With her proposal on excluding countries from the Eurozone German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going against the very idea of European unity, writes the business daily Les Echos: "Such a move would be a particularly violent act within a political construction that has been based for half a century on the desire to be part of a common enterprise. Of course the chancellor was not speaking to the European Parliament but to members of the German Bundestag, who are particularly opposed to Berlin's allocating support for Athens. Nevertheless her speech marks a decisive turn. The euro was meant to be a start. A common currency was to bring about a rapprochement in budget policies, but nothing has been undertaken since. And as economists have predicted, the large gap between monetary and budgetary levels is posing a vital problem in times of crisis. The question is on the table and there are only two possible answers: make progress or go bust." (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Fiscal Policy, » Germany, » Europe
All available articles from » Jean-Marc Vittori

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is encountering resistance from all sides to her proposal for excluding member states from the Eurozone, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung notes: "The Chancellor wasn't at her best with her idea - not to say threat - of 'expelling a country from the Eurozone as a last resort'. If you're going to deliberate that kind of thing in full public view you must at the same time make it clear whether the country is also to be excluded from the EU or whether it can remain as a member in distress with full voting rights, or be deprived of its right to make decisions. Was it not one of the original ideas of European unification to achieve a mutually supportive community in which the peoples of Europe share the same fate?" (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Germany, » Europe

With Germany's negative stance on financial aid for Greece Chancellor Angel Merkel really takes the biscuit for uncooperativeness, the left-liberal daily Eleftherotypia writes: "Berlin waits until Greece, bled dry by speculating lenders, is on the brink of the abyss and only then does Frau Merkel begin to take an interest in the fate of her unfortunate partner. So this is what a mutually supportive community looks like! ... Germany even wants those countries that are gripped by crisis to be pushed off the cliff, or in other words out of the Eurozone. However these, which demonstrate the gaping institutional void of democracy, will not serve to construct the union of states with equal rights envisaged by the forefathers of the European Union. Europe's peoples believed in this vision of a European family that acted jointly and in agreement. Have they perhaps been betrayed?" (17/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » EU Policy, » Fiscal Policy, » Germany, » Greece, » Europe

The calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the option to exclude countries that refuse to reform and exceed deficit limits from the Eurozone are the wrong words at the wrong time, according to conservative daily Corriere della Sera: "Angela Merkel's declaration could conjure up new and worrying scenarios not just for Greece, but also for all Euroland. Even if the Chancellor's position appeared to mainly target public opinion and Germany's parliamentarians, coming in the midst of an international financial crisis that has also affected Germany's budget and its banks' balance sheets it is too harsh in both tone and timing. ... The Greece problem is per se a small and solvable problem. A Europe in which Germany renounced the key historical role it played in the formation of the European Community would be a far greater problem." (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Fiscal Policy, » Germany, » Greece
All available articles from » Alberto Quadrio Curzio

The government in Bratislava allegedly wants to introduce stricter controls on the Slovakian language skills of schoolchildren belonging to the Hungarian minority. The move is a response to a demand by Hungarian President László Sólyom that children of Hungarian minorities abroad should learn Hungarian as their first language. The liberal daily Sme has no time for this new turn in the language conflict: "The dispute over education in the majority language for children of a minority is typical of how politicians can stir up conflicts that would never arise without them. ... The Hungarian president has no idea in this matter. If he wants improvement he can raise the issue with the responsible commission, but not at an event in [the Northern Serbian province] Vojvodina. The mildly psychotic Slovakian Prime Minister [Robert Fico] was certain to react in kind. ... The current 'reinforcement' of school inspections will only be a torment for Hungarian pupils and teachers. All thanks to Sólyom." (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Minorities, » EU neighbourhood policy, » Languages, » Hungary, » Slovakia
All available articles from » Peter Schutz

