"Relations with the powerful Russian neighbour are stuttering along," states Pierre Avril. "For two years Poland blocked the opening of talks on a continent-wide rapprochement on the grounds that Moscow had put an embargo on its farm produce. And now that Warsaw has agreed to lift its veto, Lithuania steps in, with a mixed bag of accusations, claiming that Russia is blocking the delivery of oil to its only refinery at Mazeiku, is destabilising the Georgian regime, and is refusing to investigate disappearances of Lithuanian citizens in Russia in the 1990s. ... Although some states, like the Netherlands, are willing to strengthen calls for greater legal 'cooperation' from Moscow, most of the EU's 27 member states will not go too far." (29/04/2008)

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The newspaper disapproves of the Lithuanians blocking "the EU's most important foreign policy project". "After all, 26 of the 27 EU states have now agreed that common interests are to take precedence over the reservations of individual nations regarding Moscow. This gives us hope. Now it's up to Lithuania to clear the way for a treaty. It's understandable that other EU states are putting pressure on Vilnius to give up its stance because even the Lithuanian government must realise that so far its blockade tactics may have served nationalist sentiment but they won't solve the problem with Russia. On the contrary, if Lithuania isolates itself within the EU, Moscow won't take it seriously as a negotiating partner. If on the other hand Lithuania sits at the negotiating table as part of the powerful European Union much can be achieved for the country." (29/04/2008)

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Erkki Bahovski expresses sympathy for the Lithuanians' blockade strategy: "Repairs are allegedly still being carried out on the pipeline supplying the Lithuanian oil refinery in Mažeikiai. One should also bear in mind that the Kremlin employed a similar rhetoric when Poland boycotted the agreement over a ban on Polish meat exports [imposed by Russia]: little problems shouldn't be allowed to get in the way of a major agreement and no one should let themselves be guided by narrow-minded self-interest. This time Moscow has made demands of its own: the protection of the Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia is to be established in the treaty. So which side is defending its own narrow-minded interests and sabotaging an agreement?" (28/04/2008)

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Sociologist Peter Wagner, who lectures in Trento in Italy, writes that Berlusconi won the last Italian elections because many voters hope that under his government they will be allowed to continue with their business undisturbed, even though that business may not be entirely legal. "Many of those who voted for the new government know they are doing something that is not in accordance with republican ethics. ... The elections faced the people of this country with the choice of either developing their community in a spirit of self-determination or allowing the rapid decline of all sense of community and the gradual repeal of the collective regulations that guarantee the 'freedom' of groups and individuals to prevail against others. ... Particularly in Europe's richer countries with a longer democratic tradition, the ruthless pursuit of individual interests, which can produce a winning majority in elections, leads to an erosion of democracy the consequences of which are perhaps slower to become visible than in an authoritarian regime - but no less severe." (29/04/2008)

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All available articles from » Peter Wagner

In a column for Project Syndicate, Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University, ponders whether humanity can be said to be making moral progress in the light of the succession of atrocities perpetrated in recent decades. "There is more to the question than extreme cases of moral breakdown. ... In response to the crimes committed during World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sought to establish the principle that everyone is entitled to the same basic rights, irrespective of race, color, sex, language, religion, or other status. So, perhaps we can judge moral progress by asking how well we have done in combating racism and sexism. ... Recent polls by WorldPublicOpinion.org shed some indirect light on this question. ... Overall, it seems likely that these opinions reflect real changes, and thus are signs of moral progress toward a world in which people are not denied rights on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex." (29/04/2008)

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All available articles from » Peter Singer

A few weeks after Silvio Berlusconi won the parliamentary elections, the right-wing's candidate Gianni Alemanno beat Francesco Rutelli of the centre-left Democratic Party to become mayor of Rome on April 28th. Ezio Mauro comments that the whole of Italy has lurched to the right. "Rome was all that was left. ... Rome had been a historic bastion of the left, which had governed it continuously for fifteen years. ... Italy's largest city had been in the hands a modern, experimental 'mayoral left', which skillfully combined efficient administration with new cultural discourses. All that was shattered yesterday...The result is clear: the North belongs to the League, the South to Raffaele Lombardo [MPA independence party, president of Sicily region], Rome to the National Alliance, and Italy to Berlusconi." (29/04/2008)

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All available articles from » Ezio Mauro

In the town of Amstetten in Lower Austria, a 73-year-old man kept his daughter imprisoned in his cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her. Michael Fleichhacker criticises the media and the police for catering to sensationalism by giving live press conferences and releasing photos of the crime scene. "Yes, cases like this one generate a lot of public interest - because of their monstrousness, the depth of evil involved and also owing to a scientific interest in situations that have not yet been researched. All the clumsy prose of shock and dismay aimed at creating a sense of deep failure within society and placing the blame on as many people as possible - from the father's elementary school teacher to the director of the responsible department of the social security office - is quite unnecessary. What we are dealing with here is obviously a singular crime. This is precisely what fascinates us, and we shouldn't be ashamed to admit it - as long as we observe a few of the rules of common decency regarding the victims." (29/04/2008)

