Aivars Ozolins sees the agreement as a step in the right direction: "At the summit in Brussels, Latvia's Foreign Minister Maris Riekstins and Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis will be forced to listen to accusations that they violated EU regulations. The European Commission objects to individual EU member states conducting bilateral talks with the US on the subject of visa exemption. (The Czech Republic signed a similar memorandum in February, Hungary and Slovakia will soon follow suit). Instead, the EU wants to find a solution for all 27 member states and it appears it's not our turn yet. But all the 'old members', with the exception of Greece, already enjoy this privilege, and it's morally questionable to refuse us 'new' members this privilege until Brussels has found some kind of solution." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, Latvian)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » EU Policy, » Latvia, » Estonia, » Europe, » U.S.
All available articles from » Aivars Ozolins

Erkki Bahovski points out that within the EU, only Denmark and Great Britain initially granted Estonia visa-free travel, after which Finland and then other states finally followed suit. "Now, however, the EU wants Estonia and other states that are aiming for visa exemption for travel to the US to conduct the negotiations through Brussels. And this is where it begins to get somewhat paradoxical. Estonia has always been vehement in its calls for a common foreign and security policy for the EU, particularly regarding relations with Russia. Moreover, Estonia has always criticized the signing of bilateral agreements with Russia. But now we're doing exactly the same thing, only in the opposite direction: we're negotiating a bilateral deal with the US." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, Estonian)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » EU Policy, » Estonia, » Europe, » U.S.
All available articles from » Erkki Bahovski

"That the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia are negotiating bilateral visa-waiver agreements with the US, as is currently the case, is annoying, but no major drama," Martin Winter writes. "It weakens the EU's claim to negotiate with Washington in the name of all members and therefore from a position of strength, but that wouldn't be such a problem if it was a single, isolated case. However, it's just one link in a chain of events that are feeding doubts that the Eastern European states that joined the EU in one major round of expansion four years ago really have adjusted to membership. ... The temptation to enter bilateral agreements with the Americans and the Russians may be great, but the attractions of the collective strength [of the EU] should be greater. There is not a shred of evidence to support the idea that any single European state can achieve more on its own than a united EU." (13/03/2008)

» to the homepage (external link, Süddeutsche Zeitung)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » EU Policy, » Latvia, » Estonia, » U.S.
All available articles from » Martin Winter

"The times when we could rely on a growing middle class that integrates an increasing number of people are over. There will be heightened inequality in our society in future, and more and more people will become marginalised, German sociologist Heinz Bude explains in an interview with Angelika Brauer. "There are certain places in our society where opportunities accumulate, and others where the risks accumulate and people have less and less chance of gaining control of their lives through their own effort. ... The point I'm trying to make is: everyone counts, our society can't afford to lose a single person. The message of neo-liberalism was: 'Some are just unlucky. They're superfluous. We can't do anything about it.' We need to take a look at society as a whole and reflect on why some people get left behind and how we can get the 'excluded' back in." (12/03/2008)

» full article (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » Germany
All available articles from » Heinz Bude, » Angelika Brauer

The Italian author Giancarlo de Cataldo considers that Italians always wait for emergency situations to arise before acting on complex problems such as immigration, fires and waste disposal. "A matter of 'emergency' is our incapacity to manage the ordinary tensions of a western democracy. ... But anybody who thinks that Italy is hostage to a cast of enslaved politicians and journalists suffocating the vital impulse of an honest and generous population is mistaken, despite what civil society is claiming. Italians react badly to calls for the use of measure and good sense. The Italians love to reason with their guts. And a sensational news report or a populist's demagogical rant, with its questionable vocabulary, has a far stronger impact on guts than a well-argued debate. The taste for emergency comes from below, the elite is only adapting to it". (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Italy
All available articles from » Giancarlo de Cataldo

