The man suspected of committing the shootings in Toulouse, Mohamed Merah, has identified himself as an Islamist. However according to the liberal daily Pražský deník this is no reason to start condemning Islam all over again because suspected murderers like Merah are always first and foremost fanatics: "In spontaneous reaction to such events the public tends to condemn the religion in the name of which the crimes are committed along with the murderer. … The fact that the murderer is acting contrary to his religion is overlooked. After all, the great majority of his fellow believers don't commit murders. It is neither spiritual orientation nor ideology that lies behind such acts of terrorism, but fanaticism. Not all fanatics go around killing people but all of them poison their surroundings. They are intolerant, force their opinions on others and act with intent, vanity and arrogance. May Allah, Jesus, Buddha and all the forces of society protect us against such people." (22/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Ivan Hoffman

First the shootings in Toulouse were suspected of being the work of right-wing extremists, now it appears to have been an Islamist attacker. These two extremes actually have a lot in common, notes the liberal daily La Stampa: "A mad devotee of Allah has now climbed out of the abyss in Toulouse. Not a right-wing extremist paratrooper who is protecting the brown spectre of French history, but a soldier of the daily Intifada that rages in the suburbs. How can it be that in the search for an explanation to the two massacres two such disparate if not opposing worlds were weighed up as potential culprits? Both are equally plausible. The Islamist terrorist and the neo-Nazi both belong to our society's underground. Two fundamentally different nightmares that peacefully coexist without coming into contact with each other. And when they do, they actually bolster each other. They are two mutually complementary nightmares." (22/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Cesare Martinetti

To avoid murders like those in Toulouse there must be discussion about the coexistence of different cultures and religions, the left-liberal daily Le Soir demands: "Whether this is an isolated incident or not, whether or not the killer is a madman, the question of how we are to live together is once an urgent issue. This is notably the case regarding the Arab and Muslim world, which is held hostage to the aberrances of its members. Perhaps the only positive outcome is that these events show that it is only together, as moderate democrats of all stripes, that we can come up with efficient responses. Faced with gestures that divide and kill, now more than ever we need the means to build bridges. To weave a sound web that can catch those in distress." (22/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Béatrice Delvaux

The shootings in Southern France signal that the international jihad has changed its strategy and is increasingly relying on terrorist solo combatants, writes the liberal-conservative daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung: "Al-Qaida is weakened and no longer able to carry out attacks of a global dimension like that on the Twin Towers in New York. ... At the same time a method is coming to the fore which was once only one among many. Al-Qaida and other groups are encouraging their recruits to go home and take independent action. The main concern of the authorities now is therefore not a repeat of 9/11 but smaller, uncoordinated attacks in a grey zone somewhere between organised terrorism and the desperation of mentally unstable individual attackers. Toulouse proves that such attacks may be more limited in their impact but are still capable of leaving an entire country in a state of shock." (22/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Eric Gujer

The German government approved the national budget for 2013 on Wednesday. It amounts to just over 300 billion euros and the government can take out new loans of 19.6 billion euros. But new debts will make Germany look untrustworthy in Europe, the tabloid Bild complains: "Up to now Germany has been regarded as the model pupil across Europe when it comes to frugality. But since yesterday we know that this no longer applies! Instead of borrowing less the government wants to borrow around 9 billion euros more than planned. A fatal signal! While other euro states are forced to tighten their belts till it really hurts Germany is simply letting itself go. Yet there could hardly be a better time to get rid of all the debts. The economy is humming, the salaries are rising and the social security coffers are overflowing. The government needs more courage to economise. Why not cut back on the billions in subsidies for pension and health insurance funds, for example? Why not cut parental benefits? And why introduce the new and expensive care allowance? A country that condemns others to turbo-austerity should be prepared to set a good example." (22/03/2012)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Economic Policy, » Europe, » Central Asia
All available articles from » Jan Schäfer
Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis

The fierce disputes in Germany over the ratification of the European bailout fund EFSF and the European Stability Mechanism ESM should finally wake up the French, writes German economist Wolfgang Glomb in the liberal business paper La Tribune, particularly since the solidarity tax for Eastern Germany has been of no avail: "Taxpayers on both sides of the Rhine have the same interest in adopting Bavaria's role on a European scale and refusing to pay for the mistakes of their neighbours. True, they can't take their suit to the European Court of Justice, but in the next elections they can vote against further European integration, which demands more solidarity than they can muster. French politicians and the general public should take heed and oppose a European transfer union." (21/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Wolfgang Glomb
Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis

Finland's Defence Minister Stefan Wallin of the Swedish People's Party (RKP) must face a vote of no confidence in parliament today after he admitted on Wednesday that he had used his influence to spare the Swedish-language garrison Dragsvik from closure. Wallin's attempt to keep the matter quiet is being played down by Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen and Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen lest it should provoke a government crisis, writes the liberal daily Aamulehti: "It was a deliberate political cover-up. ... Clearly for fear of a government crisis, Katainen and Urpilainen decided to silently overlook the affair, whereby the SVP could simply appoint a new defence minister. It will hardly alter anything in the Dragsvik decision that the government and the state president take up the issue once more. The conflict will only diminish trust in the SVP as a coalition partner." (22/03/2012)

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The Romanian public prosecutors' office on Wednesday applied for an international arrest warrant against parliamentarian Mihail Boldea, who is suspected of corruption and has gone underground. This is the first time this has happened. The news portal Ziare blames the immunity of parliamentarians for the present situation: "Parliamentary immunity is a major problem. ... It must be revoked before arrests and house searches can take place. But this takes away the element of surprise. … If the Minister of Justice asks parliament to revoke immunity so that a house search can be carried out, what happens? Naturally one tries to dispose of anything that could be incriminating. … Money, papers and other things can be hidden or destroyed. So what's the point of carrying out a search? ... And on top of everything else Mihail Boldea has now gone missing." (22/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Constantin Racaru