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Talks are currently ongoing in Luxembourg to persuade Belgium and the Netherlands to sign an association agreement with Serbia as a way of supporting pro-European forces within that country before it holds its legislative elections on May 11th. Academics Mient Jan Faber and Sonja Licht criticise the stance taken by the Netherlands, which demands that war criminal Ratko Mladic should first be apprehended. "We feel that the Netherlands' policy is one of double standards. All countries, including the Netherlands, have signed a similar agreement with Bosnia. The Netherlands did not demand the extradition of Radovan Karadzic, the other prime suspect in the Srebrenica genocide, who is in hiding in Bosnia. Why Mladic and not Karadzic ?...If the Netherlands continue to hold the EU to ransom and to block any association and stabilisation agreement, then the [Tomislav] Nikolic camp [nationalist, anti-European] will have the wind in its sails." (28/04/2008)

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All available articles from » Mient Jan Faber, » Sonja Licht

With German chancellor Angela Merkel visiting Switzerland on April 29th, François Modoux assesses German-Swiss relations. "Quarrels are increasing and the will to settle them is lacking. The climate grows steadily worse...Merkel's Germany commands respect. A new medium-sized power, an 80-million strong consumer market, and a centrepiece in the enlarged EU, it plays in another league from Switzerland, which is determined to go it alone outside the EU. ... For Berlin, which advocates a deepening of European integration, Switzerland is primarily a nuisance factor. Its banking secret costs Germany tax revenue, its soft corporate taxation regime is seen as unfair competition, and its protectionism hampers trade. Switzerland is so small, so efficient at protecting its own interests away from the UE, and so irritating !" (29/04/2008)

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The European Commission yesterday delivered a favourable economic outlook on the progress of the inflation rate in Slovakia. This is a decisive step forward on the country's path to the introduction of the euro in 2009. Ivan Štulajter reflects: "One can predict with relative certainty that Slovakia will master the transition to euro reality fairly comfortably. This is firstly because it dealt quite capably with the turbulent collapse of the monetary union with the Czech Republic in 1993 and introduced its own currency, secondly because it can draw on many experiences since the introduction of the European single currency, and thirdly because it no longer has any alternative but to get used to the new notes and coins. Others have managed to do this. If the Italians managed to be sensible and say goodbye to their lira, why shouldn't the Slovaks be able to do the same with their crown?" (29/04/2008)

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In its spring economic growth forecasts released on April 28th, the European Commission has revised its 2008 growth projections for the eurozone slightly downwards to 1.7%. The Spanish daily believes that the EC's appraisal is "consistent with the current economic turmoil and its consequences on the entire system. The EU authorities stress the soundness of their economies and their ability to cope with the slow-down. ... It is nevertheless worrying to note that Spain will come off worse, with its growth dropping from 3.8% in 2007 to 2.2% in 2008 according to the EC forecast. ... Ours is the EU economy that will experience both the greatest rise in unemployment over the next two years - prompting higher social protection expenditure and lower consumption level - and an inflation rate that will be higher than the community average." (29/04/2008)

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Romania's bank sector is regarded as the country's most developed economic sector in terms of compliance with European norms and standards. The reason for this is that almost all Romania's banks are now owned by Western European finance groups. According to Ilie Serbanescu, this is having an impact on the nation's entire economy. "Domestic capital, whether it was good or bad, has been pushed to one side. Foreign banks have brought cheap money into the country through their parent companies and this allows them to charge low interest for loans. ... But this is bad for financial and economic policy. The country has no such thing as an interest rate policy. Romania's national bank has become hostage to the interests of commercial foreign banks. Its efficiency has been reduced to zero." (29/04/2008)

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All available articles from » Ilie Serbanescu

"Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential term risks marking the disappearance of national daily papers or the loss of independence of the few which survive", worries journalist Emmanuel Schwartzenberg. "The press crisis in France is nearing its climax. Not a single daily has been spared by lay-offs. Not a single one can balance its books...The current government [led by prime minister] Francois Fillon, like all its predecessors since the Second World War, believes that it is easier to govern with a weak, vulnerable press because it can survive only with support from the authorities. History has always demonstrated the opposite. The failure to understand society - one result of the lack of a press that informs - widens the rift between governed and government, so closing the gate to reform and opening the one to revolt. As May 68 showed." (29/04/2008)

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Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, will decide this week whether to step up his campaign against Yahoo!, three months after launching a takeover bid. "The internet has become a universal resource with a vital role in education - and search engines are now most people's way of accessing it", writes the daily. "Given that level of influence, it is obviously unhealthy for too much potential power to be vested in a single search engine. ... Microsoft's unwelcome bid to buy Yahoo in an attempt to combat Google's power provides an opportunity to reflect on the importance of web search and to ask whether it should be dominated by a single company ... . If Google continues its recent rate of growth, however, it will not be long before it could command 80% of the search market. The proposed merger has been about how other players could combat Google's increasing arm lock on search and the El Dorado of advertising that goes with it." (29/04/2008)

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Prague's municipal authorities are still playing for time in the dispute over star architect Jan Kaplický's futuristic design for a new Czech national library, Marek Švehla complains. Švehla reports that Mayor of Prague Pavel Bém's initial euphoria has cooled down considerably and he is now distancing himself from the project. "The City Council first passed on the hot potato to the ministry of culture, then to the competition authorities - to clarify whether the designer of such a project is also allowed to build it. The competition authorities are now passing the case on to the European Commission. This is like a bad joke: the very party [ODS, right-wing party] that never stops complaining about how Brussels is encroaching on national powers is now letting the European Commission have the last say about the construction of a building in Prague." (29/04/2008)

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All available articles from » Marek Švehla