La Repubblica sees Ingrid Betancourt's liberation as the triumph of Colombia's more aggressive strategy over France's bargaining tactics. "[Colombian President] Álvaro Uribe meted out his diplomacy carefully; he kept his American allies, who have supported the Colombian army for five years, up to date while saying nothing to the French, who placed too much emphasis on the need to negotiate and on the mediation of Hugo Chavez, no friend of Uribe's. ... This gambit was not just a military success and proof that the FARC can be infiltrated; it is also a political triumph. Sarkozy has conceded this. He decided not to travel to Bogotá and instead to be content with receiving Ingrid Betancourt in Paris today. His joy is somewhat dampened by his regret at only having played a minor part in the action." (04/07/2008)

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All available articles from » Giampiero Martinotti

The daily Die Presse calls the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt a clear indication of the ineffectiveness of negotiations: "This is one of the platitudes that many 'good people' accept unquestioningly, like horoscopes on the astrology pages: there can be no military solutions to conflicts. ... Now the FARC has lost the jewel among its cynical collection of hostages: former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. ... War should never be an end in itself, but should always have a goal. That was what old Clausewitz called politics by other means. Anyone who excludes military operations from the outset might feel better about himself, but he risks strengthening his opponent to the extent that negotiations are precluded altogether." (04/07/2008)

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All available articles from » Christian Ultsch

After the military action which liberated former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, the newspaper De Volkskrant makes a plea for diplomacy in further dealings with the FARC: "The spectacular operation would seem to prove those people right who categorically reject negotiating with terrorists. But that conclusion is premature. Plenty of examples of liberation operations that have gone terribly wrong show the need to consider every option in such cases. ... Even if the FARC is now considerably weakened, guerilla movements are notoriously hard to defeat. Political means to shorten the futile conflict and liberate the remaining hostages must not be ignored." (04/07/2008)

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For the Süddeutsche Zeitung Betancourt's rescue represents a triumph for Colombian President Alvaro Uribe over the European mediators. "Hardly anyone in Colombia can doubt that Uribe's poll results will break all the records. ... The former presidential candidate for a Green alliance and the conservative neo-liberal president have little in common politically - except the conviction that taking hostages should not be rewarded. ... European mediators like Nicolas Sarkozy, who even offered to take in released rebels, have failed to understand this. They were doomed to failure because they do not know the law of the jungle." (04/07/2008)

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All available articles from » Sebastian Schoepp

The British government has decided to build two new aircraft carriers at a cost of 3.9 billion pounds. The Times thinks this is money well spent: "Is this the smartest use of money from an already strained defence budget? ... No piece of military equipment better allows Britain to project power. ... The new warships will enable Britain to play a leading role, and a complementary role, in fulfilling its obligations to global security and its responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. The two carriers will not answer the question of how best to tackle terrorists in the caves of Tora Bora. But they are a downpayment worth paying on the future of the Navy and Britain's place in the world." (04/07/2008)

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Spain's ruling Socialist Party is preparing a law that would allow even non-EU immigrants to vote in local elections, provided their countries of origin also give the same rights to expatriate Spaniards. The conservative daily El Mundo comments: "It is true ... that voting rights represent an important integration factor for immigrants. Nevertheless, this newspaper has ... consistently maintained that the right to vote must be tied to Spanish citizenship, and that this condition may not be qualified or watered down, and also entails duties. ... We believe the right to vote should only be given to those immigrants who wish to integrate into society, and not to those who are only here temporarily, or who commute back and forth between Spain and another country." (04/07/2008)

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Journalist Blaž Mazi points out in the online edition of the Slovenian daily Dnevnik that while the EU is striving to reduce CO2 emissions, heavy-vehicle traffic across Europe is growing and leaving its mark: "Perhaps the lobbyists for the transport and oil companies, who know exactly how to butter up Eurocrats with expensive meals, have something to do with this. Perhaps all the politicians' talk on the subject of the environment is just a welcome opportunity for self-advertising. ... Brussels would make those member states that dare to restrict the number of lorries on their roads pay dearly for their efforts. Do you also find this Eurologic confusing? Yet there is no contradiction here - it is a logical and carefully thought-out decision which Europe's leadership explains as follows: If we ban restrictions on lorry circulation in all countries we can point our fingers at others whenever we want to! No one will be to blame; after all, we will all have made the decision together." (04/07/2008)

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All available articles from » Blaž Mazi

The daily Latvijas Avize suspects that French President Nicolas Sarkozy's EU Council presidency could delay talks over EU membership for Turkey: "In the next six months several further [constitutional] chapters are to be negotiated. But even now numerous French deputies are threatening to withdraw their support for Sarkozy's constitutional reform if it does not include a clause making Turkey's admission to the EU dependent on a referendum. Sarkozy does not want to worsen relations with Ankara, but neither does he want to distance himself from his earlier comments opposing Turkish EU membership. For many observers, the topic ... symbolises the irresolution of the EU. And the recent referendums in three very different EU states have shown how many citizens feel about the rather philosophical question of 'Europe's borders'." (04/07/2008)

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All available articles from » Uldis Smits

Jaroslav Plesl, deputy editor in chief of Lidove Noviny, recalls that exactly ten years ago Osama Bin Laden qualified a crude oil price of 144 dollars per barrel as "fair". This mark was reached yesterday, Plesl writes, and Islamic zealots can celebrate the event as a victory in the struggle against the West: "70 percent of crude oil reserves lie under Muslim states that directly or indirectly support Islamic radicals. In this way, American money - and that of the West in general - flows into countries that do everything to weaken the democratic world. ... Our dependence on oil is consequently the major obstacle to successfully countering Islamic terrorism. ... There is only one way to escape this dilemma: we need new sources of energy. But the West has a key advantage over undemocratic countries. Democracy and competition are an extraordinary boon to innovation, and this will help us now as it has before." (04/07/2008)

