According to the daily Delo the impact of the US financial crisis on the rest of the world is growing. "It looks like the American financial system is facing growing difficulties and there will be even more scapegoats. The financial system only has itself to blame for these [problems] because it exercised too little control, was too greedy and failed to consider the risks. .. The international financial crisis has long been a global problem. The EU in particular is very cautious in its approach [to dealing with the problem]. At the EU's most recent financial summit in Nice it was, so to speak, taboo to talk about a recession. ... But the plunge in stock prices witnessed yesterday in Europe and across the world ... is an indication that the turbulent times are not over yet. ... The entire global economy will go on paying the huge bill Wall Street was landed with for a while yet." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » Economic Policy, » Europe, » U.S., » Global
All available articles from » Miha Jenko

The Frankfurter Rundschau anticipates the effects the American financial crisis will have on European banks: "No one should be surprised if the central banks soon have to intervene directly in the financial markets, for example to back the dollar or to save the stock markets from collapse. And it is entirely possible that more banks will topple, in Europe as well. ... Not since the end of World War Two has systemic risk required such hands-on measures. Under the term systemic risk experts understand the risk of chain reactions. ... That is: losses will accrue everywhere. But will these be absorbed everywhere? If things take a sharp turn for the worse, European taxpayers ... will have to pay billions of euros to save local banks, returns from life insurances and other retirement provisions will decline sharply, and the crisis will bestow upon Europe millions of unemployed. Thank you America!" (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » Germany, » Europe, » U.S.
All available articles from » Robert von Heusinger

In view of the stockmarket crashes around the world, El País newspaper speaks of "the worst financial crisis since 1929", and states that a lesson must be learned: "The lesson we must learn from this crash is that the complex financial world needs equally complex supervisory mechanisms, and that state intervention to save banks is only justified if the American system complies to strict controls of financial risks. If this lesson goes unheeded, the global economy will be permanently threatened with systematic crises brought on by irresponsible behaviour. The market economy will then turn into a game of publicly financed roulette. ... In the current panorama of downturn, one should remember that the European economies - even if in principle they are free from the wrongful practices that engendered the crisis - will nevertheless feel its impact, at least as hard, if not harder than the US." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » Economic Policy, » Financial Markets, » Europe, » U.S.

With an eye to Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy, the Financial Times prophesies dire consequences for bank regulation: "The world has not ended. The international economy has not yet collapsed. But one thing is now quite clear: the banking system as we know it has failed. ... There will now be renewed calls for more regulation, and understandably so. But it is naive to think that the right regulatory response is obvious. From poor governance to flawed incentives, incompetent risk management to foolish strategies, the failures of the financial system have been so widespread as to render a coherent regulatory riposte impossible. The likely outcome is that tight capital requirements will be forced to serve as a catch-all response to risk. If so, the banking system will look more like that of the 1960s – a low-risk, low-return utility business. The ambitious and the avaricious will no doubt seek more exciting hunting grounds with hedge funds and private equity groups." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Financial Markets, » Global

Approximately a month after the end of the war in Georgia the EU's foreign ministers have agreed to send an EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) to Georgia. 200 European police officers and civilian experts will take over the task of monitoring the buffer zone between Georgia and secessionist South Ossetia from the Russian soldiers as of October 10. "The EU is facing its biggest ever foreign-policy challenge," writes the daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. "Yes, the European Union has mediated in a few crises between quarrelling states and groups all over the world in the past. ... But Georgia is different. The Europeans are confronted with Russia as a conflicting party here. A Russia that is seeking its place among the great powers and which regards NATO and the EU's attempts to close in on it with suspicion. If Europeans bear in mind that this is not just about Georgia but above all about future relations between the EU and Russia on a shared continent, there is a chance that the political negotiations can be successful." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » EU Policy, » Russia, » Europe, » Georgian Republic
All available articles from » Martin Winter

