Poland will definitely withdraw its veto if Russia lifts the ban it imposed on the import of Polish agrarian products 18 months ago. Jerzy Haszczynski approves of the Polish government's policy. "Many countries sympathised with the Polish veto against a new agreement between the EU and Russia. More and more Europeans are realising that an offended Russia would also be capable of boycotting meat from their countries - or turning off their gas supplies in the middle of winter. The Polish government has made a conciliatory gesture - it's prepared to withdraw its veto. It has stipulated easy conditions. There is no logical reason why Russia shouldn't lift the embargo. All it requires is that President Putin act rationally." (05/04/2007)

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The daily considers that "the Kaczynskis [Lech Kaczynski is President of the country and his brother Jaroslaw is Prime Minister] do not position themselves as anti-European but visibly the current European Union does not suit them. They are insisting that Christian values be inscribed in the European Constitution or in whatever text replaces it and they are taking advantage of the 'no' expressed by France and The Netherlands to up the ante. ... Paradoxically, the authorities in Warsaw are at this point in time anti-Western and pro-American. They lose no opportunity to show their sympathy with George W. Bush's policies. This allows them to get two birds with the one stone: they can irritate their European partners while standing up to Moscow. All Poles do not identify with this kind of reactionary politics but unfortunately, as long as they are in power, Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski represent Poland." (05/04/2007)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » EU Policy, » Poland, » Europe

Olivier le Bussy argues that the loosening up of Poland "if it continues, would be a relief for Europeans who are counting on the energy part of the agreement [an EU-Russia partnership] to guarantee the reliability of gas and oil supply to the 27. Before this change of direction, Poland's position is as follows: there is no question of the EU opening discussions with Russia as long as Moscow maintains an embargo on Polish meat and vegetables. Russia justifies this embargo with hygiene issues and Poland believes Russia's motivation is political. There is no lack of conflict between the two neighbours: the possibility of Poland's participation in the American anti-missile shield makes Moscow's hair stand up on end while the Poles (among others) are firmly opposed to the oil pipeline which would link Germany and Russia by passing under the Baltic Sea." (05/04/2007)

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All available articles from » Olivier le Bussy

According to evolutionary biologist Josef Reichholf, the author of the recently published 'Kleine Naturgeschichte des letzten Jahrtausends' ('A Brief Natural History of the Past Millennium') the "mini-ice age" that set in after the High Middle Ages was much worse than the current trend of global warming. "The cold was particularly intense in the 16th and 17th century. Wolves migrated from the northeast. Bears became common. The floods were much stronger than any experienced in the 20th century. Many historical high-water marks are testimony to this. The great storms of the late Middle Ages battered the coast between Holland and Denmark and created the islands and islets we have there today." Reichholf points out that global warming has its advantages. "We're secretly glad that last winter was so mild. According to the calculations of one of Germany's major banks, it helped save around eight billion euros in heating costs - that's 200 euros per household. So the weather has already fulfilled our ambitious goals for us in the battle against global warming." (05/04/2007)

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All available articles from » Josef Reichholf

"Are the French nationalist ?" asks the French sociologist Olivier Galland, director of research at the CNRS (French National Centre for Research). "On listening to the recent declarations of presidential candidates, one might think so. However, if we have recently seen such glorification of national identity, it is because it [national identity] is particularly weakened. ... France has lost the unifying power of its Catholic identity and never developed the civic-minded culture of Protestant countries. The Republican ideal itself has been worn away with doubts expressed about the functioning of social ladder and the mechanics of collective solidarity. What unites the French today, are negative feelings, notably suspicion about the market economy and globalisation. The 'no' on the European referendum was the result of this collective spirit" (05/04/2007)

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All available articles from » Olivier Galland

