For Georges Delastic, the daily's editorialist, this election is a "major defeat for the Pasok. The Greek socialist party is going through an unprecedented internal crisis. Greek citizens have re-elected the conservative government despite financial scandals and deadly fires last August. The Pasok is under shock. This historical party, which gave Greeks a new hope in 1981 thanks to Andreas Papandreou, now only gathers the disappointed. Some dared to vote for more conservative parties, such as the communist party which benefited from youthful votes following last year's student revolt. Others, such as the far-right, have gained access to Parliament for the first time. This latter factor is important, especially in the management of diplomatic relations with neighbours such as Macedonia and Turkey." (17/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Grecia
Todos los textos disponible de » Giorgios Delastic

Cyrill Stieger analyses New Democracy's election victory. "It's obvious that the Karamanlis government's undisputed economic successes, such as sustained economic recovery, the reduction of the budget deficit and lowered unemployment, were honoured at the ballot box. For the majority of Greeks, Pasok, the main opposition socialist party, obviously wasn't a plausible alternative... Those who thought that August's forest fires, in which dozens of people died, would bring about a swing in the political scene were disappointed. What many Greeks are quite rightly bitter about is that no one has assumed responsibility and taken the appropriate steps - neither politicians nor the fire brigade. There are no investigations against anyone and no one has been brought to trial. Politicians are acting as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened." (17/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Grecia
Todos los textos disponible de » Cyrill Stieger

"Costas Karamanlis has shown that he is a fire-proof candidate", comments the Spanish daily. "Greece's parliamentary system is dominated by two big parties, the conservatives and the socialists. This scenario, which has been repeated over the decades, with the exception of the dictatorship [1967-73], is not new in Europe. What differentiates the Greek political system from its European partners is that the domination operated by the two parties is reinforced by the fact that the country has historically been governed by two dynasties, the Karamanlis on the right and the Papandreou on the left. And this has not changed. The only novelty in these elections is the fact the far-right Laos party has surpassed the 3% necessary to enter parliament where the Communist party hitherto represented the only other force." (17/09/2007)

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

"Greek politics has been dominated by three families for six decades: the Karamanlis, the Papandreous and the Mitsotakis," Michael Martens notes with disapproval. "Who stands for what in this southern European family clan saga?... Papandreou the Third is trying to discredit the government but he hasn't convinced enough voters. For his part, Karamanlis the Second will face unpleasant tasks after his election victory. During the first legislative period his main task was to deal with the gaping budget deficit left by the previous government. Over the coming years he must reform the country's dilapidated pension system. There are almost 200 pension fund companies in Greece; the taxi drivers, the rubbish collectors and the journalists all have their own, and many of them are inefficient. But even some of those who voted for him doubt Karamanlis will have the courage to introduce change and go down in Greek history as Costas the Reformer." (17/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Grecia
Todos los textos disponible de » Michael Martens

Political scientist Oliver Geden analyses the rise of Switzerland's right-wing populist DCU (Democratic union of the center) party. "Basically, there is little difference between Swiss right-wing populism and Haider's FPÖ in the 1990s. It's just better organised, isn't inclined to radical changes of theme and is focused on a long-term strategy. So why has it gone largely ignored in Germany? Why did Haider's slogans dominate the media while Blocher still doesn't attract this kind of attention? On the one hand it's simply because Switzerland doesn't belong to the EU and its political system is regarded as complex and little dynamic. But it also must have something to do with Germany's specific way of dealing with far-right parties... The alarm bells usually only go off when anti-Semitism or the trivialisation of National Socialism are involved. Haider's FPÖ, whose hard core still perceives itself as part of the 'deutsche Kulturnation', provided plenty of both. With the DCU, on the other hand, you would look in vain for any form of Nazi trivialisation." (17/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Suiza
Todos los textos disponible de » Oliver Geden

