The commentator Pierre Rousselin considers that "the dissolution looks more like a desperate gesture than a calculated strategy by the head of state. .... The institutions themselves, parliament on the one hand and the presidency on the other, have become the issue in the battle between pro-Russian and pro-Western camps. Contrary to the hopes raised by the 'Orange Revolution', Ukraine did not fall straight in to the Western camp, as Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia did with the fall of the iron curtain. Ukraine, a prisoner of its very different geography, has remained rooted in the Russian world. It is drifting on the borders of our Europe and the leaders who emerged from democratisation have not yet found the means to steer their country." (04/04/2007)

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"The division of Ukraine into a pro-Russian eastern side and a pro-European western side won't change even in the long term. Nonetheless, it's in the interest of the entire country to eliminate the democratic deficits," writes Endre Aczél. "It would be an oversimplification to put all Ukraine's problems down to the fact that President Viktor Yushchenko wants to cooperate with NATO while Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich wants to cooperate with Russia. The real problem is that after so many years, the Ukrainian parliament is still not capable of investing the central authorities with clearly defined powers. The Ukrainian constitution does not clearly lay out the powers of the President, the Prime Minister or the parliament. In other words, the institutions of the democratic constitutional state are functioning on a pretty chaotic basis. The constitution has been amended several times, but always according to the current interests of the ruling coalition." (04/04/2007)

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Bronwen Maddox finds reasons to be optimistic about the current political crisis in Ukraine. "The most encouraging point is that both parties are turning to the Constitution and courts in support of their positions. … The best hope, for those who want a more European Ukraine, is that the elections deliver Yushchenko a friendlier parliament, and that he patches up his feud with Yulia Tymoshenko, former prime minister, forming a strong liberal, Western-leaning government. The worst is more deadlock: either because Yanukovich insists on waiting for a constitutional court ruling, which could take months; or because the election produces another parliament without a clear majority. … All the EU can hope to do is help Yushchenko to tug Ukraine a little closer towards the West but if it fails to throw him even a few sops, that will be an expensive mistake." (04/04/2007)

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Askolds Rodins defends the Ukrainian president's decision to dissolve parliament: "The balance of power within the parliament shifted shortly before last year's elections because many MPs kept changing their allegiance. This means that they ignored the will of the voters who gave them their mandates. In this respect Yushchenko is right. The president is the commander-in-chief of the army, and the defence minister has already announced that the armed forces will remain loyal... The deciding factor now will be the position of the Constitutional Court. Demonstrations could have an impact - if they gather as much force as during the Orange Revolution." (04/04/2007)

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In an interview with Julia Damianova, Ukrainian political expert Vladimir Nikitin describes the situation in his country as "basically calm. There are some demonstrators, but they're what you could call professional demonstrators. They're in central Kiev; everywhere else there is absolute calm. People are discussing things, that's all... Both sides, the president as well as the government, are constantly violating the law. This is the main problem - the judicial reforms have not yet been carried out, the court authorities don't function properly and the people are not yet convinced that they must abide by the law... We were promised democracy, but instead the government is busy redistributing property and power." (04/04/2007)

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The Estonian newspaper takes a sceptical view of the situation in Ukraine: "Along with Georgia and Moldavia, Ukraine is one of the major recipients of aid from Estonia. As a member of the former Eastern Bloc, we know exactly how important it is to look to the West and that the prospect of EU and NATO membership can open a new chapter in the history of a country. But outstretched arms won't help if a country isn't willing or able to take the path to democracy, and if its politicians won't cooperate... Now the constitutional court will have to sort out the dispute between Yushchenko, Yanukovich and Tymoshenko, because new elections won't solve anything. Yanukovich would win and the EU would have to watch the tragedy and hope for better times." (04/04/2007)