The Danish government decided on Wednesday to redistribute 400 million kroner (about 54 million euros) among the country's rural communities within the framework of its financial adjustment programme, a move which has provoked much displeasure in the capital Copenhagen. The liberal-conservative daily Jyllands-Posten calls for a thorough investigation of the economic situation in the city and in the provinces: "The government would do Denmark a service by setting up a committee to disperse all the myths and prejudices that pit the city against rural areas, the capital against the provinces and that should not exist in a country as small as Denmark. Without an inquiry there is the risk that the economic divide within Denmark will worsen as the capital expands. ... No one can want a national mud-slinging contest between those who want more motorways and those who want a subway in Copenhagen. Unless, of course, they are pursuing the policy of 'divide and rule'." (22/03/2012)

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More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » Infrastructure / Travel and Transport, » Denmark

The British Chancellor of the Ex-Chequer George Osborne presented a budget for 2012/2013 on Wednesday that foresees a cut in the top rate of income tax. Those who earn more than 180,000 euros (150,000 pounds) a year will pay 45 percent instead of 50 percent in income tax as of April 2013. This gift to the rich demonstrates how conservative the young Osborne is at heart, the liberal-conservative daily Corriere della Sera concludes: "The aristocratic custodian of the British budget, George Osborne, is making the right wing of the conservative Tory party happy. For some time now the latter had been demanding a gesture of goodwill towards 300,000 of the 29 million taxpayers in Britain. This tax relief comes as a welcome Easter gift. It was clear that sooner or later the custodian of the austerity policy would show his true colours. At the tender age of forty he's already a die-hard conservative. And George Osborne is the government's strongman. He has carved his political stamp on it with his budget." (22/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Fabio Cavalera

At the end of the winter the Austrian tourist industry can boast a sizeable profit margin. Yet there is still a lack of social recognition for this sector's services to the country, writes the Christian-liberal daily Salzburger Nachrichten: "The local tourist companies have a history of being poorly capitalised, which results in high risk premiums and expensive borrowing. The hard-earned money disappears into thin air. ... What the industry urgently needs is more respect for the services it provides and manages. More than 40 billion euros in added value per year is no bagatelle. The general public, however, still sees the hotelier as the stingy patriarch who exploits his staff rather than a manager who has to be at his company's service round the clock without ever losing his smile. The many industrious service providers in this sector can't be praised highly enough. They are the ones who make our holidays perfect, and too few people are aware of this." (22/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Brigitta Schörghofer

The painting The Negress by the Polish artist Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowiczowa has returned to the National Museum in Warsaw. It was stolen during World War II and taken to Germany. The liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza sees the painting as a painful reminder of the colonial era: "In order to measure the value of a person she was stripped bare. That is the sign of a slave in a double sense: in 19th century French society, a person with the status of a slave was depicted as a slave. She looks in horror at a point beyond the frame, and not into the painter's eyes. ... It's fantastic that this painting has returned to Poland. But we must also face up to the 19th century ballast that it brings with it, and which today we call 'colonialism'. ... This suggests that the discovery of our own culture is not just a cause of joy but also a painful process." (22/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Dorota Jarecka

Catholic theology is the cause of the numerous cases of abuse in Ireland's Catholic Church, writes the psychologist Marie Keenan in her new book Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Gender, Power and Organisational Culture, for which she interviewed nine priests accused of child abuse. The Church's contradictory teachings, hostile attitude towards the body and incitement of feelings of shame are to blame for the crimes, according to the book. And yet again the Church is playing deaf, writes the liberal daily The Irish Times: "There is nothing at all of this in the report of the bachelor apostolic visitors, instead a recommendation that the culture of the seminary be intensified in the lives of aspirants for the priesthood. No acknowledgement is made of the tension inherent in the celibacy thing and the hypocrisies and traumas to which it gives rise. In general there seems to be little interest in why this clerical abuse has occurred and what it is within the Catholic culture that has engendered it. The dismissive explanation that it is all due to the 'flawed' personalities of the abusers ignores the cultural and formative factors that at least contributed to the phenomenon." (22/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Vincent Browne

The US Anti-Defamation League has studied the levels of anti-Semitism in ten European countries and concluded that anti-Semitism is most prevalent in Hungary. In the left-leaning daily Népszava the writer Iván Andrassew urges Hungarians not to infect youths with the virus of anti-Semitism: "In all seriousness I would like to encourage readers to reflect on whether it's okay for Hungary to basically be the most racist country in Europe. ... 55 percent of Hungarians agree with the idiotic idea that 'Hungarian Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own country'. ... 63 percent out of every hundred Hungarians believe that 'the Jews still talk too much about what happened to them during the Holocaust'. ... The last point provides a good opportunity for self-examination. Think about the following sentence: 'The Hungarians still talk too much about the Treaty of Trianon'! I humbly beg for one thing: let us at least refrain from infecting our children!" (22/03/2012)

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All available articles from » Iván Andrassew

The police in Estonia are not always friendly and helpful, writes the tabloid Õhtuleht, saying that the main problem with the police is their unfriendliness rather than corruption: "Some people certainly believe that rather than watching over dangerous areas the police above all collect money at intersections that are anything but dangerous - for example right behind the signs welcoming drivers to their town. ... There can be no doubt that police work isn't easy, and that it calls for serious, committed and responsible officers. But they would make their own work easier sometimes by showing a little more empathy and friendliness. ... But to do this the police would have to change their entire way of thinking." (22/03/2012)

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