A Romanian senate committee has changed the law on reviewing Securitate [the former secret service in communist Romania] files. If the parliament approves there will be no more probes into the past of priests and former members of the nomenklatura who are still active in politics today. The daily Evenimentul Zilei points out: "Lustration was necessary in the past and still is today. The lustration was a naïve concept in a Romania that lacked principles - and still does. Why do we need to know who worked for Securitate? Because they persecuted us for years, they tried to listen in on our thoughts, to influence us. They read our letters, bugged our telephones, disdained our lives. They did all this secretly ... To our faces they were friends; behind our backs they were spies for small or big rewards. They were blackmailers, cowards or simply lacked any principles. ... They slowed down the progress of this country, robbed us, forced us to leave our home to escape them. ... Who will represent 'us', the naïve who believe in justice and truth and that good will triumph over evil." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » History, » Romania
All available articles from » Calin Hera

There is still no sign of a solution to Belgium's state crisis, which has lasted for more than a year now. In the daily De Standaard a group of more than 40 prominent intellectuals speaks out in favour of adopting a model along the lines of Switzerland's federalist state structure for Belgium: "If you are looking for formulas for a future Europe or a future Belgium Switzerland is the laboratory we should take as our model. ... In Europe people think they are protecting minorities by giving them privileges at other people's expense. Frequently these privileges contradict the principles of democracy. ... The only way to protect minorities is to give them a majority at a local level, ... which means they can autonomously make their own decisions on matters affecting themselves. In a decentralised state system of this type there is room for peaceful enclaves within enclaves. Solidarity is brought back into the right proportion. The Swiss democratic system puts the principle of subsidiarity into practice." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Belgium, » Switzerland
All available articles from » Eric Verhulst

First the Dutch right-wing populist parties called for development aid to be halved and now the main right-wing liberal opposition party People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) has followed suit. They want aid to be cut down to the same level as in the 15 wealthiest EU states. The political weekly Elsevier writes: "This is a good plan. With many aid projects one has absolutely no certainty that they work. ... Given these circumstances it is particularly odd that the Netherlands always wants to be the world champion in development aid and at the same time spends tens of millions on subsidising PR campaigns aimed at persuading the country's citizens to support the high amounts spent on aid. All this aid has not only led to the poor countries becoming dependent on funding from abroad and thus remaining poor but also made the Netherlands poorer because in the past six months almost 100 billion euros worth of taxpayers money has been spirited out of the country." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Economic Policy, » Netherlands
All available articles from » Syp Wynia

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has struck a deal with the country's opposition. The Irish Times comments: "The power-sharing agreement signed in Harare yesterday is undoubtedly a major step forward for Zimbabwe, but it does not conclusively resolve the country's deep political crisis. ... The distribution of power between President Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai, the new prime minister, and Arthur Mutanbara, is an institutional mess, leaving plenty of room for ongoing rivalry between their parties and ministers. If the conflict simply continues in a different format Zimbabwe will not get the international aid essential for recovery from economic collapse, despite the goodwill this agreement will generate. ... With inflation running at 30 million per cent, mass unemployment, empty shops, four million of its people in flight to neighbouring states and the collapse of agriculture, Zimbabwe is a failed state after 28 years of rule by Mugabe's Zanu-PF party. Most of the damage has been done over the last ten years. This agreement can be a turning point, but only if it enables genuine change." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Economic Policy, » Africa

The daily Diario Sur warns politicians of all stripes not to establish an artificial connection between the words "crisis" and "immigration": "The crisis and the resulting rise in unemployment above all in the building industry, the services sector and agriculture have caused too many penetrating looks in our country to focus on the immigrants. ... If there are so many foreigners on the dole in Spain it is because they have earned it. And if there are Spaniards who are willing to go to other countries to work as temporary workers there, this is not because the increase in foreigners has driven them out of the Spanish agricultural sector, for instance. ... Spain's politicians lacked a common stance on the issue of immigration in the years when it was rising. But now that the differences between the two major parties PSOE and PP are dwindling in this area they should be extremely careful about using the words crisis and immigration together." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Social Policy / Employment, » Migration, » Economic Policy, » Spain

