Serbia and all other Balkan countries could offer advantages as new EU members, but they still have a lot of work to do, writes the daily Dagens Nyheter: "The Balkan countries are European and thus a natural part of the Community. If they are not allowed to join the EU there is the danger that their sense of isolation will grow. The rest of Europe can gain a lot from accelerating the process. It would be easier to track down drug dealers if the western Balkans could take part in the pan-European battle against crime. … At the same time the next expansion is a new and complicated project. Taking in additional poor member countries would put the Community and the solidarity within the Union to the test. Some of the countries in question are also weak states. Before the EU can accept them as members they must be made stronger. … Tough demands must be made of Serbian and all the other potential members. But President Tadić's visit [to the EU Council presidency in Stockholm] is a welcome move and confirms the EU's continued strong appeal." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU enlargement, » Europe, » Serbia

It is still too early for Serbia to join the EU, writes the left-liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung: "The stability and association pact - that is the first step to accession negotiations - has not been implemented by the EU because Serbia has still not arrested the presumed war criminal Ratko Mladic. With it's application Serbia's government is taking the second step before the first. The scandalous thing is that a majority of Serbs still reject the idea of handing Mladic over to the UN Tribunal, and that parliament has never condemned the genocide in Srebrenica. Nevertheless Italy, Spain and Sweden have encouraged Belgrade - against the advice of other EU members - to file the application. The EU will have to speak with a single voice if it wants to bring peace to the region. That is the lesson we learn from history, old and new." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU enlargement, » Serbia
All available articles from » Enver Robelli

The fact that Serbia has been able to apply for EU membership at all is among other things due to the current positive report delivered by Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, writes Borut Šuklje, former Slovenian ambassador to Serbia in the daily Finance: "Only five years ago the assessment made by the then chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte was entirely different. The disparity between the two reports highlights the different styles of government and also the different lifestyles. It demonstrates the difference between a closed and comparatively isolated Balkan state and the revival of a country with open borders and the prospect of EU membership. The reason for all this is Serbia's success in stabilising its government. … The countries of the west Balkans also need a political leader. Serbia's president Boris Tadić deserves most of the credit for the difference in the reports from The Hague. He was capable of taking the necessary decisions – including the decision to apply for Serbia's full membership in the EU." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » EU enlargement, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Serbia
All available articles from » Borut Šuklje

The healthcare reform has passed the first hurdle in the US Senate. The daily The Guardian sees in that an important victory for President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party: "The Senate's bill is still far from done and dusted. There are two other procedural votes and a further vote on Christmas Eve before it goes through, and those will require all 58 Democrats and two independents showing up in the snow. ... If the president signs it, it will still be the most significant healthcare legislation since Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965. And that is some achievement. It makes Mr Obama a man of deeds not just words. The midterm elections will test all incumbents, not just Democrat ones, and with Republicans united against the change, healthcare reform gives the Democrats an unassailable argument: don't let the Republicans take the gains we have given you in healthcare away." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Health Policy, » U.S.

The Iranian Grand Ayatollah and outspoken critic of Iran's regime Hussein-Ali Montazeri has died. The daily Irish Times praises his lasting commitment to the cause of justice in Iran: "He served time in the shah's jails, fell out with Khomeini in the late 1980s over the execution of thousands of dissidents, and became over 20 years one of the most outspoken critics of the regime which he described as 'neither Islamic nor a republic'. He had challenged the credentials of Khomeini's successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and spoken out for human rights and for the opposition after June's dubious election put President Ahmadinejad back into power. Montazeri's insider criticism of the regime was particularly damaging - impossible to answer, and impossible to repress - and came to reflect its narrow social and political base, particularly its increasing isolation from many of those who created the revolution. Time is likely to prove this to be its real weakness." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Domestic Policy, » Social movements, » Iran

Elections will take place next year for the Czech parliament, senate and local governments. The parliamentary elections will no doubt be won by those with the best recipe against the crisis, writes the business paper Hospodářské Noviny. "While surveys previously tended to favour the Social Democrats, since the outbreak of the crisis the conservatives have had the edge internationally. Now however both major Czech parties, the Social Democrats and the liberal conservative Civic Democratic Party, have had fear struck into their hearts by a common figure - the extraordinarily popular unaffiliated Prime Minister Jan Fischer. His cabinet has shown the people that the government can be run perfectly well without all the fuss of the big parties." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Economic Policy, » Czech Republic

The victories scored by resolving the Iraqi conflict are currently overshadowed by the war in Afghanistan in the media. Yet Iraq could serve as an example for Afghanistan, according to an article taken from Newsweek and published in the liberal-conservative Italian paper Corriere della Sera: "The United States still has 120,000 troops stationed in Iraq ... . How we draw down in Iraq is just as critical as how we ramp up in Afghanistan: If handled badly, this withdrawal could be a disaster. Handled well, it could leave behind a significant success. ... Iraq needs a stable power-sharing deal that keeps all three groups [Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds] invested in the new country. ... The costs of the Iraq war have been great and perhaps indefensible. But Iraq could still turn out to be an extraordinary model for the Arab world. Its people are negotiating their differences for the most part peacefully; its politics is becoming more pluralistic and democratic; its press is free; its provinces have autonomy." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » U.S., » Iraq
All available articles from » Fareed Zakaria