The editorial considers the release on the 4th of April of the 15 British Marines held by Iran for 13 days and looks at the "effect of all this on the wider stage. A sword of Damocles heavier than anything Britain can fashion is hanging over Iran, and it is the conviction of hawks in Washington and the defence establishment in Israel that the only way Iran can be prevented from enriching uranium is to bomb it. … But surely the real lesson to draw from yesterday's theatre is that quiet diplomacy does work and that it can work in the future. It is easy in Washington to pour scorn on Nancy Pelosi's efforts to engage with the Syrian leadership. But the Democratic house speaker is right to break the ban on US official contacts with Syria. There is no substitute for direct negotiation, especially with a revolutionary Islamic regime in Iran, for whom the popularly held grievance about past American and British interference in the Gulf is as important as the issue in hand." (05/04/2007)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » United Kingdom, » Iran

Following the collapse of the coalition between the Democrats (PD) and the Liberals (PNL), Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu has presented his new cabinet. The new minority government consists of members of the PNL and the Hungarian Democratic Alliance of Romania (UDMR), which together command 22 percent of the vote. Horia-Roman Patapievici writes that the main opposition party, the Social Democrats, will benefit most from this new constellation. "Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu's new cabinet is in the hands of the Social Democrats (PSD)... As the Social Democrats have the greatest number of MPs in the parliament, they can now control and map out the government's agenda. The Social Democrats have remained in the opposition and have thus won the privilege of both governing and being the opposition. This blurring of the borders offers the PSD a unique opportunity to pave the way for a victory in the 2008 elections. It benefits from both the successes and the failures of the Tariceanu government. The PSD has the others cornered." (05/04/2007)

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The Spanish journalist Valentín Posecu comments on the political crisis in Romania which this week led to a major ministerial reshuffle. "The situation would not have degenerated so far if [President Traian] Basescu did not have such a hot-headed temperament which led him to oppose practically all the leading politicians in the country. Things are complicated by the stubbornness of the president who is convinced he will get support from Brussels. The text of the Romanian Constitution contributes much to the political confusion. Written after the fall of Communism, it was formulated in vague terms under pressure from the first democratic government, mostly ex-communists. It is so vague that it is difficult to define the functions of the President and those of the government". (05/04/2007)

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The daily is jubilant at the first ever meeting between Ian Paisley (DUP, Democratic unionist party), First Minister designate of Northern Ireland and the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern, during which they shook hands and "treated one another and their traditions with mutual respect". "It was a day like no other for the island of Ireland and all of her people. It was a day like no other in the political memory of our generation when the hope held out in the Belfast Agreement, announced on that Good Friday years ago, [10th April 1998] all of its stops and starts in between, all of its dead and political victims, finally made history rhyme. The first meeting between Mr Ahern and Dr Paisley was electric, engaging - and in a way that was unexpected. Journalists who have followed every dot and comma of the peace process for most of their careers didn't know whether to cry or applaud. … They, like the rest of us, must move on from the Northern story being The Troubles." (05/04/2007)

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Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has called for a boycott against Estonian goods. One reason for the Russians' harsher tone is the row over the bronze statue, a Soviet monument in central Tallinn which Estonia wants to have removed. Aivars Ozolins says this is scandalous. "Before the Duma elections in December 2007 and the presidential elections in March 2008, the Kremlin and the country's political elite need both internal and external enemies, and Estonia is an ideal candidate for the external enemy. The 'internal enemies' are the foreigners: since April 1 they are no longer allowed to trade in Russian markets, and this is fomenting racism." This whole process doesn't bode well for Latvia either, Aivars writes. "The thaw in the relations we have experienced since we signed the border treaty with Russia will probably prove to be short-lived." (05/04/2007)

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After months of negotiations, the German group E.ON has renounced its takeover bid for the Spanish company Endesa. It has made a deal with Acciona and Enel the two major share-holders of the Spanish electricity provider. The daily makes an early assessment of the operation. "One could claim that Spain comes out of all of this looking like a very interventionist state, differing little however with cases of protectionism in Italy, France or Germany where public shares in energy groups are much higher. Moreover, it is clear that the share-holders of Endesa come out on top since their shares have been considerably revaluated. What about Spanish citizens? None of the proposed options seemed to stand out in terms of quality and price. It is likely that the Spanish economy will benefit from the fact that the headquarters remain in Spain and on this point, the solution retained seems better than having Endesa fall in to the hands of a company based in Germany." (05/04/2007)