Andrej Mrevlje writes in the daily Dnevnik about the reasons for Alitalia's bankruptcy: "The 5.178 billion euros that the airline has squandered in the past decade landed in the pockets of trade unionists and political parties as well as serving as compensation for the well-paid supervisory boards. The rise of chear airlines and the competition in the international flight sector has exposed the cracks in the political dealing of this major airline ... Why? Because by paying higher bills Alitalia filled the pockets of other state-owned companies and private enterprises and thus kept the chain of clientelism greased. ... As a state-owned company Alitalia could afford to do this as long as the government in Rome was prepared to compensate for the losses. But faced with new EU regulations and the EU currency, which makes it impossible to cover up state debts by playing up inflation, Alitalia will have to adapt to the new rules of the game." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Fiscal Policy, » Economic Policy, » Italy
All available articles from » Andrej Mrevlje

With an eye to the speculation about an imminent takeover of the Scandinavian airline SAS the Danish daily Dagbladet Information comments that it is time for the airline to sell up: "If the sale is coupled with guarantees for a long-term plan for defining the position of Copenhagen airport within international aviation it is difficult to see any objections. Not even the former pan-Nordic dream, for no one entertains that dream any more, certainly not Scandinavian air passengers who are increasingly giving it up in favour of cheap airlines." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Corporations, » Denmark, » Sweden, » Norway

Commentator Leopold Unger writes in Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper that Central Europe is the conscience of Europe. "There is a Central Europe in our memories and our experience. There is a Europe of the sell-out of Czechoslovakia in Munich in 1938, a Europe of the partition between Hitler and Stalin, a Europe between Auschwitz and the Gulag, a Europe that remained on the wrong side of the map after Yalta. There is the hinterland of the Reich and there is the Soviet satellites, and finally there is a Europe of former dissidents, opposition figures, a Europe that doggedly refuses to recognise the primacy of gas supplies over principles. This Central Europe stands as the defender of the revolution in Ukraine and Georgia. ... And today - strengthened by its Soviet experience and a thorough mistrust of the new Russian state's imperial ambitions - this Central Europe acts jointly, as a group of two countries over the missile defence shield, and as a group of six with the defence of Georgia. Just as it formerly sought to bring Europe to Kiev, so today this Europe wants to bring Nato to Tbilisi. It wants to awaken Europe's conscience and understanding at Moscow's attempt to make its 'close neighbours' once more into satellites. ... Such a Europe exists, although it has not yet made itself felt." (15/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » History, » Russia, » Central Europe
All available articles from » Leopold Unger

Author Michaël Prazan takes a critical view of Ukraine's European identity and the country's attitude to its past. "After Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili's catastrophic adventures and Russia's subsequent show of force, Europeans persist in seeing in Ukraine a 'European country'. ... History is the locus of a complex continuum in Ukraine, one where the legacy of the Second World War and the Soviet era is more alive than anywhere else. ... The history of the genocide of the Jews, in which a large part of the Ukrainian population took part, is constantly rewritten by the highest authorities. We should remember that the graves into which the corpses of a million Jewish victims of National Socialism were thrown are only considered memorial locations by Jewish organisations. ... In such a situation, Europe should think twice about whether it promises [former Soviet] countries that they may be integrated into the European Union. ... Why should Turkey be required to recognise its responsibility in the genocide of the Armenians as a precondition for negotiation while Ukraine falsifies its history and is cleansed in advance of any responsibility in the genocide of the Jews?" (15/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » EU Enlargement / Neighbourhood Policy, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Domestic Policy, » Ukraine, » Europe
All available articles from » Michaël Prazan

The daily La Repubblica praises the peaceful protest staged by the country's teachers against the school reform, which foresees a return to school uniforms, marking for behaviour and a single teacher for all subjects in primary schools. "Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini wanted them in Stalin-red but the teachers refused to fall for the ploy and donned black mourning bands instead. ... It seems to us that the Minister is very misguided in claiming that with their black bands the teachers are using the children in the battle against her [measures]. This raises the suspicion that she herself is using the children as a rhetorical refuge after her first defeat ... The Minister is hoping desperately for mass demonstrations so she can say that the Italian school system is full of communists. She needs them, too, to come to grips with the schools considering the drivel spouted by Lega Nord (Northern League) boss Umberto Bossi, the country's culture policy, the scalpel being used for economic cuts and the demolition of the alleged cultural pre-eminence. Let us hope that this imaginative and effective form of protest teaches them a lesson." (16/09/2008)

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More from the press review on the subject » Education, » Cultural Policy, » Italy
All available articles from » Francesco Merlo