Ninety years ago the Carinthian Slovenes voted in favour of southern Carinthia remaining part of Austria. It is high time Vienna imposed bilingual place-name signs in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daily Der Standard writes, but doubts this will be achieved: "Nothing will come of it once more because Austria's politicians ... are too cowardly to ignore the members of the [national conservative] Freedom Party of Austria in particular and the populist yellow press. And on the other side too, the scenario is pitiful. The Council of Carinthian Slovenes threatens to break up owing to its misguided ethnic policy. It is pushing for a new joint representation organisation, which would make sense, but at the same time it accuses the other Slovene associations of betrayal because they are seeking a political solution to the place-name dispute with the 'reactionary' Carinthian Homeland Service. The Council is thus doing the ethnic group, whose members have had enough of their functionaries' self-promotion and fear that the bilingual Carinthia is slowly but surely disappearing, a great disservice." (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Domestic Policy, » Slovenia, » Austria
All available articles from » Elisabeth Steiner

Sociologist Pál Tamás reflects on the state of social democracy in Central and Eastern Europe in the weekly cultural magazine Kritika: "In most cases Central Eastern European social democratic movements were successors to the communist state parties. After the fall of communism they were forced again and again to prove their democratic allegiance and adherence to the Western free market system, particularly that of the US. They had to be stalwart advocates of the market economy. They had to welcome the growth of international capital and keep talk of social solidarity to a minimum. ... In addition in the last 20 years they also had to commit to reforms, at least verbally. ... I don't want to say that the 'Eastern' social democrats rejected market reform or the modernisation of the state. But it is true that they have satisfied expectations on a verbal level and internalised at least in appearance the 'forced liberalism' imposed by West. And in some countries of Central Eastern Europe this has hindered a true renewal of social democracy." (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Elections, » Social affairs, » Central Europe, » Eastern Europe
All available articles from » Pál Tamás

The EU Commission has accused several European countries of cooking their books and lacking commitment to decreasing their debts. The business paper Cinco Días is happy to see that Spain is no longer the only country under fire: "The EU Commission yesterday expressed serious doubts about the stability plans of the 14 countries under examination, including Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Brussels warns that the majority of these economies may be unable to reduce their budget deficit to three percent of GDP within the designated deadlines of three to four years. It's a tough and probably accurate confronation with reality, no matter how much it upsets Europe's capitals, which will presumably respond by defending their plans before the Commission. But above all it's a cold shower for some of the people in charge of the larger economies who have grown all too used to looking down on the Spanish economy." (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Fiscal Policy, » Economic Policy, » Germany, » France, » Italy, » Spain, » Europe

The euro's current struggles cannot be attributed solely to Greece's problems, writes Harold James, history professor at Princeton University, in an article published in business paper Világgazdaság: "The euro precisely measures international tensions in that it is a bold experiment: a currency that is not linked to a state, but rather follows from international rules and treaties. ... But in the aftermath of a crisis, countries put national interests above their willingness to go along with international rules. ... What resulted was a partly flawed answer to the problem. That was because France and Germany, the principal protagonists in the drama of monetary integration, had different visions of how the problem should be solved. The Germans pressed for clearly defined fiscal rules, but other countries wanted more wiggle room. The French argued for European economic governance alongside the monetary union. ... The answers to a global problem of this kind cannot be found on a European level. It will demand global coordination of monetary policies, and some form of global economic governance. Europe tried this combination, and found that even in a regional setting it could not be fully realized." (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » Economic Policy, » Europe
All available articles from » Harold James

According to a study by the EU, the Slovenes are the people of Europe who most often take sick leave. That is due to poor working conditions and workers' fears for their livelihood, writes sociologist Urban Vehovar in the business paper Finance: "It was never possible for Slovenian farmers and workers to get by on a single job. They have always had to secure additional sources of income by taking on seasonal work or by working in forestry or mining. ... The problem with this survival strategy is that it is very hard on the body and the mind. At the same time it incurs high social costs. The number of cases of illness will only decrease when existential hardships cease to influence people's way of living. And that can only happen with a change in the current model." (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Health Policy, » Slovenia
All available articles from » Urban Vehovar

