The strike called by Greek trade union association GSEE is entirely unjustified in the eyes of conservative daily Kathimerini: "The GSEE is striking today against measures that basically 65 percent of the population agree with, without making any proposal as to where the money for the workers is to come from if the government's tough measures aren't implemented. ... It's clear that even the union leadership doesn't believe its own statements, or in the need for or effectiveness of the strike. It has called this strike because it was its duty to do so. The strike is not directed at the working class but at the different interest groups. ... It doesn't care about how much the strike will cost. They haven't considered the damage this will do to production ... and the country's reputation ... with potential lenders." (24/02/2010)

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All available articles from » Dionisis Gousetis

Greece is afraid that horror stories about its debt crisis could lead to increasingly strict constraints from Brussels, writes the portal SpiegelOnline with a view to today's general strike in the country: "Greece's powerful unions now want to fight back with a general strike. ... Above all it's the country's priviliged civil servants who are burdening the country with strikes. ... Many Greeks are angry that the Germans of all people are pushing for a rigorous austerity policy. ... Prime Minister Papandreou stresses that what Greece really needs from its European partners is political, not financial support. Only in this way, he says, can his country win back lost confidence - and attain lower interest rates on financial markets. And only in this way can the country have a much needed respite to make the strict austerity programme bearable for the people." (24/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Fiscal Policy, » Germany, » Greece, » Europe
All available articles from » Corinna Jessen

Unions in the Czech Republic announced on Tuesday that public transport in the country would be halted on Monday. The business paper Hospodářské Noviny comments: "Europe is sliding into the second phase of the crisis. For politicians this phase is even more difficult to control than the first. It was easier to pump money into the banks and leave debts to the generation of our grandchildren. But calming the generation of parents and grandparents is another thing altogether. For them it's increasingly difficult to find jobs, and those they have are poorly paid as a rule. Europeans could do with a politician like Churchill, one who disregards current moods and opinion polls and determines the direction to be taken. But where, and how, can such a one be found?" (24/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » Economic Policy, » Trade unions, » Germany, » Spain, » Greece, » Czech Republic, » Europe
All available articles from » Martin Ehl

The left-liberal daily Politiken is unimpressed by Denmark's extensive government reshuffle whereby 15 government posts changed hands: "Political leadership means much more than just getting rid of ministers embroiled in scandal. And unfortunately it's the most ramshackle group of party hacks who've been brought out for this ostensible renewal. ... It could soon become clear that the move really means one step forward and two steps back. The decisive thing remains how [centre-right] Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen deals with the much delayed convergence report and the unpopular cleanup measures after the consumer festival [period of full wage packets and cheap loans in Denmark]. Ultimately Løkke's government will be judged not by who holds what office, but by the policies it implements." (24/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Denmark

On Tuesday Spain's two largest trade unions, the UGT and CCOO, called rallies in protest at the planned raise of the pension age from 65 to 67. The conservative daily ABC laments that even this small amount of pressure was enough to deter Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero from his plans: "Even the minimum pressure exerted by the UGT and CCOO with today's protests - moderate and government-friendly as they were - was enough to elicit the desired response, because even before the demonstrations began Zapatero had ruled out any reform of the pension system or other social policies that didn't meet with the approval of the unions, saying the latter were 'decisive' for a consensus. The possibilities of a new economic and labour policy have evaporated with Zapatero's renewed embrace of unionist 'peace'. It makes little sense to persist in offering the political groups a pact that in any case will first have to pass through the filter of the trade unions, which have already drawn their demarcation lines." (24/02/2010)

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With new elections to take place in the Netherlands in three months' time the Dutch parties are unsure about how to handle far-right politician Geert Wilders, the conservative daily Lidové noviny writes: "With him or without him? This question, reminiscent of Hamlet, is hovering over the Dutch political scene. ... Wilders' party is holding its own in the survey. One of the left-wing parties, the die PvdA, which until yesterday formed part of the government, is trying to isolate Wilders from the outset. But this appeal fell on deaf ears with the other parties. The right-wing parties may not like the prospect of sharing the government seat with Wilders, but they refuse to rule out his participation in a coalition - among other things because they don't want to further boost his popularity." (24/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Elections, » Netherlands
All available articles from » Petr Pešek

In the German city of Hanover a young woman's application for naturalisation was rejected on the grounds that she is a member of The Left party. According to the naturalisation authorities, the "programmatic-ideological orientation" of the party is irreconcilable with the values of the free and democratic constitutional order. The state is doing Jannine Menger-Hamilton an injustice, the leftist paper the daily die tageszeitung concludes: "How can an authority abuse the constitution like this ... ? This is all tied up with the query regarding loyalty to the state, which must be obtained from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the course of naturalisation proceedings. Even the query itself is objectionable from a democratic point of view in that it casts suspicion on all foreigners applying for naturalisation, it reverses the presumption of innocence and it is based on the unchecked flow of information between the secret service and the state authority in question. ... The Menger-Hamilton case shows just how arbitrarily the constitutionality of The Left party is judged among the different German states." (24/02/2010)

