Commentator Lubos Palatas sees the unsatisfactory situation in the Eastern German states as the main reason for the NPD's success in regional elections in the state of Mecklenberg-West Pomerania. "The economic performance of the governments in Berlin has been less convincing than those of the governments in Bonn. From being one of Europe's most successful countries, Germany has sunk into mediocrity. The situation in the Eastern German states is even worse. They're only keeping their heads above water thanks to funding from West Germany. The votes for the neo-Nazis are the result of government failures. The same goes for the votes for the Eastern German post-communist party. After all, we're talking about a third of all the votes here. That's a lot. German democracy is strong, but it needs to chalk up a few victories, as does the EU as a whole. We who live in the weaker democracies know about these things." (19/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, checo)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Alemania
Todos los textos disponible de » Luboš Palata

According to Stephan Hebel, the success of the NPD in Eastern Germany can be put down to the established parties' negligence which has allowed the NPD to "cast itself in the role of the only remaining source of sympathy and understanding for the desires and needs of the people in those states... It's not just the poor and unemployed who are looking for a voice that expresses their concerns regarding the future in a way that is different to the tug of war of the governing parties in Schwerin or Berlin. It's hardly surprising that this has led to the formation of a minority that is willing to accept extremist right-wing ideology. No one exploits people's feelings of powerlessness or of being a victim of the 'system parties' as brutally as the NPD does. Between elections, politicians and the media watch this process passively. They and all the others who are so shocked when they see the election results hardly bother about the problems that produce votes for the neo-Nazis in everyday life." (20/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, alemán)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Alemania
Todos los textos disponible de » Stephan Hebel

Eric Gujer, the newspaper's correspondent in Germany, suggests that "the extreme-right NPD is capitalising from the democratic parties' lack of a distinctive profile in the Eastern German state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania." He goes on to describe the NPD's strategies. "The party has two faces within its strongholds: it puts on a respectable semblance but is backed by neo-Nazi groups... Michael Andrejewski, the NPD's candidate in its stronghold town of Anklam, originally comes from Baden-Württemberg, while the party's leading candidate comes from Lower Saxony…They belong to the class of NPD members who grew up in West Germany, have plenty of experience in politics, adopt a respectable pose and have found a new area of activity in Eastern Germany. These party functionaries are backed by neo-Nazi groups that call themselves 'comradeships'... The leaders of the neo-Nazis also often come from West Germany. The party recruits its rank and file, mostly poorly qualified young men with little prospect of getting a decent job, in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania." (21/09/2006)

» ir a la página de inicio (enlace externo, Neue Zürcher Zeitung)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Alemania
Todos los textos disponible de » Eric Gujer

Birgit Baumann calls on the government coalition in Berlin to "finally take action against right-wing extremism. Who is standing in their way if not they themselves? There has never been a more propitious time to take action. The elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania were the last for a long time as there are no important state elections scheduled for 2007. Those who don't make the most of this opportunity have only themselves to blame. This is also true for the battle against right-wing extremism, particularly in Eastern Germany. This battle must begin or be given new impetus now – in schools, youth clubs and sports clubs. It's hard work but it's more honest and productive than calling for the NPD to be banned every few months." (19/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, alemán)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Alemania
Todos los textos disponible de » Birgit Baumann

The weekly dedicates its front page to the work of the American writer Jonathan Littell, 'Les Bienveillantes' ['The well-wishers'], which describes the daily life of the S.S. Rony Brauman, former president of Doctors without borders, is also the author of a documentary on the Eichmann trial. He evokes this every-day life in an interview with Michel Labro. "Many SS officers came from upper-class back-grounds. Among them were university graduates and bankers. The lower-grades were no different from their superiors. Any manifestation of fanaticism was rare. The work of historians shows this: most of these men acted without pity, but also without hate. And it is this ordered zealousness that is most frightening. ... It is not the evil that is banal [a reference to the expression of writer Hannah Arendt], it is the men. Recognising the banality of Nazism, does not trivialize it. Rather it repatriates it to the world of men." (21/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, francés)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Literatura, » Historia, » Alemania
Todos los textos disponible de » Rony Brauman