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"The President has a heavenly post. He sits on his throne high above the clouds, where the sky is always blue. Deep down below him there's thunder and lightning. His hapless fellow politicians are being swallowed up by scandals, resigning, quashed by condemnation, while he angrily sends a bolt of lightning, has a resolution rescinded or graciously makes a cardinal a knight of the Legion of Honour and - like a child with his tin soldiers - plays carelessly with his country's political institutions," writes Paris-based theatre director Benjamin Korn about the country's highest political office. He criticises the presidency, describing it as a "constant debasement of all democratic principles". In view of the quasi-monarchical powers with which the post is endowed he says there's only one way out: "Let us follow Ségolène Royal's only far-reaching proposal for changing French society - the 'decentralisation of France'. This must begin with the abolishment of the presidency. It centralises and monopolises all state power. It is the undying central head of the Hydra; it's no use cutting off the other heads. There is only one solution: get rid of the presidency. But to do that we need the President's permission." (04/04/2007)

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In a dossier on the "winners" of military intervention in Irak, the Italian journalist Gianni Riotta analyses the consequences for the EU. "In 216 B.C., Hannibal won the Battle of Cannae. ... But Hannibal had no idea what to do with the power he had so brilliantly acquired. It took Rome a little more than a decade to enact its revenge. Likewise, history will show that Old Europe won the battle of Baghdad. ... But does Europe know how to use its moral victory ? Will it lose momentum, like Hannibal's troops enjoying winter holidays at Capua while Rome regrouped ? ... Because if the diplomats of Old Europe are sure they are right, there is no plan for a pax europea and there is no starry blue flag in Baghdad. ... Old Europe was certainly right from a tactical point of view in 2003 but still does not have a new global strategy. If it does not make one, it runs the risk of seeing Peking, Moscow and Tehran come out as the real winners of Bush's madness." (04/04/2007)

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All available articles from » Gianni Riotta

On March 23, the Polish University Rectors' Conference complained that the conservative-populist government is endangering the foundations of the democratic constitutional state. According to one resolution, the authority of the courts should not be called into question and public prosecutors should not be drawn into politics. Jan Widacki, a Cracow-based lawyer, agrees: "The academic elite is quite rightly concerned, and their protest is justified. Yet I can't help asking why it's taken so long. Why now?... These are serious accusations and they have been formulated by a competent body. The accusations are so grave that in any country with a political opposition they would be interpreted as an important warning to the government. But in our country the government has nothing to fear. There is no opposition - no one will make use of this protest." (02/04/2007)

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Micheline Calmy-Rey, president of the Swiss Confederation and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Commissioner for External Relations, inaugurated the EU embassy in Bern, Switzerland on Tuesday 3rd of April. It is an event which according to Valentine Zubler, was the occasion for an impressive exchange of barbed remarks between the two women. "The bouquets of flowers and the photographer's flashes did not succeed in covering up the quarrel on taxation of cantons which has divided Bern and Brussels. So is Benita Ferrero-Waldner friend or foe ? Of course, the 58 year-old Austrian knows and likes Switzerland. However she has shown firmness towards the Swiss authorities. At question time yesterday, the two leaders cut and thrust in turn. On Micheline Camly-Rey's side, Bern contests any violation of the free-exchange agreements of 1972 between the two parties, while the Austrian diplomat repeated that Switzerland benefiting from extensive access to European markets must respect community rules." (04/04/2007)

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All available articles from » Valentine Zubler

The Czech government yesterday presented a new programme for economic reform, the core of which is a flat income tax rate of 15 percent. Katerina Safarikova points out that in 2004, French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy harshly criticised a similar fiscal policy in Sloviakia and called for "tax-dumping countries" to be shut off from EU funding. "However, these words were not translated into action. The new members of the EU have secured their EU subsidies for the next seven years. Their fiscal policies won't change that, and that's how it should be. Low taxes are healthy and get economies back on their legs much quicker than checks from Brussels do." (04/04/2007)

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All available articles from » Katerina Safarikova