This March 13th French president Nicolas Sarkozy is presenting his controversial project of a Union for the Mediterranean in a European conference. After a diplomatic arm-wrestle, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel has managed to get all 27 EU members to remain united. The daily considers that this is therefore "a still-born project. Over the past ten years, the Barcelona process, intended to favour what is termed a 'Mediterranean dialogue', never got beyond the stage of good intentions and politically correct photographs. ... Sarkozy wanted to create a structure in which countries on the coast could benefit form European influence whilst avoiding the weight of the northern countries. It was naturally impossible to accept such an ambition which would have opened an institutional breach within the EU ... ." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, Spanish)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » EU Policy, » France, » Europe, » Southern Europe

Luís Menezes Leitão would like to see the same interest in the next European elections that we are witnessing for the American campaign. "There is a striking contrast between the vitality of American democracy and the way the most important decision are taken in Europe behind the backs of citizens, as exemplified with the Lisbon Treaty. ... We already have a Federal State in Europe, but the democratic process in the choice of governors chose the deep rift between European citizens and institution. Although the European Parliament is elected by universal suffrage, its election tends to be seen as an internal affair. ... What should be decisive in the democratic debate, i.e. which candidates from the various European parties preside over the European Commission, and what they propose for Europe is totally unknown. Europe cannot continue to be both an economic giant and a political dwarf". (13/03/2008)

» to the homepage (external link, Público)
More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Europe, » U.S.
All available articles from » Luís Menezes Leitão

The journalist and writer Roberto Saviano, author of 'Gomorra', an explosive investigation of the mafia, is intervening in the debate leading up to Italian legislative elections, denouncing the silence of the different parties, despite their past involvement with the mafia. "The fight against the mafia is conspicuously absent from this electoral campaign, on the left as much as on the right. The left has to recognise that it has not always been very strict when dealing with affairs linked to the mafia.... . The intelligence of the left has always been to claim that the mafia only concerns the other side. The superiority complex regarding organised crime! To think yourself free from infiltrations, to think that it is only ever other peoples' problem ... ." (13/03/2008)

» to the homepage (external link, Corriere della Sera)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Italy
All available articles from » Roberto Saviano

The United Nations and the European Commission have pinned down the Flanders region for linguistic 'discrimination'. In several reports published this week, both institutions express concern for the Flemish government's adoption of a 'wooncode', a housing code that reserves access to social housing for tenants who either speak Dutch, or commit to learning the language. For Martine Vandemeulebroucke, "the existence of linguistic discrimination and the emergence of racism between the country's two communities are taboo. And yet it exists. The long crisis ... has radicalised public opinion. The Mrax [Movement against racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia] more accustomed to having to defend illegal immigrants or Moroccan and Turkish minorities, is beginning to receive complaints of racism between the Flemish and French speaking communities. ... But this may also be Flemish people who, in certain hospitals need to be bilingual. Is this racial discrimination ? Not far off anyway." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Minorities, » Belgium
All available articles from » Martine Vandemeulebroucke

The French writer Marc Dugain pays homage to the last French WWI veteran, Lazare Ponticelli, who passed away on Wednesday, March 12th, at the age of 110. "The man who has just left us, Lazare Ponticelli, belonged to an immense family about on the verge of extinction, that of the surviving First Word War veterans. ... Henceforth, the memory of one of the biggest massacres in the history of humanity will not belong to a single man, but to all humanity. With his last breath, Ponticelli has just bequeathed it to us. ... With the passing away of this modest man, it is not a relic that is disappearing, but our biological link to a drama that occupies a considerable part of our collective conscience. This drama has been a heavy burden. Twenty years after it, traumatised democracies made way for another form of monstrosity. When the last survivor of the Shoah disappears, maybe we will be done with that gloriless century that has covered us in shame." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » History, » Germany, » France
All available articles from » Marc Dugain

The editorialist Chantal Tauxe bitterly deplores the Geneva authorities' refusal to deal with some of rubbish that the city of Naples accumulated. "Whether or not it ends up disintegrating in our factories, the Neapolitan refuse has besmirched us. We find ourselves with a new sort of environmentalist: nationalist ecologists, appointed Greens or flaky electoral ecologists who don't want to see the Campanile's waste burnt here, even if it were to temporarily guarantee the profitability of our oversized factories. To put it crudely, the Italians are being told to keep their shit! On the perfect ecological planet that these new self-righteous ayatollahs brandish as a reference, waste should certainly be burnt near its source. ... [But] facing climate imbalance and pollution we have to show solidarity and lend a hand." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Environmental Policy, » Italy, » Switzerland, » Europe
All available articles from » Chantal Tauxe