The Somalian-born critic of Islam Ayaan Hirsi Ali has criticised the faltering debate on Islam in the Netherlands. Green politician Tofik Dibi, himself a Muslim, writes in an open letter to Hirsi Ali published in the Internet forum joop.nl that the former politician is partially to blame for this: "Many studies have shown that the religious conduct of the new generations of Dutch Muslims is changing dramatically, ... with an increasing number of young Muslims forming their own religious interpretation and adopting a critical stance against their religion. ... Dear Ayaan, when I listen to you talk or read your books I am forced to conclude that you yourself are also contributing to this standstill in the Islam debate. You are among those critics of Islam who attack radical Islam. I think it is important to condemn this, but I find it just as important that the large group of free Muslims is given room to manoeuvre in the public debate. Those who fight for individual freedom should no force other into a straitjacket." (18/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Tofik Dibi

The Primate of the Catholic Church in Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady, who has come under fire for forcing two victims of abuse to take a vow of silence in 1975, has said he will only resign on the request of the Pope. But the cardinal should show a sense of responsibility, writes the daily The Guardian: "The ... Church itself has been badly damaged, morally and politically by the attitude that secular society should have no role in judging the transgressions of priests. That clearly underlay the decision of the court to treat this as a matter of internal discipline only, and it remained vivid in the Vatican until much later. ... The church needs to make a public, decisive, and irrevocable repudiation of that attitude, and Brady is in a position to make it." (18/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Andrew Brown

The Romanian press landscape has been in a state of crisis since the beginning of the year. Newspapers have been closed and journalists laid off. However the real blame lies not with the global crisis but with the journalists themselves, writes Doru Buscu in the blog Voxpublica: "The press after 1989 was a refuge for marginals. A salon for rejects, a club for those who couldn't make it elsewhere. It was a gathering place for second-hand enthusiasts and lazy, banal social flotsam. And I know what I'm talking about, I'm part of it myself. ... I don't want to attack anyone, but the situation is a little like the fate of Romanian authors under communism. They couldn't publish their works full of talented allusion and innuendo under the dictator, and the whole world waited for Ceauşescu to die so that the literature could well forth from the desk drawers. The world waited, but what did it discover? Not a single masterpiece surfaced." (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Publishing houses, » Print media, » Media economy, » Romania
All available articles from » Doru Buscu

Dutch radio and television have been reporting almost around the clock on the murder of a 12-year-old girl by a police officer. The extensive coverage borders on media hype, writes the left-liberal daily De Volkskrant in disapproval: "Thousands of years of civilisation haven't brought us forward one milimetre. Scenes of public tears and prayer are necessary to conjure up the devil. Evil is everywhere. ... In these ritual incantations it has become normal for reporters to jostle for position to be the first to declare Milly dead. And anyone who condemns such behaviour is raked over the coals on the Internet. ... In this way everyone profits from the death of a young girl." (18/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Audiovisual Media, » Online media, » Netherlands
All available articles from » Jean-Pierre Geelen

Sweden's capital Stockholm is widely regarded as one of the most segregated cities in Europe as far as ethnicity and income are concerned. The daily Dagens Nyheter calls for a new approach to urban planning: "By joining the suburbs and allowing the inner city to expand it would be possible to create an attractive urban milieu that could counteract the effects of segregation to the benefit of all Stockholmers. There seems to be a sort of cut and dried idea that segregation is first and foremost the problem of the suburbs. But in contrast to cities like London or urban districts like Manhattan where people of mixed ethnicity and social background live side by side, Stockholm's inner city has developed into an ethnically-cleansed enclave for a wealthy elite. That makes Stockholm a boring, provincial one-track city. ... If Stockholm wants to become a true metropolis, segregation must come to an end." (17/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Social movements, » Sweden
All available articles from » Bo Madestrand