Zbyněk Petráček quotes a passage from the GDR Order to Fire on Escapees on the border between the two Germanies. "'Do not hesitate to use your firearm even against women and children who are attempting to violate the border'. In James Bond films this is called a license to kill. But firstly, her Majesty's agent wouldn't have killed children and secondly, we're not quoting a Bond film but an instruction discovered in Germany that authorised communist border guards to shoot escapees. This is one more reason to describe the former system as criminal... This is a sign for the Czech Republic: when it takes so many years for such a document to come to light in Germany we don't have to worry about the usefulness of an authority for clarifying our communist crimes." (13/08/2007)

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The journalist Laura del Río comments on the impact of the Stasi document's publication. "Its discovery is on the front page of all the German papers because until now public opinion in the Federal State had no idea that such an order could exist in writing. It allows the corroboration of what experts and detractors of the GDR have been accusing the former leaders of for decades: the fact that the regime was without pity in its efforts to stop people moving to the West. The order to shoot did indeed feature in documents previously known, but only as a last resort. According to procedure a bullet was to be fired into the air before shouting 'don't move' and finally, if the fugitive refused to obey, he was to be shot in the legs. But this was forbidden when there were women and children. Hence the impact of the new paragraph [contained in the Stasi document]." (13/08/2007)

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Ralph Bollmann reflects on why this document, the contents of which are nothing new, is causing such a stir: "This poses the question of why the existence or non-existence of this 'Order to Fire' is causing such uproar. There's a remarkable parallel between this and the fruitless search for a 'Führer's order' for the murder of Europe's Jews, which went on for several decades. As incomparable as these two affairs are, in both cases the public, fixated on the search for such a historic document, entertains excessively naïve notions about decision-making processes and chains of command. The alarming thing about apparatus such as the GDR border regime is precisely the insidious interplay of group pressure and rash obedience, rewards and punishment which could not be adequately explained by a single brief instruction - even if it did exist." (13/08/2007)

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Elisabeth G. Sledziewski is a professor of political science in Strasbourg. She is dismayed that the French confuse the Warsaw ghetto uprising (April 19 to 16, 1943) with the official Warsaw uprising (August 1st to October 1944) "This confusion is actually part of a general poor understanding of what happened in Poland during the war, because the French only tend to retain the extermination of the Jewish population. This ignorance leads to the denial of historical reality, of the crushing of insurgents in 1944 by the Nazis after almost five years of barbaric occupation and the cynical betrayal of the Stalinist former occupant turned 'ally'. It is as if the horrors of the Shoah in a Poland occupied and/or annexed by the 3rd Reich cancelled out the ordeal of the entire Polish nation that Hitler had started to reduce to slavery as early as September 1939. The Polish do not understand this denial and suffer from it. " (09/08/2007)

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Since author Ralph Giordano spoke out vehemently against the construction of a central mosque in Cologne in May 2007, right-wing extremists have expressed support for his views while he has been harshly criticised by the other side and has even received several death threats. In a guest commentary Giordano reaffirms his views. "It's a nasty feeling to have false allies trying to pat you on the shoulder, but you shouldn't allow it to silence you. Damn it! You don't have to be a Holocaust survivor to boldly defy the multiculti illusionists who still think in terms of left-wing doctrines, the one-eyed xenophobics and the appeasement doctrinaires with a good measure of civic pride. No one should let themselves be intimidated either by political defamation on the part of the Germans or threats made by the Muslims." (13/08/2007)

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Political scientist Arkady Rzegocki of the Jagiellonen University in Cracow explains in an interview with Tomasz P. Terlikowski why the Poles have more faith in the Church than in the State. "For Poles, and even Polish politicians, there is no contradiction between being a member of the Church and being loyal to the State. Paradoxically, this is a consequence of the weakness of the Polish state. The Polish people don't identify with the State because they can't count on it. The State is still perceived as a curse rather than an instrument that strengthens our sense of unity... [In Poland] the Church is one of the few institutions that creates a sense of national community. It is our spiritual and religious tradition that creates something that unites us Poles and provides us with an identity." (11/08/2007)

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Following a crisis which has gone on for months, the Polish head of government Jarosław Kaczyński, has announced new elections for October. However, first the parliament must vote in favour of its own dissolution with a two-thirds majority. According to the newspaper's chief editor Robert Krasowski, only a change in the leaderships of the conservative ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) and the main opposition party, the right-wing liberal Civic Platform (PO), can bridge the divide in Poland's right wing. Otherwise, he warns, there could be a repeat of the 2005 scenario: "We will witness a brutal election campaign in which a right-wing party is the worst enemy of another right-wing party. And as soon as the election results are announced we will see what we knew from the very beginning: that the only solution is a coalition between the two... If the party leaders Tusk (PO) and Kaczyński (PiS) still have problems reaching an agreement after the election we should think about whether it wouldn't be better to politely say goodbye to both, or offer them that option now." (13/08/2007)

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The paper considers the UK government's reluctance to hold a referendum on the European Union Reform Treaty. "The problem is that, rather than be honest in public about the pros and cons of compromising sovereignty for international co-operation, British governments have been consistently cowardly. They don't make the political case for co-operation - that united in a single market, Europe has enjoyed freedom and prosperity unparalleled in its history, while divided, it lurched from insular nationalism to military rivalry to epic bloodshed. Instead, they pretend that the arguments and the treaties are purely technical and economic. No one believes that, and the result is ill-informed scepticism. ... The moment when a government has to ask the British people whether or not they are on board with the European project will only have been deferred." (12/08/2007)

