"How discreet French politics can be. Usually, this would be an occasion for speechifying and celebrating European perspectives, but on Thursday, pitiful faintheartedness was the order of the day," writes Stefan Brändle about France's ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon. "The debate about this 'simplified' text of the constitution had been rescheduled for the night hours to prevent television and newspapers from reporting on it. The Senate, too, met Thursday night. Its consent was certain, as the ruling UMP party has an even more distinct majority. President Nicolas Sarkozy is behind the voting in the dead of night. He wanted the topic dealt with as quickly as possible. In recent days, people had made the accusation that the will of the people was being violated." (08/02/2008)

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"Europe is a subject far too serious for a population that appears irrational and unpredictable", quips the editorialist Philippe Bach, who regrets that the Lisbon Treaty was not submitted to a referendum. "The citizens had rejected the Constitutional Treaty [in 2005] for a whole series of good and less good reasons. One of the principles of democracy is to recognise that the people are right, even when they are wrong. By wanting no what's best for them, you condone the already strong tendency to see European institutions as a war machine that mainly serves the dominant ideology. And, as form shapes contents, it is no by taking democratic short-cuts that you can invent a Europe that serves the common good and institutions that are truly able to take into account and defend the interests of those who most need state protection, which is to say the great majority of citizens." (08/02/2008)

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All available articles from » Philippe Bach

The editorialist Jean-Claude Kiefer refers to "a vote without glory or publicity, light years away from the ebullient eagerness that gripped the country two years ago ! ... Granted, the Lisbon Treaty, which is not simplified at all and is in fact totally illegible for anyone who is not a specialist in European law, is not the Constitution. Lisbon provides a manual and a tool, showing - like in the instructions of a DIY furniture kit - how to put the pieces together... once, that is, all the pieces are available. For the time being, only a few elements actually exist. ... Even though it opens up new possibilities, the Lisbon Treaty remains a tool, the efficiency of which can only be measured by the dexterity of the hands that will use it. And, political polemics foreign to Europe aside, this technical text no doubt deserved no better than a vote in the middle of the night." (08/02/2008)

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The purpose of the Enlightenment criticising religion was not to stir up hatred against one religion, but to create human beings who would not be susceptible to their hatred being stirred up, Robert Misik writes, asking which forms of criticising religion are appropriate today. "Especially when targeting powerful religious authorities, criticism needs to employ scorn. But all scorn is not the same. 'Scorn and contempt', writes [Leipzig philosopher] Christoph Türcke, 'served the goals of the Enlightenment only when the weak wielded them as a weapon against the powerful.' When the powerful or the culturally established mock underdogs, it is condescending and from a position of victory, dangerously close to racist sentiment. In short: it does make a difference whether an ex-Muslim calls the prophet Mohammed a 'child molester' or if the criticism comes from the petit bourgeois in Charlottenburg [district in West Berlin] who turn up their noses at the 'backward' Turks and Arabs." (08/02/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Religion, » Migration, » Integration, » Europe
All available articles from » Robert Misik

In an article that has also been published in the English press, the former British MP Denis MacShane, who was notably responsible for Balkan issues between 2001-2005, salutes the Netherlands and Belgium for having blocked negotiations for Serbia's EU accession. "Saying Serbia can open EU membership talks without first handing over Mladic was seen as a way of supporting the pro-European politicians in Belgrade. Yet the policy shift was a dramatic reversal of existing EU policy in the Balkans, as Europe had always made EU membership conditional on cooperation with the international tribunal in The Hague. ... Belgium and the Netherlands stopped other EU foreign ministers from turning a blind eye to genocidal massacres reminiscent of the second world war." (08/02/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU enlargement, » EU Policy, » Netherlands, » Belgium, » Europe, » Serbia
All available articles from » Denis MacShane

The daily points out that Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury "did something yesterday [February 7th] that was far from sensible. He said that the adoption of parts of Sharia in Britain looked 'unavoidable', and called for 'constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law', over issues such as resolving marriage disputes. Muslims should not have to choose, he said, between 'the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty'. These remarks are astonishing. ... It is fundamental to this democracy that there should be one law for everyone. People of many faiths - Jews, Hindus, Sikhs - have settled happily in Britain without demanding a new set of laws for themselves. ... In Britain, all citizens are equal before the law. Anything that might skew that balance ought to be wholly unacceptable. ... In 2001 the European Court of Human Rights stated that Sharia clearly diverged from the human rights values enshrined in the European Convention." (08/02/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Religion, » United Kingdom

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk is holding talks with President Vladimir Putin and others in Moscow today. Tomasz Bielecki considers the first visit to Russia by a Polish head of government since 2001 as an indication of détente. "The Kremlin is striving to improve relations to the west and needs a normalisation of relations to Warsaw to achieve this goal. Russian diplomats admit that Moscow learned to appreciate Poland's strong position in the EU only recently. ... The only tangible effect of a moderate thaw between Poland and Russia can be the development of economic relations. Even though Moscow often exploits trade in energy commodities to play international games, it can be very pragmatic in other realms. The prime example is Russia's relations with Latvia. Despite acrimonious political disputes with the Kremlin, this country has been conducting trade with Russia intensely over the past two years." (08/02/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Poland, » Russia
All available articles from » Tomasz Bielecki