The Portuguese historian Jose Pacheco Pereira ponders the polemic generated by the Pope's speech last week in Regensburg. "The Pope criticises Islam, not for the violence of Mahomet's sword, but because in Muslim doctrine, God is absolutely transcendent. There is no real interaction between God and Mankind: Reason is not necessary, faith is essentially submission and obedience. ... By according value to the merging of the Greek tradition of logos and Christianity, the Pope is enunciating Europe's cultural tradition, the tumultuous history of its thinking and the foundations of its identity. He talks about religion and politics, about culture and thinking, abut the European Union and Turkey, about Christianity and Islam. It is indeed with these questions that Islam is addressed, if, that is, Islam allows itself to be addressed." (21/09/2006)

» informaciones adicionales (enlace externo, portugués)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Religión, » Ideología, » Global
Todos los textos disponible de » José Pacheco Pereira

The daily publishes a television interview between Sandor Friderikusz and author Peter Nadas in which the latter defends Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, whose remarks triggered a wave of protests and riots in Hungary after they were made public. Nadas argues that the goal formulated in the speech was to "dismantle the feudal, socialist system of privileges which has been used to govern the country for 16 years now. Until today, the governments have distributed what does not belong to them. This is incompatible with European practice. Hungary doesn't need an austerity package, it needs a far-reaching reform of the state budget that fights corruption and reduces privileges." Nadas points out that in the election campaign Fidesz, the main opposition party, "drafted a social welfare model despite being a conservative party. The situation in Hungary would deteriorate considerably if Gyurcsany's government collapsed." (21/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, húngaro)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Hungría
Todos los textos disponible de » Péter Nádas

The daily suggests that the current Hungarian political crisis could have positive results given the experience and charisma of Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany. "The European Commission, international banks and credit agencies have all taken notice and hope that he will indeed survive to carry out his programme, even as they too fume about the sheer audacity with which they were misled. Whether Mr Gyurcsany will be able to carry the political system with him and re-establish its legitimacy is another matter. Voters elsewhere in Europe will recognise this political game - there are shades of the 1987 or 2002 elections in it for Irish voters - and ask whether it exemplifies politicians' rooted untrustworthiness. Whatever about that, Hungary's political crisis also tells a story about how difficult it can be for the EU's newest member states to put in place the policies required for economic integration." (21/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, inglés)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Hungría

In the face of the violence that continues to run amok in the streets of Budapest, the European Union has so far proven prudent. Anne Rodier asked the French political scientist Jean-Yves Camus, a specialist in the study of the far-right, if the rise of populism in Hungary, Slovakia and Poland might be interpreted as a regional crisis among the new EU member states. "There have always been persistent ultranationalist currents running through these countries. But the classification of parties is immensely problematic. The lines are blurred in all of these States where movements which fought against the Soviets have the aura of liberators. Crisis lies where there is reaction to the European Union. Not only in terms of economy, in terms of identity too." (21/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, francés)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Hungría
Todos los textos disponible de » Jean-Yves Camus

"Ireland's economic success has been so impressive that it should be repeated in Poland," writes Witold Gadomski. He says Ireland's booming economy should serve as a model for Poland's economic policy, but points out that the biggest obstacle to Poland's success is "its instable political landscape and the way it treats the economy as a political battlefield... Over the last 12 months, Poland has attracted 7.8 billion euros in foreign investment. That's not bad, but it's a pittance compared with foreign investment in Ireland. If Poland doesn't reform its public finances, enter the euro zone, sink taxes, introduce structural reforms (liberalising the energy sector, telecommunications and train services) and complete the privatisation process, it won't be able to repeat Ireland's success. We may get richer faster than other countries in Western Europe, but it will take us 30 years to catch up with Europe. It took the Irish just ten years to do this." (21/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, polaco)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Polonia, » Irlanda
Todos los textos disponible de » Witold Gadomski

After the arrest on Wednesday, September 20th, of 21 people involved in an illegal telephone-bug scandal targeting a very large number of public figures, the journalist Riccardo Barenghi asks for total light to be shed on this unusual controversy. "When one hears the term 'Telecom', one spontaneously thinks of the telephone and in Italy everyone has a telephone. Everyone then should feel concerned by the news implicating 'Telecom', should worry about it and ask for an explanation from those who can give one: magistrates, but also the government and parliament. ... Millions of ordinary Italians are witnessing, flabbergasted, a spectacle of which they understand neither the cause nor the effects, nor the possible outcome. They have the right to know why a private company with a public function, that they have always known, should suddenly find itself in the eye of a cyclone. Is the average Italian asking too much ?" (21/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, italiano)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Italia
Todos los textos disponible de » Riccardo Barenghi

