With the terms it has stipulated for the bailout package Europe has de facto colonised Greece, the liberal daily NRC Handelsblad warns. "The Treaty of Versailles of 1919, the peace treaty with which the allies foisted unbearable reparations on Germany, the opposite of peace was achieved. So it would make better sense if the countries now regarded as the colonial masters were to adopt a more unobtrusive stance rather than rubbing salt into the wounds. The [Dutch] finance minister Jan Kees de Jager has failed to understand this. Even before the negotiations on the 130 billion euro bailout he called for the 'permanent presence of the troika in Athens'. This was uncalled for. Greece is already under supervision. … Moreover he said would be 'unwise' for elections to take place in April. … It is not just a matter of bad style to kick a man when he's down. It's also in one's own interest to depict the humiliation as a compromise. Adopting an excessively harsh stance only breeds a desire for revenge." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Política financiera, » Grecia, » Holanda, » Europa
Cobertura de debates » Salidas a la crisis de endeudamiento

In return for the billions in aid money Greece must fulfil strict requirements and relinquish control over the economy to foreign auditors. The country has renounced its statehood unnecessarily, the conservative daily Rzeczpospolita admonishes: "This means surrendering a key part of its national sovereignty - and doing so beyond the scope of the European treaties. ... Better results would certainly be obtained with a structured reorganisation of the country. But neither the Greek politicians nor the people had the courage for such a step. Instead of getting down to work they opted either for partial slavery or insurgency. The Union has forced Greece to agree to permanent external control of its budget. ... You can say what you want about this requirement but one thing is certain: no sovereign country would accept such a situation, no matter how committed it is to the construction of a common Europe." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Política financiera, » Grecia
Todos los textos disponible de » Andrzej Talaga
Cobertura de debates » Salidas a la crisis de endeudamiento

At best, the 130-billion-euro EU bailout package will put insolvent Greece in an induced coma, the online portal euinside writes: "Imagine a patient who needs a lifesaving surgery. Everyone is aware that even if the operation is successful the best the patient can hope for is to remain on mechanical ventilation. However, still alive. Something like that has happened to Greece in the last 24 hours. After a 14-hour 'operation' the machine is turned on and the patient is breathing, though entirely dependent on another's will. The optimistic scenario is that the patient will start breathing on his own in two years and in eight years he will be able to walk. Nobody was ready to discuss the pessimistic scenario after the exhausting night. EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn looked tired but relieved, and made the best description of the situation: "In the past two years and again this night I have learned that marathon is indeed a Greek word.'" (21/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Política financiera, » Economía política, » Grecia, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Ralitsa Kovacheva
Cobertura de debates » Salidas a la crisis de endeudamiento

The second so-called bailout package for Athens can't be taken seriously, the conservative daily Lidové noviny complains: "The official goal of the bailout is to revive the economy, increase competitiveness and lower public debt. What we have now is the opposite. Who is going to invest in a country that is collapsing? … Fears are justified that Greece won't be able to keep its promises. The two traditional major parties that have been taking turns in power for generations and were the only ones willing to sign the bailout deal can garner no more than a third of the votes. It's almost as if the package had been deliberately designed to put Athens in a hopeless situation that leaves it no alternative but to say goodbye to the Eurozone." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Política financiera, » Grecia, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Lenka Zlámalová
Cobertura de debates » Salidas a la crisis de endeudamiento

Going bankrupt now rather than later would have been better for both Greece and the Eurozone, writes the liberal-conservative Neue Zürcher Zeitung, considering it likely "that the country will become insolvent and have to leave the Eurozone anyway in the not too distant future, but will only suffer unnecessarily in the meantime. Or that the Greek bailout will transform the Eurozone into a transfer union the survival of which will have to be guaranteed by increasingly large support payments without the disadvantaged regions finding a way out of their plight. Neither prospect is edifying. A solution which released Athens into insolvency, gave it the chance of genuine debt restructuring negotiations and led at least to the suspension of Greece's Eurozone membership would have been braver and more promising. But as things stand now the hope of Greece recovering is so tiny that it would be tantamount to a miracle if it did." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política financiera, » Grecia, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Peter A. Fischer
Cobertura de debates » Salidas a la crisis de endeudamiento

Italy's head of government Mario Monti announced to representatives of the financial sector that he would revoke the privileges of the so-called Salotto Buono, Italy's exclusive corporate elite of powerful bankers and industrialists. The liberal daily La Stampa praises the prime minister's objective and equitable approach: "This time Mario Monti is taking on the heavyweights of the financial world, not the trade unions. … In doing so he has acquitted himself of accusations that he protects the privileged. Even his blunt choice of words demonstrates the radical shift in thinking, for the term 'Salotto Buono' has negative connotations in everyday usage. And the openness with which the prime minister announced that individuals would be banned from holding more than one post on supervisory boards at the same time was likewise surprising. This certainly won't go down well with precisely the powerful people of the financial world to whom he refers. He has made it clear that he will no longer play their game." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Política financiera, » Italia
Todos los textos disponible de » Lucia Annunziata

The EU Commission will decide today, Wednesday, whether to block Hungary's access to the Cohesion Fund. The country has failed for years to keep its budget deficit below the limit of three percent of its GDP. The left-liberal daily Népszabadság looks at why Hungary is on the agenda in Brussels: "This sanction has never yet been imposed on a member state. Not even on the Greeks, who conned the EU for years and really deserve it. … The Poles, Belgians and Cypriots have not been threatened with sanctions yet, but they're all sitting in the same boat as us Hungarians and their situation is just as dire. They have repeatedly been told to consolidate their budgets and bring their deficits below the three-percent of GDP limit. They, too, have been fighting for years against a deficit and they, too, pin the blame on the devastating legacy of previous governments. But they are less insolent than Hungary, which is why the teacher is not rapping them across the knuckles." (21/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Política interior, » Hungría, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Edit Inotai