The Romanian constitutional court decided yesterday that the Romanian president has the right to reject the first candidate as successor for a cabinet minister. The reason for the decision was the dispute concerning the vacancy of the position of justice minister. "If you believe in the virtues of democracy, it is a cause for concern if a single person, even if it is the president of the country, has so much power," Mircea Marian believes. "And what is the point of the president being permitted to reject a proposal for a minister only once? Why not a second or third time? ... However, we cannot blame the court for that. The constitution, contrived in 1991 and corrected cosmetically in 2003, is a disaster. Romania needs a new constitution. And it must be designed either for a presidential republic or a parliamentary republic. But not for a 'semi'-republic, a monster with two heads that spit fire at each other." (08/02/2008)

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All available articles from » Mircea Marian

"'Paris is the only city in the world where you have a hard time finding a taxi', complained the Head of State on January 23rd, when delivering the Attali report. Alas it may well remain so", notes the editorialist Nicolas Barré. Following taxi-driver strikes in France this week, Nicolas Sarkozy has announced that the measure concerning taxi drivers in the Attali report will not be applied. "By surrendering to the taxi drivers while promising to swiftly modernise the profession without actually 'despoiling' it, the public executive has taken the risk of putting off a reform, and maybe others afterwards that should be obvious incontrovertibles, having the added benefit of creating jobs. ... It would be disastrous for reforms to be dashed against the walls of corporatism at the first sight of a raised fist." (08/02/2008)

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It is still uncertain whether the Czech presidential election scheduled for today can take place. The two chambers of parliament which determine the new head of government have not been able to agree whether the ballot is to be open or secret, which may cause a severe constitutional crisis. The procedural dispute benefits the Communist holdovers above all, Jan Machacek believes. For they don't want to elect either of the two candidates – neither incumbent president Vaclav Klaus nor the candidate of the Greens Jan Svejnar. "It is unpleasant that the arguments that burdened the presidential election in 2003 and made the appointment of a government in 2006 more difficult could be repeated now. And it is painful that once again, the communists hold all the aces." (08/02/2008)

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Following a recent article, journalist Fionnuala O'Connor responds to the idea that it is time to destroy Belfast's so-called 'peace walls', a series of separation barriers segregating Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods. "It takes fresh eyes and minds to suggest that 40-foot high fencing between Catholics and Protestants and brick walls across streets need not be permanent structures. But it takes no more than a well-informed drive in and around them to remember why each is where it is, and to see that anyone who lives elsewhere would have some nerve persuading the residents to take up their chisels and set about peaceful demolition. A top dressing of normality may hearten many, but in dozens of streets people know that one bad injury from a well-aimed stone could still bring out hysterical crowds. They live along the faultlines of an ancient quarrel unresolved, indeed largely untouched, by today's peace." (08/02/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Domestic Policy, » United Kingdom
All available articles from » Fionnuala O`Connor

Not least as a consequence of Sweden's pupils' poor performance in the PISA study, their work is to be marked beginning in the sixth grade, rather than in the eighth grade as is current practise. Minister for Education Jan Björklund also presented proposals for a new system using six marks. The newspaper welcomes this step. "It was not unusual for the discussion about marks to be dominated by the ambivalence between the insight that pupils need clear signals and the idea that they might be discouraged and give up because of poor school reports. For this reason, the proper conclusion is that pupils should receive special tutoring at school if necessary. A nuanced scale of marks also makes it easier to improve a poor mark because the effect of more diligent studying becomes apparent more quickly than in today's three-mark system. Clear assessments also encourage ambition. The proposal for a new marking system is an important step towards reforming schools and making them work better." (07/02/2008)

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The alternative cultural centre Kultiplex in downtown Budapest is to give way to a hotel complex. Alternative culture is not granted due respect, despite its important achievements, the newspaper writes. "In some sense, this culture is even worse off than in the 1980s. Its locations are either forced to close down or must struggle to survive at all, and what is most regrettable: nobody seems interested in them nowadays. Even onetime underground activist Gábor Demszky, today Budapest's mayor, doesn't seem to care about the underground at all – only about the 'overground', that is, property available for development. Whether a cultural scene exists which is free by definition – neither 'rightist' nor 'leftist' – seems to be of no concern at all to the politicians. For this reason, the battle with today's money-hungry political elite is probably even more hopeless than the one people used to have to fight with the party. Although now, nothing is banned, at least in theory." (08/02/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Architecture / Cities, » Cultural Policy, » Hungary
All available articles from » N. N.

A study carried out in 2007 by the Centre for Sociological Studies (CIS), in Madrid, shows that the Spanish have very little knowledge of foreign languages. For Irene Lozano, "this ignorance not only represents a grave disadvantage in terms of competitively, but also entails a regrettable cultural deficiency. The historical isolation of Spain, the tranquillity that stems from speaking a language that is understood in a large part of the world and the prevalence of dubbed films, can explain our distance from Europe but does not justify it. In the best of cases, we still have half-way to go to reach the level of our European neighbours. Granted, we have come a long way from a difficult situation, as just thirty years ago foreign languages were barely taught at school. But from now on we have to start learning them." (08/02/2008)

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All available articles from » Irene Lozano

Jean Portante derides Tony Blair's "European dream" as the former UK prime minister is widely said to be a candidate for the position of EU president that is part of the Lisbon Treaty. "Only the refined British sense of humour can help one grasp such an ambition. Let us remember, as if anyone could forget, that Great Britain governed by a certain Tony Blair was not only the champion opponent to the Constitutional Treaty, also kept its distance from both the Schengen and the euro zones, that are after all two incontrovertible pillars of Europe's unity. Even the European Charter of Fundamental Rights was a difficult pill for it to swallow. ... In these conditions, to promote Gordon Brown's predecessor for presidency of the Union is at best a joke, at worst continental amnesia of even a provocation." (07/02/2008)

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All available articles from » Jean Portante