? Is there less dirty money around? Is there less poverty manufactured? To each of these questions the answer is plainly 'no'. Brussels could not care less about Europe-wide justice." (02/10/2006)

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An editorial in the daily defends philosophy teacher Robert Redeker, who received death threats after publishing a piece in the 'Figaro' entitled 'What should the free world do in response to Islamist intimidation?' "At 52 Robert Redecker is a prolific author, a tireless pamphleteer whose widely published pieces are not intended to curry favour. The article he wrote for the 'Figaro' on September 19 is like its author: excessive, sweeping, and in a word provocative ... He argues that, like the communism of yore, Islam considers generosity, broad-mindedness, tolerance, gentleness, the freedom of women, sexual freedom, and democratic values as signs of decadence. As a philosopher Robert Redeker can certainly distinguish between Islam, the religion and Islamism the ideology. But that is not the point he has chosen to make. He is free not to. He is free to think and free to express himself." (02/10/2006)

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Following weeks of, at times, violent protests against the government of Ferenc Gyurcsany, participants in the national uprising of 1956 have published a statement criticising the parallels drawn between the current demonstrations and the events of 1956. The renowned actor Ivan Darvas, filmmaker Judit Ember and novelist Ferenc Fejtő were among those who signed the statement. "Right-wing extremists and football hooligans ran riot in the protests in Budapest. That makes a mockery of the revolution and struggle for freedom of 1956. Symbols of 1956 have been used to disguise the anti-democratic features of the current protests. The Soviet monument to the victims of World War II was damaged, and the current police force has been compared to the state security service of the Stalinist dictatorship. The 50th anniversary of 1956 has been abused to call into question the legitimacy of a democratically elected government. The storming of the headquarters of the state TV station was a demonstration of meaningless violence. This is incompatible with the remembrance of 1956." (29/09/2006)

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Heribert Prantl points out that sixteen years after German reunification there is a new division between the parts of Eastern Germany that are booming and those that are in decline. "Highly qualified and highly motivated young people leave for the West, young women more often than young men. The old and unemployed are left behind. This has a major negative impact on the social structure – civilian society is vegetating. When hope is gone, only hopelessness is left behind. The reconstruction of Eastern Germany has become its deconstruction in many parts... It takes a lot of optimism to see the reconstruction as an opportunity and the plans for that reconstruction as an expression of the Eastern German avant-garde, as East German politicians do. The Uckermark region is as big as Saarland, but is less populated than Burkina Faso. When it's 60 kilometres to the next doctor and unemployment is at 50%, you don't really want to be part of that avant-garde. Large regions of Eastern Germany lack an intelligent, young generation. In many places the young people who have stayed there form the basis of the NPD." (02/10/2006)

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"Issues revolving around Bertie Ahern's acceptance of money from business friends are not likely to be resolved by a mere five-minute statement by the Taoiseach [prime minister] ... The Taoiseach must put the story to bed for once and for all with a detailed statement covering all of the issues," warns a leading article in the daily paper. It is alleged that the Taoiseach received some 75,000 euros from a dozen friends between 1993 and 1994, when he was finance minister and treasurer of his party Fianna Fail. "Mr Ahern's image as the Teflon Taoiseach has been damaged by the ham-fisted manner in which the whole controversy was handled last week ... It is not in the national interest that the Taoiseach or anyone else should be railroaded, or treated in any way unfairly, but we must have answers that are as complete as possible." (02/10/2006)

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"A little over two years after joining the EU Hungary is bankrupt and as a consequence the enlarged EU has been seriously discredited," comments the linguist László Marácz, a Hungarian research fellow at the University of Amsterdam. "That a government [headed by Ferenc Gyurcsany] can secretly mismanage a country's budget with no fear of the law, and that it can take draconian austerity measures while muzzling Parliament shows the scale of Hungary's democratic deficit. In this situation it is only to be expected that Hungarian citizens take to the streets and that a period of major civil unrest should begin ... Protesters are rightly demanding that this crooked government and the oligarchy running it should step down and new elections be held ... The EU can learn a lesson from the Hungarian experience. It must stop the enlargement process before it claims more victims." (02/10/2006)

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"Slovakia has a sleazy and thuggish new government. Hungary's prime minister has provoked riots by lying about the economy. Poland's populist coalition is tottering. The Czechs have given up trying to produce any government at all. Everywhere much-needed reforms have slowed or stopped," writes the weekly, which argues that political climate in Eastern Europe obscures its good economic performance. "Yet in the sweep of EU history, these are mere teething troubles in a growing-up period. Plenty of older EU members suffer from organised crime and corruption, and have had bad or unstable governments. It is also older EU countries that have been most reluctant to reform their economies; as a result, they have been suffering from a virulent attack of slow growth. Most new EU members have fast-growing economies that have lifted the performance of the whole continent." (02/10/2006)

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"It makes me sad to remember how thrilled I was on 15 April 2005, the day I received a letter from Stephen Deuchar, director of Tate Britain, asking me to serve as a juror for the 2006 Turner Prize," writes art critic Lynne Barber, who spent a year touring the UK's art galleries for the one of the county's most prestigious visual arts awards. "I hate to say it, but my year as a Turner juror has seriously dampened, though I hope not extinguished, my enthusiasm for contemporary art. There is so much bad work around, so much that is derivative, half-baked or banal, you can't believe that galleries would show it. I think what happened is that the huge success of the YBAs [Young Brit Artists] in the Nineties has created a peculiar post-boom glut whereby there are now more galleries looking for young artists than worthwhile artists to fill them." (02/10/2006)

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The 23-year-old novelist Dorota Maslowska has won Poland's most prestigious literature award, the "Nike 2006", with her second book "The Queen's Peacock" ('Paw Krolowej'). In an interview with Sebastian Lupak novelist Stefan Chwin distances himself from the jury's decision: "This was a somewhat surprising decision. Maslowska doesn't seem to have put much effort into her second book. The first ('The Polish-Russian War under the White-Red Flag) was something very unusual and original. The second seems to hark back to the first. There have been similar, if not even worse, episodes in the history of the Nike Award. It's very painful for the other writers. It's a tough game; a cruel one. But any form of hierarchy is an act of cruelty." (02/10/2006)

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A year ago, Flemming Rose, head of the feuilleton section of the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, published twelve Muhammad cartoons which were regarded as offensive by parts of the Muslim community and triggered sometimes violent protests from Muslims all over the world. A year later, in an interview with Anne Wolter, Rose notes that the self-censorship he criticised back then has increased in Denmark. He points out that following the protests, in which 150 people lost their lives and which led to export losses mounting to hundreds of millions, no Danish newspaper would be prepared to publish this kind of cartoon today. "We wanted to show that Muslims should be treated like any other section of the population – Christians, politicians and the royal family. All of these people are frequently the target of satire and this is a sign of acknowledgement and acceptance. Muslims are part of Danish society, not a marginalised group that deserves special treatment." (02/10/2006)

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All available articles from » Flemming Rose