Limited access to loans is becoming the greatest hindrance to the recovery of the Spanish economy, writes the business paper Cinco Días: "Access to loans for companies is turning into one of the greatest obstacles, perhaps even the greatest, in the Spanish economy's attempts to get on its feet and turn its back on the  recession. Only yesterday the Chamber of Commerce published a study about the financing of small and medium-sized companies which exposes the gravity of the situation. The  study shows that 84.5 percent of these companies have serious problems getting a loan when they apply to financial institutes. And 14 percent of those who want to obtain a loan are turned down." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Corporations, » Financial Markets, » Spain

The Swedish carmaker Saab, a daughter of General Motors (GM), is on the verge of going under. But many questions shroud the circumstances of Saab's demise, writes the conservative news magazine Elsevier: "Too small for the global car industry, Saab has suffered financially in the past and is still suffering today. GM took ... Saab over ten years ago with the idea of strengthening its own arsenal with a ready-made line of luxury automobiles. ... But after that it did little to develop new models, the lifeline of every brand of cars. And now, just when the new Saab 9-5 has arrived, GM is floating in a vacuum between the state and the market. ...If Saab survives it remains to be seen how much this will depend on support from the European Investment Bank and the Swedish state. ... If Saab dies it will be due to market forces. Nevertheless recent events have shown that in fact it will be murder, wrought by the pathetic and unimaginative business policy of a multinational company." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Corporations, » Sweden, » Netherlands, » U.S.
All available articles from » Arthur van Leeuwen

Austrian police cleared the main lecture hall of the University of Vienna on Monday morning, which had been occupied by students for the last two months. But the students' demands have not yet been met, writes the daily Kurier: "Like the lecture hall, the new student movement has only been 'provisionally closed'. University rectors and professors are right to be surprised that the students have remained silent for so long. Surveys show their demands have been greeted with much sympathy, and after the pre-Christmas clearing of the lecture hall they now lie under the politicians' Christmas tree: insufferably crowded lecture rooms, hopelessly overloaded study plans and the duplicitous talk of a 'right to education' for all. The occupation of the main lecture hall is over. The students' dissatisfaction at the minimal solutions that have been offered remains. Austrian People's Party chairman Josef Pröll must lose no time in assigning a new education minister, someone who can come up with a better idea than a dialogue that will go on until kingdom come." (21/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Austria
All available articles from » Josef Votzi

Twenty years ago on December 25 the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife were executed. Only one of the people who participated in their show trial has assumed responsibility, the daily Adevărul writes: "What they did in this trial has disqualified them for life and destroyed the concept of 'justice'. A feared dictator can be condemned by valid accusations and overwhelming evidence, but not by a parody of a Stalinist trial that reduces us to the level of a tribe. … 'He who carries out a coup d'état is capable of killing anyone!', Ceauşescu concluded resignedly at the end of the trial. And he certainly wasn't exaggerating: The group [of perpetrators] … has hundreds of Romanians on its conscience who were shot during the days of the Revolution to keep the drama going. Only one has accepted responsibility for this absurd charade on Christmas Day: judge Gică Popa. He committed suicide in 1991. The others live on in peace to this day." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » History, » Remembrance culture, » Eastern Europe, » Romania
All available articles from » Grigore Cartianu

In a production broadcast by their two respective leading private television channels, TV Nova und TV Markíza, Czechs and Slovaks have for the first time searched jointly for a superstar over the past few weeks. The liberal daily Pražský Deník sees this "project for a federal retrospective" as a success: "The programme was popular with those who yearn for the former Czechoslovakia. But it also had its fans among those who see the division as good for Czech-Slovak relations. And the young people who can't remember what the united state was like were also enthusiastic. The music transcended both geographic and language barriers. The concerts and autograph sessions went down well both in Prague and in Kosice ... If a larger market pays off in financial terms for show business it should also work out in other areas too." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Audiovisual Media, » History, » EU neighbourhood policy, » Languages, » Czech Republic, » Slovakia
All available articles from » Ivan Hoffman

Wojciech Cieśla, editor of the daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, has been awarded an anti-award entitled "Vulture of the Year" by the Polish Journalists' Association for a poorly-researched interview that was part of a report on a politician who Cieśla accused of having illegal funds in tax havens. Journalist Monika Olejnik criticises the anti-award in Cieśla's paper: "I simply can't understand what could have moved the Polish Journalists' Association. It has given its anti-award to a journalist who was misled and who then publicly apologised for what he'd written. This prize is normally given to people who violate the profession's code of ethics. The fact is that sometimes situations arise which are very difficult to read, the outcome of which one simply can't foretell. If it then turns out that the material fails to hold water, the journalist has no option but to apologise." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Publishing houses, » Media policy, » Poland
All available articles from » Monika Olejnik

The media need to be better integrated into children's school life, Kirsi Pohjola of Kuopio University urges in the daily Helsingin Sanomat: "A gulf has opened up between the media culture of young people and the linear text practices at schools. This is not just about text worlds drifting apart but about a huge gap between living environments. At worst the pupils don't learn in a natural way tailored to themselves and their time, but are instead forced to leave much of what they learn outside the school. However once they start their working lives, functions that are typical of their media culture are required of them, such as multitasking, the willingness to switch quickly from one subject to another, personal commitment and how to deal with emotions. … It's no wonder media worlds attract children: here they are the protagonists, and even the producers of the information. In their learning environment, on the other hand, they have little say." (22/12/2009)

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More from the press review on the subject » Online media, » Media policy, » Finland