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All available articles from » Jaroslav Plesl

Foreign relations expert Peter Scholl-Latour reflects in the conservative monthly magazine Cicero on Europe's relations with US presidential candidate Barack Obama: "If Obama does move into the White House, what will be his stance on Europe and the Germans? Hardly anyone can answer this because so far the attempts of Berlin and Paris to obtain a concrete response have been in vain. ... All foregoing presidents had an affinity with Europe, a relationship based on common 'Caucasian' roots. ... In Barack Obama we have a potential head of state and commander-in-chief who lacks this Atlantic connection. ... The new president need not have any reservations about undertaking the long overdue revaluation of the European Union and respecting its strategic and diplomatic independence, for it is the 27 EU states themselves that are preventing the development of an independently operating military power with their petty rivalries and the cuts in their defence budgets. ... It would be much more difficult for Berlin and Paris to deny an extremely popular US President Barack Obama increased participation than it was with his discredited predecessor. No one knows precisely who will be advising Obama on foreign alliances and relations with Germany, or whether he will decide to stick to the advice that Charles de Gaulle once gave the young Kennedy: 'N'écoutez que vous-mème' - do not listen to anyone but yourself." (30/06/2008)

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All available articles from » Peter Scholl-Latour

Ex-EADS boss Gustave Humbert has been under formal investigation for several days in France following allegations of insider trading. And the European aerospace company is forced to cut costs wherever it can. French business weekly Les Echos hopes that things will soon improve for EADS: "The situation at EADS is critical. Since the continuous delays with the [wide-bodied] A380 began, not a single day has passed without bad news from Toulouse or Hamburg. Everyone is making sombre predictions about the future of the aircraft constructor and Franco-German cooperation. All this only serves to worsen the climate. ... EADS and Airbus face the challenge of bringing the A400M to completion so it can make its maiden flight, and solving the construction problems with the A380 once and for all. Success in these two projects would restore confidence in the workshops at Toulouse and Hamburg. Ensuring that Europe's know-how in the field of aircraft construction stays in Europe is what is at stake here." (03/07/2008)

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All available articles from » Bruno Lancesseur

The newspaper La Repubblica comments on the proposal by Italy's Minister of Economy and Finance Giulio Tremonti to apply article 81 of the EC Treaty to non-European countries. The article contains a protective clause against market manipulation and commercial action that compromises or damages the European market. "From crude oil to the stock market, from food to raw materials, global speculation is eroding the equilibrium of the global economy. According to the ideologues of the new right, the time has come to strike out at the enemy. On Monday Tremonti will present his plan to ECOFIN in Brussels, which focuses on fighting speculation in the European domestic market by non-European entities. ... The Tremonti plan has a certain appeal, and is emblematic of the new face of protectionism. ... But the question is, even if article 81 is broadened to target speculators, who will determine the criteria and the form of sanctions against market manipulators?" (04/07/2008)

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All available articles from » Massimo Giannini

Greek daily To Vima criticises the European Central Bank (ECB) for raising the key interest rate and calls for a more courageous European economic policy: "Many economic experts have spoken out openly against the policy of increasing interest rates ... and talk about the dogmatism of the ECB president and the danger that Europe's economy could plunge into recession even sooner than the American economy. ... The first signs of a downswing came in the Eurozone's wealthy countries. ... Rich Denmark has officially entered a period of economic downturn. ... Spain and Ireland, once regarded as Europe's 'economic miracles', are following its lead. In Europe, perhaps the time has come when the voices of those politicians and economic experts will be heard who consider it urgently necessary to free economic policy from the tight corset of the Maastricht Treaty ... and to provide public funding to boost the growth of Europe's economy." (04/07/2008)

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All available articles from » Z. Tsolis

The writer Franz Kafka was born in Prague 125 years ago, on July 3 1883. The leftist weekly Freitag remembers the significance of Kafka's work for the freedom movement in socialist countries: "In Prague and in the entire East Bloc, Kafka was once the acid test for the intelligentsia of the socialist cultural life. Who can imagine that today? ... It should not be forgotten that the dispute over Kafka had much to do with the concept of socialism with a human face. ... The guardians of socialist realism feared that readers would interpret Kafka's novel 'The Trial' as a foresighted criticism of totalitarian socialism. And that is exactly what they did." (04/07/2008)

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All available articles from » Michael Hametner

The Netherlands is the country with the greatest number of citizens in prison in other countries in the world. According to a study, most of them were caught smuggling drugs to pay off debts. The political weekly Elsevier writes that they deserve no pity: "Yet people insist on making martyrs of these people, who should be allowed to serve their sentences in the Netherlands if at all possible. Needless to say the sentences would be shorter and served under more comfortable conditions. You would think people would realise that there can be no more effective campaign against smuggling drugs than letting Dutch smugglers ... live out the rest of their miserable lives among rats and without even a mattress. But the opposite is the case. As soon as they are released from foreign prisons they are given a hero's welcome. The government should change its policy of tolerance. It has caused the Netherlands ... to be dubbed Europe's 'narco-state': the leading producer of cannabis and the top trading centre for cocaine and heroine." (04/07/2008)

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All available articles from » René van Rijckevorsel