The EU Commission on Tuesday put the money from the European Social Fund earmarked for Romania on ice after auditors pointed to irregularities in the state administration of project funds. Those who want to use the money for reasonable projects have no chance against organised corruption, writes Elena Vijulie in the blog portal Voxpublica: "The experts at the state agencies and authorities are afraid to address the failings. Some think that if they protest they will never receive the money for their projects. Others fear for their jobs. There is a direct link between the fears and silence of the project heads and other experts on the one hand and the incompetence, corruption and above all the maliciousness and blindness of their state bosses on the other. ... In other, more developed countries, five percent of project costs are generally charged as expenses. But here in Romania the bosses want the whole bundle, and even now - at the eleventh hour - they still believe they won't have to answer for their behaviour." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Política interior, » Europa, » Rumania
Todos los textos disponible de » Elena Vijulie

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained to the US government on Monday about the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, who during an interview expressed doubts about the wisdom of Israel launching a military attack against Iran. Instead of strategising Israel should be open and above all realistic about potential scenarios of attack, the left-liberal daily Der Standard asserts: "The Israelis' annoyance could mean that they don't want an open critical debate because it would weaken public support for an attack that is already in planning. This makes a radical exposure of all potential scenarios all the more urgent. The Middle East's recent past is peppered with cases in which leading politicians have made mistakes when it came to predicting what turn events would take. The most glaring example of this is of course the 2003 Iraq war, but Israel's Lebanon War in 2006 also falls into this category. So this should prompt people to stop talking of a 'military strike'. It would be a prolonged military operation, a war that would not be confined to Iran but would also involve its allies in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de seguridad / Crisis / Guerras, » Irán, » Israel
Todos los textos disponible de » Gudrun Harrer

The polish economist Krzysztof Rybiński has started up the Eurogeddon Fund, with which investors can earn money on the euro crisis. A daring but simple project, writes Grzegorz Zalewski, stock market expert at the environmental bank BOŚ, in a commentary for the liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza: "Rybiński is putting his previous achievements on the line. If he is not able to sell this fund successfully he will no longer be taken seriously by his colleagues in the branch. He announced the fund that goes by the name Eurogeddon quite a while ago, but I'm disappointed at the end result. I thought this would be a project that would arouse my intellectual interest. The fact is it's a simple, not to say primitive investment fund, that earns money using short positions [loan transactions based on falling prices] or gold purchases. Quite honestly, it looks every bit like an amateur product lacking any sort of finesse." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Mercado de finanzas, » Polonia, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Grzegorz Zalewski
Cobertura de debates » Salidas a la crisis de endeudamiento

Denmark's centre-left government will not introduce road pricing in Copenhagen, it announced on Tuesday in the wake of conflicts in the coalition. The conservative daily Berlingske is delighted with this broken election promise: "The idea behind road pricing is above all to earn additional revenue. ... However limiting the number of cars in Copenhagen's city centre is no easy matter. Unfortunately it was above all the Socialists who linked additional revenues to traffic solutions they find absolutely brilliant [like cheaper rapid transit prices]. The problem with the left wing is their dogged belief that the car is a luxury product for 'the rich'. But in fact for many people - because of where they live or work, their family situation or the need to shop - the car is simply a necessity." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Infraestructuras / Tráfico, » Dinamarca

Police officers in Valencia used truncheons against young demonstrators protesting the Spanish government's austerity programme on Monday. But the conservative daily ABC says the furious criticism of the police action from the Left is exaggerated: "The Left is magnifying the culpability of the police and trying to convey the impression that Spain has plunged into violence. The incidents in Valencia were planned. They were the consequence of illegal demonstrations followed by provocations, attacks against civil order and damage of public property. The objective is clear: to convey the image of a violence that does not exist in Spain. Rajoy warned yesterday about this and called on everyone to 'remain calm' to prevent this distorted image of the country from taking root. That 'everyone' should also include the public broadcasters, which yesterday launched their news programmes with broad coverage of the police operation in Valencia even though no one was seriously injured. Is nothing more important happening in Spain or the world?" (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Disturbios, » España

The Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (STM) is planning a legal amendment making it possible to force pregnant women who are addicted to drugs to go to a detoxification clinic. The liberal daily Aamulehti welcomes the step: "Thousands of children are born each year with damages caused by their mothers' alcohol consumption. Now the STM is preparing a law that puts a child's right to be born healthy over a mother's right to take drugs. This amendment must be given unconditional support, because the rights of the unborn child are violated when too much emphasis is put on pregnant drug addicts' right to self-determination for idealistic reasons." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Salud / Medicina, » Derechos humanos, » Sociedad, » Finlandia

The UK wants to reduce from 16 to 13 the age at which development-curbing hormones can be given to children who feel they're stuck in the wrong body. But the first thing transexuals need is understanding, writes the author Rowan Pelling in the conservative paper The Daily Telegraph, telling the story of her own sister, who since early childhood wanted to be a boy: "My mother was the most empathetic woman on the planet, but she dreaded my sister suffering the ostracism that accompanies marked displays of difference. In the event, my sister suffered it anyway. ... Happily she had some good, supportive friends in her class and milieu, none of whom was surprised when she came out as a lesbian after she left school. Her decision ably demonstrates the fact that many a child who declares a strong wish to become a member of the opposite sex may find it's not their biology that's the real problem, just a dearth of role models; beyond the school gates there are plenty of masculine women, feminine men and androgynous types, who defy easy labels." (22/02/2012)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Salud / Medicina, » Ética, » Sociedad, » Gran Bretaña, » Global
Todos los textos disponible de » Rowan Pelling