The assessment of the first cycle of the implementation of Europe's "Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Employment" points to stronger economic growth and higher employment figures in the EU. The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), however, reports a less shining performance and has called a pan-European large-scale demonstration for better pay on April 5 in Ljubljana. Bozo Masanovic notes: "Over the past two years, 6.5 million new jobs were created in the EU. Unemployment is at its lowest level in 25 years (7.3 percent) and the level of employment is approaching the Lisbon goal of 70 percent. ... Nonetheless, (according to the ETUC) almost one fifth of all workers in the EU are working shorter hours, and since 1997 the number of subcontracted workers has gone up by ten million. Almost 31 million workers earn paltry wages, and 17 million live under the poverty line." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, Slovenian)
More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Economic Policy, » Europe
All available articles from » Damijan Slabe

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico is once again penalising newspapers in the country that are critical of the government. The nation's two largest papers, "Pravda" and "Sme", are to be excluded from a government advertising campaign about the introduction of the euro. Lukáš Fila finds this absurd: "The assumption that one is against the government just because one criticises it and calls some of its moves into question is crazy. Just because you oppose the current government coalition doesn't mean you reject the euro. ... We must all accept the euro, and this is why public money is to be spent on informing people about the euro. If the prime minister uses this money to punish or reward media depending on how they judge his personal political goals, this is reprehensible." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, Slovak)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Media policy, » Slovakia
All available articles from » Lukáš Fila

There's a cold wind blowing through Prague's theatres. The city council is no longer willing to support them as generously as in the past, drawing vehement criticism from the theatres. Jiří Leschtina comments: "Theatres that depend on the decisions of politicians for their funding are a remnant from the Socialist era. In this sense the city council's plan is a step forwards, as is the plan to set up a committee of experts to decide which theatre projects deserve financial support. However, the funding is instead to be automatically allocated to those theatres that attract large audiences, for example because they cater to tourists. This turns the whole financing concept on its head, the purpose of which should be to support theatres that can't survive on their own and don't make a profit." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, Czech)
More from the press review on the subject » Stage, » Cultural Policy, » Czech Republic
All available articles from » Jiří Leschtina

Andrei Manolescu describes conditions in Romanian prisons: "It's true that over the past few years the prisons haven't been as overfilled as they once were, but they're still a long way from conforming to European standards. Under these standards, each prisoner is entitled to eight cubic metres of air. In Romania's prisons it's only six cubic metres, and even that is often only on paper. ... For sure, today's bad conditions are excellent compared with what they used to be. Ten years ago there was a maximum of two inmates to a bed, although often enough inmates had to sleep three in a bed. At least nowadays each prisoner has his own bed because the prisons are operating at 70 percent of their capacity. After all, many Romanian criminals have immigrated to other EU countries. Even the ministry of justice has admitted this, off the record." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, Romanian)
More from the press review on the subject » Romania
All available articles from » Andrei Manolescu

Returning to the UK from abroad, journalist Robert Crampton was frustrated to find there was no separate queue for British nationals coming home, who instead are 'lumped in' with all other EU passport holders. "Why does it matter ? Because I was coming home. ... I also wanted to share the sensation of returning to home soil, even if the soil is the bland grey carpet of an endless Heathrow corridor, and I could not. ... A love of the familiar and the secure is a harmless emotion; benign, and yet powerful. When the State seeks to realign such an emotion, to redefine home, to reattach loyalty to some other entity, resentment ensues. A minority of Europeans may feel equally at home in Barcelona or Birmingham, Munich or Manchester, but the deracination of the international political and business class should not dictate allegiances to the rest of us." (13/03/2008)

» full article (external link, English)
More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Integration, » United Kingdom, » Europe
All available articles from » Robert Crampton