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Since last year, admission to Denmark's State Museum of Art and the Danish National Museum has been free of charge. Both museums have registered a dramatic increase in the number of visitors and now the private museums feel they are at a disadvantage. The newspaper approves of the free admission policy. "Culture is a dynamic process. Free admission can contribute to increasing interest in culture. The reform is attracting more people to these museums, where they see things it would be difficult to find elsewhere. ... Free admission opens a door to a world that was previously inaccessible. A visit to the museum becomes as natural as going to the cinema... It's highly likely that the private museums will also benefit from the free admission policy because it makes going to the museum more normal and less elitist." (04/04/2007)

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"The exhibits are certainly worth seeing," writes Marc Zitzman after visiting an exhibition dedicated to Irish author Samuel Beckett at the Paris Centre Pompidou. Nonetheless, all in all he was disappointed: "It's the kind of show the Centre Pompidou loves to produce: a bewildering assortment of material, trendy scenography, an overly intellectual concept that looses itself in associations, and a glaring lack of didactics. This is a show for the 'happy few' who know the life and work of the artist inside out. ... Accordingly, many of the exhibited objects remain mute. A textbook dating back to 1926 contains notes on Dante's 'Divine Comedy' - a practice Beckett applied to countless literature, philosophy and art history lectures. A 1936 booklet relates the author's experiences on a six-month journey through Nazi Germany and tells of his passion for old Italian and Flemish art, and also for the 'forbidden' contemporary art on exhibition at the museums there. Such exhibits make it possible to explore Beckett's literary influences, his love for fine arts and his anti-Nazism - but such an enterprise would require at least a minimum of information." (05/04/2007)

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An exhibition organised by Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof Museum and the Museum of Medical History of the Charité hospital is dedicated to works of art and medical objects - such as medicinal compounds or drugs - that show pain as a fundamental human experience. Burkhard Müller explains that the representation of Jesus on the Cross as both a work of art and an anatomical wax figure occupies a central position within the exhibition. "Art, at least as far as Europe is concerned, has a fixed point of reference in the suffering of Christ. All talk and all images of pain somehow have their origins in this figure: one beam placed horizontally on top of another and on top the tortured figure. God became a man, Christianity claims, and proves it with this image without which this process would have been in vain, nothing but a masquerade. The exhibition features countless paintings of this type, and the catalogue shows even more. Even the detractors of Christianity will be able to recognise a deep sincerity here. Pain is not just the opposite of happiness and desire, it's more than these things. A person who is happy merely because he satisfies his desires will not know himself; he won't be aware that he is a three-dimensional creature and that his body has unplumbed depths." (05/04/2007)

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All available articles from » Burkhard Müller

Following the new world record (357 mph or 574 kph) set by the French high speed train TGV on April 3rd, Ross Clark cuts through the "carping" on the other side of the channel. "But can't we just have the good grace to admit that railways are something that the French do right and we do appallingly ? The difference is that the French spend their rail investment money on engineering - while we spend ours on consultants' fees, legal bills, diversity officers, £1.1 million in bonuses for the directors of Network Rail and just about anything other than physically building railways. The result is a bizarrely inflated cost of running trains - which is costing taxpayers four times as much in subsidy as before privatisation. … Much as I approve of privatisation, where pragmatism demands it, we would have been better selling British Rail lock, stock and bogie to the Société nationale des chemins de fer (SNCF)." (05/04/2007)

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Sofia wants to reduce the number of stray dogs prowling its streets, currently estimated at around 20,000. Miroslaw Najdenow comments ironically on the plans to prevent the dogs from reproducing: "The castration programme is supposed to reduce the city's canine population to the extent that after four years all the remaining dogs can be taken into animal shelters. ... That would be around 1,000 to 2,000 animals. ... So that gives us four years to build enough animal shelters to accommodate that number of dogs." (05/04/2007)

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All available articles from » Miroslav Naydenov