Jacekas Komaras takes the 67th anniversary of the Red Army's invasion of Eastern Poland as an opportunity to remind people that the interpretation of the events of September 17, 1939 is still controversial in several countries today. In the secret supplement to the Hitler-Stalin pact, Germany and the Soviet Union divided Eastern Europe up into spheres of influence. Following the end of the war, large parts of Poland fell under Soviet rule and now belong to Belarus. "The Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, is fond of this date and has declared it a public holiday commemorating the liberation of the western parts of the country from Poland. Cities like Grodno and Minsk even have streets named after September 17. But for Poland this date was a stab in the back. And for Lithuania it meant the end of independence… Many Lithuanians are still haunted by the Soviet stereotype, but at least we can hope that our children will learn the truth about September 17, 1939. In Russia, however, it's very unlikely that schools will change what they teach their pupils about this over the next ten to twenty years." (21/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, lituano)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Historia, » Alemania, » Europa del Este
Todos los textos disponible de » Jacekas Komaras

The Spanish economist Jose Aranda analyses the change of political tune that can be observed in Spain considering the question of immigration due to the arrival of several thousands of illegal immigrants since the beginning of the year. What is most unpleasant in the political declarations lauding firmness, is the contempt that emerges regarding the Spanish population. Given its history, it can easily understand the reasons behind migratory movements, which are always painful for those involved. These movements are the consequences of wars, persecutions, epidemics, desertification and many other problems that developed countries should concentrate on, instead of listening to those who, like Nicolas Sarkozy in France, only know how to deliver harsh speeches and speak of an impossible reinforcing of frontiers..." (20/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, español)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » España
Todos los textos disponible de » José Aranda

Russian energy company Lukoil wants to acquire a stake in Slovenian market leader Petrol. Bozo Dimnik analyses the advantages of this "partnership with the Russians". "The search for partners in the energy sector should be a priority for Slovenia. In particular we need partners who have their own resources. Because of its history, Russia has only a few allies in the EU. Of all the new EU members, Slovenia is the country that has the least strained relations with the largest Slavic country... Therefore I believe Slovenia could become a bridge between the EU and Russia." (20/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, esloveno)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Energía, » Eslovenia, » Rusia
Todos los textos disponible de » Bozo Dimnik

"The National Theatre's revival of 'The Alchemist' - a truly great English play about confidence tricksters - is as relevant in today's age of supposedly health-giving bottled waters as it was during the South Sea Bubble," comments the daily about the work of Ben Jonson [1572-1637]. "The play is not about alchemy but about criminals who cash in on it by inducing the gullible to part with money. ... But the most extraordinary thing is the way he channelled his inner demons into literature that still resonates, despite the difficulty of its contemporary references - which are more of a feature than with Shakespeare - and its classical allusions.... It is the achievement of Nicholas Hytner's production to have made Jonson come alive for a new age. This has been likened to alchemy though it is really the opposite : the preservation of gold from being transmuted by the passage of time." (21/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, inglés)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Escenarios, » Gran Bretaña

Psychologist Brigitte Veiz, who has been conducting socio-psychological field research at the Munich October Beer Festival for 14 years now, explains to Monika Goetsch why this huge booze-up is so attractive for both locals and tourists. "Under the influence of alcohol, people reveal their deepest desires – for more love and sensuality, a greater sense of belonging, and more heaven. People stretch their arms upwards and move to the same rhythm, as if they could leave their own bodies. Of course, no one actually tells me they want to go to the festival to have a transcendental experience. But this is exactly what people unconsciously go there for – their desire for fusion with the divine… The spiritual aspect is lacking, yet the Oktoberfest still has a ritual character. Year after year, at the same place and for a limited time, people can get dressed up in the traditional dirndls and leather trousers and free themselves of their 'self-imposed trappings', as Norbert Elias calls them." (21/09/2006)

» ir al artículo completo (enlace externo, alemán)
Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Cultura cotidiana, » Alemania
Todos los textos disponible de » Brigitte Viez