The discount campaign staged by Portugal's largest supermarket chain on May 1 has triggered a fierce debate about price politics in the food sector. Retailers certainly didn't do their customers any favours with this strategy, the left-liberal weekly Expresso concludes: "Did they lose or make money with this campaign? If they lost money this means that they were guilty of price dumping and that their profit margins are so large that they can afford to lose money voluntarily. … And if they feel so socially obliged to their penny-pinching customers why don't they give a 10 percent discount for the next six months to a year rather than launching a one-off 50 percent promotion that turned us into a fourth-world country for a day?" (07/05/2012)

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More from the press review on the subject » Trade, » Consumers, » Society, » Portugal
All available articles from » Miguel Sousa Tavares
Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis

According to a recent study by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Finnish children and youths are quite happy with their lives if they have good living standards. To prevent the social differences within the country from growing schools in particular must quickly take action, writes the daily Kaleva: "The study shows that living standards influence how content children and youths are. The richer the family, the more likely it is that the child or youth will be content with their life. … So the economic situation of the family appears to have a marked impact on their sense of well being. … Schools can play a major role in reducing the impact of different backgrounds. Although the Finnish school system calls for equal rights it can't eliminate the differences between the social classes. If these differences continue to grow we must reckon with problems in the future. So early intervention to prevent this is required." (07/05/2012)

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More from the press review on the subject » Gender equality, » Society, » Finland

According to surveys by the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the National Statistical Institute, 80 percent of Bulgarian employers have at best a secondary school diploma, whereas around 70 percent of academics can't find a position suited to their qualifications. The daily Duma is concerned about Bulgaria's future: "On the one hand employers feel menaced by self-confident employees with superior education who know their rights as workers. On the other hand the requirements demanded of qualified staff are completely excessive: they should speak two to three languages, have three to five years of work experience and not be older than 25. On top of all that they should have modest expectations as far as salary goes. As a result, highly qualified job seekers have two options: accepting a job below their status or emigrating. ... If the government doesn't take steps to counter this trend we'll soon be a banana republic through and through." (04/05/2012)

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In Sweden a children's event organised by the Left Party on May 1 in Malmö has caused a wave of indignation. At the event children were encouraged to hit papier-mâché figures representing ministers of the conservative government with baseball bats until they broke, releasing a shower of candy. Such initiatives jeopardise the openness of Swedish society, warns the liberal daily Göteborgs-Posten: "In the past 25 years two ministers have been murdered in peaceful Sweden. Violence against politicians is no laughing matter. Swedish television recently aired a report on intensified security measures at several local government facilities across the country. It's important that Sweden's society remains as open as possible in the future too. However for this we need to keep political debate clean. Baseball bats are out of place here." (04/05/2012)

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A debate has broken out in the Netherlands over the Dutch Remembrance of the Dead, celebrated on May 4. In some places not just the victims of World War II but also fallen German Wehrmacht soldiers are commemorated. The day must be dedicated to the victims only, writes the liberal daily NRC Handelsblad: "There is a persistent misconception regarding good and evil in war. It's a misapprehension that there are no longer any clear moral or political boundaries, because between black and white everything is more or less grey. ... The deportation and annihilation of the Jews, the torture of (ideological) opponents, the plundering and enforced conformity of a pluralist country, the incredible violence against hundreds of thousands of frequently helpless victims - here one can't talk about nuances. Those who took part in these things were on the wrong side. Those who put up resistance did the right thing." (03/05/2012)

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More from the press review on the subject » History, » Remembrance culture, » Netherlands

A supermarket chain in Portugal promised customers a 50 percent discount on purchases exceeding 100 euros on May 1, triggering such an onslaught of shoppers at its stores that the promotion had to be called off prematurely. In his blog Arrastão Sérgio Lavos expresses his outrage that such a vacuous consumer promotion took place on May 1, Labour Day in Portugal: "The very same super market chain that only recently transferred part of its capital to the Netherlands had a great day. The marketing department can only be congratulated for this campaign, which was a clear provocation for the trade unions. Most of its supermarkets descended into chaos thanks to the hordes of consumer zombies. ... But we must also congratulate a people that has demonstrated, literally, that is doesn't care one bit about the crisis and workers' rights." (03/05/2012)

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Since May 1, the so-called coffee shops in the south of the Netherlands have been allowed to sell soft drugs only to Dutch residents with a cannabis pass. A fatal step back, the left-liberal daily De Morgen complains: "For years the Dutch maxim was that legalising the sale of soft drugs offered great advantages: the product and financial revenues could be controlled, therefore protecting the trade from the claws of the underworld. By excluding Belgian, French and German buyers the Dutch state is driving a large part of the trade back into illegality. The consequences are foreseeable: street dealers are experiencing a boom. The reason for all the problems is the hypocrisy and half-heartedness of the Belgian, French and German drug policies. … [In Belgium] the possession of up to five grams of cannabis is allowed, but you have to buy it elsewhere - up to just the day before yesterday in the Netherlands, where the government had had the courage to admit that it's better to legalise the stuff and control it."  (02/05/2012)

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All available articles from » Wouter Verschelden

The Bulgarian government wants to move parts of its ministries and public offices from the capital Sofia to other cities, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov announced on Sunday. The goal is to decentralise the administration and increase the bureaucrats' mobility. But it would be much better to increase their effectiveness, the daily Standart writes: "First of all these offices must be more competent, provide better services and introduce higher wages accordingly. Then you can still think about whether to move them out of Sofia. At the moment it's far more important to lower the number of public servants and to reduce administrative pressure on the private sector than to scatter our civil servants across the country. ... Such a measure has to be well considered. You've got to weigh up carefully whether the expected results justify the effort and expense. Because if they don't, those who are subject to the control of these offices and depend on their work will suffer the most." (01/05/2012)

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On Tuesday Greek authorities published photographs of eleven prostitutes, several of whom were foreigners, who are infected with the HIV virus in a bid to move the punters to be tested for HIV and as a warning to future customers. But the left-leaning news portal Rednotebook sees other reasons behind this parading: "The over-protective Greek mother can now blame the prostitutes for the bad behaviour of her little darling. The unsuspecting girlfriend or wife can pin the disappointment of her sexual expectations on these scheming foreign women. And the Greek punter curses his fate because of the exotic diseases of these whores. … All of them can draw the conclusion: these immigrants are bringing disease so our society must be purged of them. Thus, the enemy among us is constructed. … The democratic sensibilities of the ministers responsible for public health are nothing but a big step towards fascism." (01/05/2012)

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Despite tough austerity measures and record levels of unemployment, a relatively small number of people took to the streets for the May Day demonstrations in Spain, the conservative daily ABC notes: "Not even with a tailwind of 250 new jobless per hour have the trade unions managed to achieve lift-off. The social discontent exists for sure, but it's flying below the radar, unexpressed through the conventional channels - more like a kind of collective depression. The government is making itself unpopular with its harsh austerity measures, without a detectable rise in support for the Socialists. And the muscle-flexing of the trade unions has revealed rather puny muscles. A climate of pessimism prevails, and the failure of the Left is still too fresh in people's minds for it to capitalise on the growing disenchantment. The low-key May Day demonstrations highlight the trade unions' image problem and the fact that those responsible for the wreckage can't cast themselves in the role of heroes again yet." (02/05/2012)

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More from the press review on the subject » Trade unions, » Social affairs, » Labour, » Spain
Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis