Even though the parliamentary elections in Iraq were overshadowed by terrorist attacks, the poll was still a success, writes the left-liberal daily De Volkskrant: "The intimidation tactics were only marginally successful, and that was the biggest victory. According to the latest figures from the Iraqi electional commission, 62 percent of voters went to the polls. There's no doubt about it, that's an impressive figure, expecially from the perspective of a Western country where only 53 percent of those eligible bothered to vote in local elections after a national political crisis. ... Nevertheless the success in Iraq remains extremely fragile. In all probability not a single list received enough votes to form a government. Consequently Iraqi politicians are going to have to continue showing a willingness to compromise. That's a quality you hardly find in a stable democracy, never mind a county that has inherited so much violence and repression." (09/03/2010)

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At roughly 62 percent, participation in the parliamentary elections in Iraq was higher than expected. But it's still too early to celebrate a victory for constitutional democracy, writes the Neue Zürcher Zeitung: "Along with the Americans and their allies, Iraq's direct neighbours Turkey, Syria and Iran are all unscrupulously pursuing their own interests in Iraq, with immediate consequences for the country. ... It is imaginable that after the withdrawal of the last American troops from Iraq reconstruction will progress and - from a purely external point of view - the country will modernise rapidly. It's also possible that the country's security forces which now count almost a million police officers and soldiers will bring peace and order to the country, thanks to adequate salaries financed by oil profits. But will they also introduce the rule of law? According to The Economist, the US spent 800 billion dollars in Irak in the last seven years - without a single guarantee." (09/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Elections, » U.S., » Global, » Iraq
All available articles from » Martin Woker

The greatest challenge after the parliamentary elections in Iraq will be forming a stable government, writes the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "It will take a couple of days before the official election results are known in Iraq. But even now one can say that the Iraqis have given the lie in an impressive way to the view that there is little interest in elections or democracy in the Arab World. Despite the terror threat from Al Qaida and bloody attacks, a majority of voters were not to be deterred from taking the often long and dangerous trip to the polling stations. ... Certainly, Iraq now faces the most difficult task: building a stable government on the basis of a less than clear-cut result. A good number of disputes will be fought out between Sunnis and Shi'ites, secularists and clerics. And the terrorists will continue to go to any lengths in their effort to destabilise the country, especially with the withdrawal of the American troops looming on the horizon." (09/03/2010)

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Despite a series of violent attacks voter turnout for the Iraqi parliamentary elections on Sunday was unexpectedly high. This raises hopes of a democratic future for the country, business paper Expansión writes: "The brutal terrorist attacks that marred the elections in Iraq have also shown that a heroic majority of the population wants political freedom in the form of democracy. ... In the end Iraq's problem is probably a lack of national cohesion owing to the heterogeneity of the individual components that make up the country and their conflicting interests. Not only are there different peoples and ethnic groups but also cultural and religious differences. The substantial increase in voter turnout ... encourages us not to give up all hope of a democratic future for Iraq." (09/03/2010)

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The violence between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria reached a new level on the weekend. At least 500 people died in a bloody massacre of Christians. The daily The Times blames the country's political leaders for the escalation: "Both aspects of the crisis that Nigeria now faces, the constitutional and the more brutally human, are the result. Appalling religious massacres are nothing new in Nigeria (Sunday's Muslim-on-Christian violence is regarded widely as retaliation for a Christian-on-Muslim attack in January) and it would be fanciful to suggest too overt a connection between the high politics of Nigeria's executive and the low politics of the machete. Nonetheless, the parallels cannot be ignored. Nigeria's political leadership has systematically and repeatedly exploited tribalism and failed to build a politics of consensus within their country. Both aspects of the crisis that Nigeria now faces, the constitutional and the more brutally human, are the result." (09/03/2010)

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The right-wing extremist party Jobbik will presumably receive enough votes to enter parliament in the Hungarian elections this April. Jobbik is the party of the disappointed and the querulous, writes historian Balázs Ablonczy in the opinion portal Komment.hu: "According to the most recent surveys a segment of Hungarian voters feel driven by the perceived disintegration of the public order and day-to-day existential worries to seek their salvation in an extreme right-wing party based on a strong state and anti-Roma sentiment. ... These voters are disappointed in politics and the political elite, perhaps because they expected too much. They feel sympathy for Jobbik's paramilitary arm the Hungarian Guard because they see it as providing protection. ... Neither the Polish Law and Justice party, the Slovak National Party under Ján Slota nor the Freedom Party of Austria express the type of hatred for the Roma and anti-Semitic Holocaust denial that typifies Jobbik's official and semi-official forums." (08/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Balázs Ablonczy

With its accession to the EU, Nato and the Schengen zone Lithuania has achieved important foreign policy goals. News portal Delfi now demands that new challenges and partners be sought for their realisation: The EU's history shows on the one hand that Germany and France have most say in the EU's policy decisions and therefore more intensive cooperation with these two countries could help Lithuania to put forward more effectively the issues that are important for it in the EU's agenda. ... On the other hand if we look at the intensive bilateral relations between these two countries and Russia in the energy sector, in commerce and investments and even on cultural exchange, Lithuania is certainly faced with a dilemma best illustrated by the planned sale of the French Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia. Another dilemma could arise with the plans for an EU economic government because on this subject Lithuania has a different stance to Germany and France." (09/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » EU Policy, » Energy, » Economic Policy, » Germany, » France, » Lithuania, » Russia
All available articles from » Ramūnas Vilpišauskas

Psychology professor Fotini Tsalikoglou deals in the left-liberal daily Ta Nea with the impact of the crisis on people's emotional state: "The crisis is taking on the dimensions of a natural disaster - something with which we have to live, like the air we breathe and the water we drink. ... A culture of fear is developing. Some have begun to capitalise on this. By this I simply mean that they have already begun to make money (yes, it's as easy as that!). Those both within the country and abroad who know how to make a profit on anything have already began to rake in the money. ... Employers are rubbing their hands in glee at the sight of scared employees with lower expectations. ... But living with fear can't be what we want. ... For fear and guilt prevent us from seeking a way out of the crisis. A crisis about which the average citizen never reflected, which he didn't cause, from which he gained nothing and for which he is now called on to bear terrible consequences without even complaining." (09/03/2010)

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Portugal's government on Monday presented its stability and growth programme, with which it aims to reduce the public deficit to three percent of the country's gross domestic product by 2013. According to the daily Jornal de Notícias the middle classes will have to make the most sacrifices: "Twenty seven million euros per day. This is the sum we must save to reach the government's goal. ... Brutal? Without doubt. ... And above all the middle classes will suffer. Around 2.5 million taxpayers won't pay more taxes but will get less back. The truth is that this is a concealed tax increase. ... To save so much money each day requires political and social stability. The finance minister [Teixeira dos Santos] yesterday asked the opposition for this political stability, but as we all know social stability is not something that can be imposed. In the next few days we will see whether this magic number - 27 million euros per day - remains just that magical and unattainable." (09/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Fiscal Policy, » Economic Policy, » Tax Policy, » Portugal
All available articles from » Paulo Ferreira

Several European states have proposed the creation of a European counterpart to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to prevent problems such as those in Greece from arising. But such an EMF would be superfluous without sufficient political clout, writes the business daily De Tijd: "The central question remains: what to do if you find a European country living beyond its means? Experience tells us that there is only one answer: If a government doesn't want to tell its voters the bad news, the financial markets will. Only then will the necessary and unavoidable measures be implemented. And that is exactly the role of the IMF. It gives money in exchange for unpopular reforms. The pressure of the financial markets and the IMF are currently the best lever we have. If a European Monetary Fund isn't coupled with closer political cooperation in the Eurozone, it will be nothing more than a poor copy of the original, and consequently of no use whatsoever." (09/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Fiscal Policy, » Financial Markets, » Europe
All available articles from » Bart Haeck

The Italian judiciary revealed on Monday that the Italian mafia used 14 accounts at Austrian banks for money laundering purposes. The daily Die Presse calls for banking secrecy laws to be relaxed as a precautionary measure: "This tiresome affair will get the discussion about Austria's very strict and thus highly controversial banking secrecy regulations going again in Europe. The times have ended when people wearing dark sunglasses could enter an Austrian bank with a suitcase full of money and deposit it onto an account in the name of 'Donald Duck', but even without the anonymous accounts which made this possible the country is apparently still lucrative enough for people who have something to hide. This is not a political plus point for the country in times when the battle against money laundering has intensified. It would perhaps not be a bad idea to take off some of the pressure by implementing clever adaptations before the scandals caused by outsiders crank it up to such an extent that we are forced to have totally transparent accounts along German lines. After all, no one wants that to happen." (09/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Josef Urschitz

