Philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy contends that with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall a new myth is being created: that of the "fall-of-the-wall-that-no one-predicted." In the liberal daily Corriere della Sera he says this myth aims to deliberately distort the facts: "We are in the process, in other words, of leisurely confusing two things. Cowardice and blindness. ... We are in the process of confusing that with, on the other hand, the apparent silence, the long, silent, angry murmur of people who, on the ground, had understood for a long time and who were only waiting for the final spark to dare say that the king, or in other words the dictatorship, was naked. This confusion is more than a mistake; it is a fault. It is worse than a legend; it is disinformation. ... Sick of, yes, the banality, the clichés, rehashed ad nauseum; and honor to those who, with their minds or with their feet, saw the collapse approach and hastened it." (12/11/2009)

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According to a recent survey twelve percent of Germans want the Berlin Wall to be put right back where it was. The left-liberal daily Népszabadság comments: "Certainly, this desire must be read metaphorically. It's not that twelve percent of all Germans want the cement monster back, what they want back is the former German Democratic Republic. ... Politically this attitude has already found its advocate in The Left party. This party has risen to become a force to be reckoned with not only in the former East Germany, but also in the Bundestag, the national parliament. Before the Wall came down there were opposition figures in the East who favoured maintaining a 'democratic socialist alternative' vis-á-vis the Federal Republic, something they argued could only benefit Germany as a whole. Perhaps today The Left party is taking political advantage of this paradoxical idea. However that may be, people in the West are increasingly saying that the 'red poison' from the East is seeping through to West Germany in the form of The Left party." (11/11/2009)

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All available articles from » Endre Aczél

After the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago many European politicians worried the united Germany could abuse its newfound position of power. But the fear is unwarranted, writes Lluís Bassets in the left-liberal daily El País: "First of all, what we have now isn't the kind of German Europe that former German chancellor Helmut Kohl was after. The German unification also brought about the unification of Europe, which progressed with the accession of those states that remained neutral during the Cold War, including Austria. Even at this stage worries of a repetition of the 'Anschluss', or the annexation of Austria [by the Nazis] in 1938, were unfounded. On the contrary. Austria is a fully integrated partner in the Union, sharing its currency with Germany but living its political life independently of Berlin." (12/11/2009)

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All available articles from » Lluís Bassets

With the EU's support the US is to gain extensive access to European banking data. The liberal Financial Times Deutschland criticises what it sees as the Europeans' capitulation to the US authorities' security mania. "After the 9/11 attacks this end [security] justified practically all means. ... Now this is no longer the case. The security authorities have still not produced plausible evidence that such a sweeping encroachment on data protection is in proportion to this end. … The most frightening thing about it, however, is that the US could also pass on the information it thus obtains to other states. If nothing else then at least this should make those who are aware of the dubious governments with which Washington cooperates in the fight against terrorism sit up and take notice. … That the Swedes and even the Commission itself are uneasy about this blank check for transparent bank accounts is evident in the way they want to smuggle the agreement past the EU Parliament. This is a show of contempt not only for the MEPs, but also for all European citizens." (12/11/2009)

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The Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov has refused to recall two ambassadors accused of allowing irregularities during the elections. This has prompted the opposition parties DSB (Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria) and the Ataka party to call for Parvanov's removal from office. The daily Novinar urges the politicians to focus on the important issues at hand: "DSB and Ataka are once again resorting to the only legal possibility for the early removal of a head of state from office and thus pushing the growing unemployment and the financial crisis into the background. … The representatives of two important institutions in Bulgaria [the parliament and president] should put their energy and time into solving the real problems with healthcare, education, unemployment and the economy and not in filling newspapers and TV programmes with their personal attacks." (12/11/2009)

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All available articles from » Miglena Slavova

There were no smiling faces during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington this week, the left-liberal daily De Volkskrant notes. The paper concludes that US President Barack Obama's attempts to revive the Middle East peace process have failed for the present: "It is doubtful whether a forced peace deal will get any further than the drawing board on which it was sketched out. And diplomatic passivity harbours the danger of further increasing instability in the Middle East. There is no alternative but to continue working on the two adversaries with an even larger carrot and an even harder stick. And if it promises to be useful one must even be prepared to officially receive a politician as controversial as Israeli Foreign Minister [Avigdor] Lieberman. That makes it tough to rule out contact with a repugnant but nonetheless important movement like Hamas." (12/11/2009)

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After two years in government the Civic Platform (PO) is still not an efficiently functioning party, the daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna complains, writing that this could tarnish its great success to date: "The Civic Platform has simply wasted two years of its term of office because it missed the opportunity to turn itself into an efficient organism similar to the Western European parties. It remains a political movement which is only active during the election campaign. Its leader [Prime Minister Donald Tusk] and its success in the polls are the only things that hold it together. Nowadays the diagnosis of the PO's condition is a list of contradictions. On the one hand the internal condition of the party appears to be disastrous - full of people who feud with each other and hate each other. … On the other the Platform is a giant on Poland's political stage which has already won the upcoming presidential elections, the local elections and very likely also the parliamentary elections - at least that's the way it looks at the moment." (12/11/2009)

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All available articles from » Piotr Gursztyn

Relations between Germany and France have cooled considerably in recent years despite all appearances, writes the daily Le Monde: "Paris and Berlin hold similar positions on financial regulation and the fight against global warming. However that is still a long shot from sharing truly vigorous ambitions. France is like a rejected lover in this marriage of convenience. Economically-minded government, a minister responsible for French-German relations, common energy and industrial policies, all of these propositions come from Paris. Germany is hardly thrilled by any of them because it's convinced it has found the winning economic formula. France meanwhile toils away at its modernisation, however its public deficit robs it of all credibility. The two capitals give every appearance of having signed a non-aggression pact without having any common project to speak of. ... The voluntarism of the 1960s - with twin cities and language exchange programmes - has dwindled almost to nothing." (11/11/2009)