"Poor 'Aunty Beeb'. The old lady of British television the BBC has been reprimanded. It is said to be too intellectual and is about to ' dumb down' the quality of its programmes", reports Baptiste Aboulian. A yet to be published report on viewers reveals "a gap between [BBC's] content and the desires of the British. It is above all the urban middle classes who like the programming. This audience enjoys the Sunday programme presented by the political journalist Andrew Marr,a dry as a bone Scotsman. But it must put off a large number of British who have no particular inclination to listen to interviews with opera singers on a Sunday morning. ... The BBC would like to regain its aura and become more accessible to young people who now prefer cable or internet. ... The question for the national audiovisual groups remains: does the BBC fulfill its mission?" (04/04/2007)

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Sibylle Hamann loses her patience with the non-stop bombardment of Internet appeals to express your views on the latest news by way of online voting. The voting on a 66-year-old Austrian who recently gave birth was the last straw. "Now an educated, well-off woman who has had a baby - her third, by the way - is accused of being 'irresponsible'. According to the self-righteous it's always the wrong people who have babies anyway. They're either too poor ('they just want the child benefit money'), too dark-skinned ('they want to repopulate the country'), too young, too old, too fat, too stupid, or have the wrong native language. Or too privileged ('she's only doing it because she can afford a nanny'). The admonitions are flying all over the place. A woman who remains childless must reckon with a public reprimand just as much as a woman who has five children. It's almost frightening to be surrounded by all these fervently pointing fingers. Express your opinion! Vote!" (04/04/2007)

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Documentary plays are experiencing a kind of renaissance in Germany, Aureliana Sorrento writes, adding that the smaller theatres appear to be "caught up in a reality frenzy. Most of the artists who move in this world of hunger for real people have received an education in theatrical art, but they act as if they'd learned their profession at journalism school. They cut out apparently unimportant articles from newspapers, gather mountains of documentary material and throw themselves into long, tedious phases of research during which they seek out witnesses and interview them at length, compare statements and check the reliability of their sources, put together the material and adjust and polish the language. And in the end they put a new play on stage, along with its creators." (04/04/2007)

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Interviewed by Tristan Savin, the Swedish writer Henning Mankell, author of successful crime fiction, maintains that the genre is a "good means" of commenting on contemporary society. "We know that the majority of people do not read anything other than thrillers. So it's a good way to reach people. But crime fiction can also be a very efficient form for storytelling. Don't forget that crime fiction is one of the oldest literary forms. Going back to ancient Greece, what does Medea tell us ? It's a play about a woman who kills her children through jealousy, in short a crime story written two thousand five hundred years ago. The fact that crime stories are among the oldest is one of my sources of inspiration. It's evident that we enjoy these stories as much today as two thousand year ago." (01/04/2007)

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The commentator Gian Antonio Stella reckons that 'La Serenissima' will soon lose all of its inhabitants. "That's the way things are going in Venice: few children, open spaces with no playground, a city that increasingly resembles a hospice. In recent years, the situation has become even more depressing. It is enough to note that, miracles excepted, and despite protests by parents about the transfer of their children, the last junior school in the San Marco quarter will close on Friday. ... In 1966, the city had tens of thousands of children, then with the exodus to the continent, they numbered a few thousand and are destined to number just a few hundred. ... Venice has become a kind of Disneyland of art, devoid of Venetians, and assaulted daily by hordes of tourists." (04/04/2007)

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Solenn Paulic explains that civil servants "exiled" in Brussels can rely on a specially designed internet to break their solitude. "What site ? Eurosingles. ... On Eurosingles, there is no ambiguity and no nasty surprises. Because although you can register freely at first, you cannot slip blithely past the moderator's filter. The criterion for eligibility is to have an address with ec.europea.eu, cec.eu.int, europarl.eu.int or hq.nato.int (Nato). It is a proof of authenticity and equivalent salary. It's also a way of keeping to familiar surroundings. In order to meet, you click on someone's page and get in touch directly with him or her or participate in one of the organised outings. ... Is this a turning inwards of civil servants ? If so, it's a question of 'temperament and sometimes of bad will' say Bernard and Laura [two of the 180 members of the site]. Or of timidity and language barriers." (04/04/2007)

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