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The journalist Gad Lerner ponders the situation of the Roma in Italy. "The Roma are not 'politically correct': their high level of alcohol consumption, their nomadic existence, unemployment and criminality cannot be denied. All of this is frightening and causes generalisations that would be unthinkable if applied to anyone else. They are all considered guilty, because of the way they act, their cultural tradition. ... But one thing needs to be made quite clear: Roma cannot be considered like human detritus. They cannot be wiped out without, that is, resorting to the idea of extermination. This isn't such a far-fetched notion. Our moral code is step by step leading us in that direction, as we accept sweeping generalisations. Who, at the beginning of the XXth century, would have imagined that hostility towards the then 'guilty' people would escalate into the 'final solution'?" (13/08/2007)

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Since their accession to the EU on 1 January 2007 the Bulgarians and Romanians have had provisional representatives in the European Parliament. While the Bulgarians elected their first MEPs at the end of May, domestic disputes in Romania have so far prevented an election there. According to the EU accession treaty, the Romanians must elect their EU parliamentarians by the end of the year, and the law stipulates that the date of the elections is to be announced three months in advance. Their time is therefore almost up, writes Cristian Patrasconi. "A poisonous atmosphere which was in no way conducive to dealing with European problems was used to justify the postponement of the European Parliament elections from May to the end the end of the year... Be that as it may, we are currently - and I don't think this is a fact we should be proud of - the only country in the EU that has not yet elected its European MPs or even nominated its candidates." (13/08/2007)

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The daily comments on the recent report published by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). "In the face of accumulated typhoons, floods, excessive temperatures, and monsoons that are more violent than ever, even the most sceptical are coming round, now convinced: this infinity of anomalies, to name them, tally with what experts have been announcing for a long time. The predictable climate change, the global warming and the numerous consequences of it are not just the stuff of science fiction . ... Granted, international institutions, governments and NGOs would be well-advised not to frighten citizens by announcing an apocalyptic future; they would do well not to paint a panorama of inevitable desolation. But at the same time, with the available scientific predictions, it necessary to evaluate the technological advances our society can afford. How far can we take the technological race with both feet stuck in the mud of meteorological incertitude?" (13/08/2007)

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Ilie Serbanescu writes that an estimated 1.2 to 3.4 million Romanians live abroad, commenting on the consequences for the domestic market. "For a country that thinks about its future, such figures are devastating. Of the 4.5 million Romanians who have regular legal employment, 75 percent are working abroad. For now the politicians are whooping with joy about the fact that Romania doesn't have problems with unemployment and that the money that Romanians working abroad send home is covering the country's absurdly and dangerously large foreign trade deficit. No one can say how long this will continue to function, but one thing's for sure: the bubble will burst... and then the lamentations will be great." (13/08/2007)

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On August 11th, the Japanese director Masahiro Kobayashi was awarded the biggest prize in the Locarno Film Festival for his film 'Ai No Yokan' (Also known as 'The rebirth'). "This infinitely subtle work is no doubt one of the most radical ever to have been awarded a prize at the Piazza Grande. ... Whence the return of the old adage that says films shown in Locarno are never released elsewhere [in cinemas]. Furthermore, if they aren't released, it is because Locarno only ever invites the most radical directors (i.e, the most boring). This is not entirely untrue: the big snoozes were numerous this year", concedes Thierry Jobin, who nonetheless defends the organiser's selection. "You will no doubt never see 'The Rebirth'. Locarno can do nothing about that. Locarno can do little more about the cultural policy on cinema in Switzerland which, like elsewhere, bases itself on ticket sales, market shares and popularity. In 2007, the Locarno Festival therefore stood its ground more than ever as the last stronghold of the only debate that is really worth having: that of diversity." (13/08/2007)

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The newspaper comments on the debate raging within Swedish literary circles about "crime writing queens" like Liza Marklund and Camilla Läckberg, who are also popular in Germany. According to some of their male colleagues, including Leif G.W. Persson and Ernst Brunner, the contents of their bestsellers are trivial. The newspaper writes: "The queens respond to any criticism of their books by putting it down to male chauvinism. The discussion focuses too much on the queens themselves instead of their work. A crime novel is neither good nor bad because it is written by a woman - and a critique is neither right nor wrong because it is delivered by a 'middle-aged man', or worse still, an 'older man'. The books of the crime queens should be discussed without sexist comments from both sides alike. On the other hand, the commercial success of these books is indisputable." (10/08/2007)

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Aer Lingus, Ireland's national airline, has recently taken its key flights out of Shannon, in eastern Ireland, transferring the slots to the Belfast international airport. Tom McGurk, poet and journalist, is appalled. "It's interesting to examine just how much of this week's saga refers to what Aer Lingus used to mean to us. As an island race and a people devastated over countless generations by exile and emigration, travel has always been about more than just going from one place to another.... Aer Lingus was never just another airline. In many ways, it was part of our response to this enormous cultural and historical baggage, our 20th century attempt to ameliorate the past. ... So the confusion, the anger and the deep sense of betrayal being felt in the southwest this week are both understandable and to be expected. Poignantly, it seems the people still have to learn that Aer Lingus [formerly public, until 2005] is no longer 'ours', ... Their concern is solely to look after the investments of their shareholders." (12/08/2007)

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"Don't be surprised if you come across his cute little when strolling through the country... Racoons are more and more present in Belgium, especially in the Ardenese valleys. The multiplication of the animal, which is not an indigenous species, is beginning to worry bio-diversity experts", explains the daily, which tracks down the origins of this invasion. "The racoon, originally from North America was apparently first introduced into Europe via Germany, 1934. At the time, a breeder in Kassel is said to have succeeded in obtaining permission from the Third Reich to release the little mammal into nature in order to diversify local fauna. ... In the following years, the little mammals gradually acclimatized to Western Europe before becoming a thriving population and spreading to surrounding countries. Today they are notable present in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Poland". (11/08/2007)

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More from the press review on the subject » Environmental Policy, » Belgium