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To mark the 20th anniversary of the peaceful revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe former Czech President Václav Havel made a plea for more integration before the European Parliament. His speech, published by the conservative daily Lidové Noviny, deals primarily with the fears of his successor Václav Klaus about his country losing national sovereignty: "At all levels of our identity we have achieved a certain degree of sovereignty. At no level can we have total sovereignty. … The debate about Lisbon revolved around the question of how to balance national sovereignty with European sovereignty. … The answer is clear: they should complement each other. I don't cease to be a Czech just because I see myself as a European. On the contrary: just as I am a Czech I am also a European. To put it rather poetically I would say that Europe is the homeland of all our [different] homelands." (12/11/2009)

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Romania is without leaders: a month ago its ruling coalition collapsed because the Romanian parties were accusing each other of fraud in the run-up to the presidential elections. The reasons for the current chaos can be found in the traditions of Romanian society, claims theatre director Matei Vişniec, who left Romania and settled in France, in an interview with the daily Evenimentul Zilei: "I am part of a generation that thought communism was the greatest evil. Now I see that a free society can also develop in a different orbit of evil where people may not suffer the hardships of communism but nonetheless suffer. If I were to weigh the loathing Romanians feel at present in tonnes against the disgust they felt in the Ceauşescu years I almost think the quantity would be the same. … I could say that democracy is like a musical score that is played differently by different nations, depending on their culture, history and local customs. … We Romanians combine Romance and Slavic culture, for we are a 'Romance island in a Slavic Sea', in which Balkan and oriental traditions also play a role. Our interpretation of the democratic score involves selecting all the ugliest, most grotesque and most kitschy elements of all the other interpreters." (12/11/2009)

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All available articles from » Matéi Visniec

The European Commission has once again proposed levying an EU tax. The Lisbon Treaty makes such a tax feasible, however the mood in the member states rules it out, the daily Savon Sanomat writes: "According to the Commission a comprehensive financial reform would be necessary to grant the EU the right to levy taxes. … But it would be virtually impossible to push through a direct EU tax at present. The global recession has increased the member states' debts and once the situation improves each state will have plenty to cope with just paying off its own debts. An EU tax under these circumstances would inevitably lead to higher tax rates, and how are politicians supposed to sell that to their voters? Support for the EU has already hit an all-time low in a number of member states." (12/11/2009)

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The German energy company E.ON has agreed to sell its German electricity network to the power-grid operator TenneT, which is 100 percent owned by the Dutch state. The deal makes TenneT Europe's first cross-border network operator. Nevertheless pursuing purely national interests on the energy market is false, writes the daily NRC Handelsblad: "According to the parties concerned ... the buyer can only profit from the agreement, because now cheaper Germany electricity will be available in the Dutch network. But despite such short-term, unexpected benefits it must not be forgotten that it is the task of the EU to prevent energy policy from becoming dominated by national interests. Only by pooling their efforts within the Union can the countries of Europe maintain a strong profile on the global energy market. Energy is running short, and much innovation is called for regarding the environmental and climate problems we face." (12/11/2009)

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Alex W., the 28-year-old who murdered the Egyptian Marwa El-Sherbini in a German courtroom, has been given a life sentence. The daily Der Tagesspiegel complains that the "scarf murder" has failed to engender widespread discussion. "Alex W.'s ideological nuts and bolts are tightly screwed into the minds of many upright citizens. And with headscarf laws some countries have now even incorporated certain components of such thinking into their legislation. Nevertheless it should have shocked many to see how many points of interface there are between Alex W.'s crude view of the world and what is now considered a certainty by very many people in Germany. ... Apparently, however, it didn't. It seems that in the 21st year after the German unification the ideas current both on the Right and on the Left really are creating a nation of brothers and sisters. On the Right Islam is considered culturally foreign, while on the Left it is condemned as an enemy of women, gays and individual freedoms." (12/11/2009)

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All available articles from » Andreas Dernbach

On November 11, the Polish national holiday celebrating the country's independence in 1918, the historian Jan Ciechanowski roundly criticises his countrymen in the daily Polska: "The Poles' worst enemies are the Poles themselves. Above all because they don't know how to take advantage of their victories. Faced with external enemies we have always been able to unite. But once we achieve a victory, we immediately start to bicker amongst ourselves instead of using the success to our advantage. Roman Dmowski and Józef Piłsudski [Polish leaders at the start of the 20th century] pooled their forces because they recognised it was in the interest of Poland as a whole. But since that time we've been battling against ourselves - and I mean really going at each other's throats." (12/11/2009)

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A Danish study shows that 71 percent of all news in the country originates in the newspapers, and that the Internet, radio and television are often content merely to relay this information. The daily Kristeligt Dagblad sees this as further proof that the newspapers should receive public support. "The new media have changed media consumption in Denmark. Fewer people buy newspapers, more use the Internet. Here the big money is earned by international and American giants like Google, Facebook and Ebay, which have pulled the rug out from under the papers by stripping them of their advertising revenues while not adding a scrap of new information themselves. ... Just as the pinnacles of the art world, the best authors, theatres and orchestras receive more public money than others for the exceptional services they perform, so too the newspapers should be helped with public funds. Their contribution to democracy and social enlightenment is simply indispensable." (12/11/2009)

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