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Remarks on the French debate on national identity made by former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt have triggered fierce reactions. Today a Member of the European Parliamant, Verhofstadt defends his views in the daily De Standaard: "It is impossible to found a peaceful and prosperous society on a term like 'identity'. To put it in general terms, 'identity' is a symptom of our inability to accept the world as it is. The future of Europe is a far cry from depending on the search for national identity, and it certainly cannot lie in the sum of all national identities. Today's Europe, 'l'Europe des Nations', is a relic of the past. It is a Europe that is unable to solve problems. And it is a Europe that will hardly play a meaningful role in the multipolar world of the 21st century. In short: the future of Europe and the European Union will be postnational, or no future at all." (24/02/2010)

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All available articles from » Guy Verhofstadt

A Bulgarian-Russian summit took place at the end of last week in Sofia, discussing among other things possible Bulgarian participation in the South Stream natural gas pipeline. Valentin Kanev writes in the daily Standart that Russia is putting Bulgaria under pressure: "Russia has been trying to gain control of the Bulgarian gas pipeline network for more than 15 years. What's at stake here is not only the protection of our natural interests, but also the implementation of EU energy policy. I would like to stress that Gazprom is only interested in the transit pipelines, because it has already controlled practically the entire Bulgarian gas supply network through its subsidiary Overgaz for years. As the country's major supplier Overgaz has its hand on all the taps. ... Nevertheless, more relevant is the question of how long Russia will keep pressuring us concerning every energy project we're involved in when pipelines run through our territory." (24/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Energy, » Economic Policy, » Russia, » Europe, » Bulgaria
All available articles from » Valentin Kanev

Italy's public prosecution department issued 56 arrest warrants on charges of money laundering and tax fraud on Tuesday. Fastweb, a subsidiary of Swisscom, and Sparkle, a Telecom Italia subsidiary, have been caught up in the investigations. An estimated two billion euros are alleged to have been embezzled and laundered through fictitious trade operations. The left-liberal daily La Repubblica sees this as a further symptom of the corruption that has infested the entire country: "We cannot tolerate indulgent laws that treat corruption like a minor offence, a practice that is insignificant from a penal and social point of view, so that court trials against this practice can safely be limited. The undeniable existence of this Italian pathology, the long chain of scandals that hold up a mirror in which the country can examine itself must make us realise what the entire Western world already knows: corruption destroys institutions, democracy, moral values, and the judiciary. It threatens a society's stability and the security." (24/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Corporations, » Tax Policy, » Italy
All available articles from » Giuseppe d'Avanzo

Social fraud is a common phenomenon in welfare states. Polish news magazine Wprost sees the root of the problem in an ineffectual economic system that perpetuates poverty: "In Italy 17 percent of the budget is allocated to social expenditure, while in Poland it's 19 percent and in France it's 31 percent. This means there is a pile of money we can stretch our hands out for. ... Let's not deceive ourselves: the fraud encompasses all the state's social activities and no amount of rules or controls … will be able to prevent it. Why? The cheating is a natural consequence of the economic system that predominates in Europe. The low competitiveness of the economies, the obstacles to company trade and unusually high taxes ensure that the number of people who live in poverty remains high." (24/02/2010)

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All available articles from » Sebastian Stodolak

A bill currently before the House of Lords is aimed at enabling same-sex couples to get married in church in future. This is another setback as it relegates homosexuals to the already highly unpopular institution of marriage, writes the daily The Times. Better would be to allow homosexual couples the right to legally protected partnerships, as is the case in France and New Zealand, the paper writes: "As the French example shows, this could result in hundreds of thousands of couples, many with children, entering into legally protected partnerships that otherwise they would not. Part of the appeal of the French 'PACS' is that they can be ended by a letter from either partner, without any claims on the other's money or property. UK partnerships have the same divorce requirements as marriage (with the exception of adultery as a ground for divorce)." (24/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Religion, » Social movements, » Demographics, » Weltanschauung, » Gender equality, » France, » United Kingdom, » Global
All available articles from » Mark Simpson

The Latvian parliament plans to vote on a proposal which would limit trade with alcohol in the near future. The daily Latvijas Avīze welcomes the initiative: "In Latvia more than 10 litres of pure alcohol are consumed per capita and per year, there are countless alcoholics and statistics show that the number of minors being brought into hospitals with alcohol poisoning is on the rise. … Sweden also has strict limits on the times when alcohol can be sold, and only persons above 20 are allowed to purchase alcohol after showing their ID. Moreover, drunk customers are not served, and the taxes on alcohol are high. In Latvia, on the other hand, minors are still able to successfully purchase alcohol. Yet alcohol does more damage to human lives than all the wars, earthquakes and illnesses put together: thousands of people die prematurely, sink into poverty, commit crimes and destroy their families – and then pass this devastating baton on to the next generation." (24/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » Health Policy, » Health and Medicine, » Latvia, » Sweden
All available articles from » Sarmīte Ķikuste

The number of negative articles on Lithuania is growing by the day on Russian Internet sites, writes the news portal Balsas: "The readers then put their comments at the bottom, in which they delight - very much along the lines of Russian propaganda - that Lithuania has so many problems, without offering any solutions. In fact the goal of such KGB-like propaganda is not to prompt its victims into taking action, because that would just mean demasking itself. Instead it attempts to demoralise the inhabitants of the target country through such underhanded propaganda. But why are these people victims? Because even the best criticism is senseless if it's not accompanied by a proposed solution. Everything can be criticised in an intelligent, orderly way. People who do nothing but point out what's wrong might think they're oh so clever, but in fact it's they themselves they're deceiving." (24/02/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Online media, » Media policy, » Press freedom, » Lithuania, » Russia