The Iraq war film The Hurt Locker has won this year's Oscar for Best Motion Picture. But once again the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has refrained from sending political messages, writes the online edition of the daily Dnevnik: "On receiving the Oscar [for Best Original Screenplay writer Mark Boal] thanked the soldiers for their service, but that was about all this year's Academy Awards had to offer in the category 'Use the limelight for political messages'. The same was true of the Academy members' decision to award five Oscars [sic] to The Hurt Locker. As in the past, the Academy refrained from sending political messages to politicians or the public. The war film's triumph this year was possible precisely because it is politically neutral, and the Iraq war is no longer a taboo subject. Once more, the Academy has confirmed an unwritten law." (09/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Andrej Brstovšek

In the last few days citizens have taken to the streets in two southern Romanian cities to show solidarity with mayors who are under investigation on charges of corruption. Citizens distort values when they go to these lengths for such a reason, writes Liviu Antonesei in the daily Adevărul: "I can imagine many things but I would never have believed we were capable of organising civil protests and using the term 'honour' to protect corruption and the corrupt. To what extent are we willing to turn values we believed unassailable upside down to allow such a thing to happen? It is astonishing, embarrassing, and dirty; words fail me. Romania is undergoing a chemical transformation in which petty, medium and grand-scale corruption reach out to each other to produce a true systemic corruption, in which the corrupt and the corrupted are seemingly bound together in an eternal alliance and civil courage is spectacularly directed against civil values. ... We need not be surprised that Europe not only is 'monitoring' us but already sees us as some kind of foreign body that represents a danger to its own ethics." (09/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Liviu Antonesei

Austrian media have ridiculed as North-Koreanisation the new law aimed at making Slovaks more patriotic. Blogger Ivann agrees in the left-leaning daily Pravda: "We are rightly being compared with the most primitive regime in the world, with headlines like 'Pyongyang on the Danube'. Do you remember how as boys we tried to outdo each other with the size of our penises? The one with the biggest was a real guy. Today real Slovaks are the ones who love their country the most fervently. Patriotism, decency and belief in one's country can't be decreed by law like in North Korea, where millions of people have to come out and wave flags when new factories are opened or the leader gives a speech. Patriotism, faith and decency don't belong in electoral programmes, statutes or laws. They are values that must be borne in one's breast. This measure is intentional, purposeful rape and must be rejected outright, for example at the polls." (09/03/2010)

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More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Education, » Public Culture, » Remembrance culture, » Slovakia
All available articles from » Blogger Ivann

After several cases of sexual abuse at institutions run by the Catholic Church have come to light, the German government is now planning to set up a round table on the matter. Walter Schmidt comments in the political authors' blog Achse des Guten: "Naturally neither Protestantism … nor Catholicism with their servers, their sexual ethics and their celibacy are to blame, but rather the forgivable perversions of teachers who are more or less forced to spend their days and weekends cooped up in boarding schools with their pupils. … While Minister for Family Affairs Kristina Schröder ... has now taken up the issue and called for a 'round table' against child abuse, Chairman of the German Episcopal Conference Robert Zollitsch sees the education and therapy of his fellow believers, sorely tried by their celibacy, as the ultimate solution. Perhaps in analogy to the well-known definition of an anti-Semite we will soon read that: 'A paedophile is someone who likes children just a tiny bit more than is customary for a teacher!'" (09/03/2010)

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All available articles from » Walter Schmidt

Irish pubs traditionally remain closed on Christmas and Good Friday. Now a rugby game could put an end to the Church's influence on opening hours, writes the Irish Examiner: "This year that outdated veto will be seen as irrelevant to modern, multicultural Ireland. Limerick's clubs and publicans want to open their bars on Good Friday because Munster host Leinster at Thomond Park. Ideally this should be a bumper day for Limerick but this may not come to pass unless bar owners are granted exemptions. ... This law no longer reflects how we live our lives and should be changed. After all, publicans who still want to close their premises can do so. And it would be a poor host indeed who would not afford guests an opportunity to drown their sorrows." (09/03/2010)

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