The Dutch writer Oscar van den Boogaard considers that "Belgians have too little national conscience, and even less national pride. Their natural landscape has been fragmented and covered with buildings, their architectural gems discarded. Incapable of opposing this as a united force they stand by and watch, heavy-hearted. Belgium is a small version of Europe: a collection of very different individuals, foreign to one another, whose individuality is not attached to the yoke of a common culture or history. The Dutch are so Dutch, the Germans so German, the French so French: they should thus detach themselves as soon as possible form their national identity to become real Europeans. Belgians, however, have an even and free nature. A Belgian can be anyone." (17/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Bélgica, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Oscar van den Boogaard

An Iraqi terrorist group belonging to al-Qaida has put a bounty of 100,000 dollars on the head of Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks. Vilks had depicted the Prophet Muhammad as one of Sweden's roundabout dog sculptures. At the same time, a bounty of 50,000 dollars was offered for the chief editor of Nerikes Allehanda, the local Swedish newspaper that published the cartoon. "Now Sweden has its own Rushdie affair," comments the newspaper which, like the majority of major Swedish newspapers - also published Vilks' cartoon. "Now it's crucial that as many people as possible rise up against the terrorists. Because al-Qaida is acting in the name of Islam this also applies to all Muslims and Muslim organisations. The dividing line does not run between East and West, nor between Muslims and Christians, but between tolerance and terror. This front line runs through Iraq right into Western Europe. Waves of refugees and threats prove that we are facing a common problem and that we all must take a stand." (16/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Relaciones internacionales, » Política de seguridad / Crisis / Guerras, » Suecia, » Global

On September 14, three girls from Chechnya that had entered Poland illegally were found frozen to death on the border between the Polish mountains and Ukraine. Marcin Wojciechowski comments. "Since its EU accession, Poland has become a paradise for refugees seeking protection in safe and prosperous Europe. We aren't as rich as the French or the Germans, but it's easier to get to us because we share a stretch of border that is several hundred kilometres long with former Soviet Republics ... No one in the Polish Foreign Ministry or in the EU institutions has said it in public, but the consulates of all EU states have been given secret and specific instructions not to grant visas to citizens with Russian passports issued in Chechnya ... So when refugees aren't allowed to enter Poland legally, they try other ways ... The EU's ostensibly humane immigration laws are in fact unjust. Yet again, some of those who wanted to enter paradise have just fallen victim to this law." (15/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Migración, » Polonia
Todos los textos disponible de » Marcin Wojciechowski

"Last week, Northern Rock, Britain's fifth biggest mortgage lender and the former darling of the financial markets, was forced to turn to the Bank of England for cash because no City lender would support it for fear the company was about to go bust. When the announcement broke overnight on Thursday [September 13th], ordinary savers followed the City's lead - jamming the company's switchboard and queuing outside branches to take as much as £1bn out in a day", notes the columnist Will Hutton. "This is a full-blown run on a bank, something we have not seen on such a scale since the 19th century, and a measure of the depth of mismanagement, non-regulation and structural dysfunctionality of today's financial system. ... Proud finance has insisted it needs no regulation, that it can be trusted to deploy the nations' savings with care. The trust has been abused." (16/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Comercio, » Consumidor, » Gran Bretaña
Todos los textos disponible de » Will Hutton

Laetitia Clavreul points out that "For twenty-five years, the French had been used to associating agriculture with crisis rather than new horizons, considering it more in political terms than in economic terms. However, the context has been shifting over the past few months and people appear to be (re)discovering that French agriculture is not dead, but on the contrary in a strategic position. … But let there be no mistake. Though nutritive agriculture is back on the forefront of the European scene, times have changed. It is true that on a global scale more will have to be produced, but also produced in a different way. The New CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] should insist even more on saving the planet. France demonstrated its capacity to produce more after the Second World War, thanks to the first CAP, but without seeing the environmental damage this engendered." (16/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Medio ambiente, » Economía agrícola, » Francia, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Laetitia Clavreul

A controversial campaign organised by the anti-abortionist organisation "Right to Life" is currently running in Slovakia. The campaign consists of 500 large posters featuring pictures of a bloody eleven-week-old aborted foetus which have been put up all over the country. According to Lukáš Fila, the campaign "has done more harm than good, regardless of whether you support or reject abortion. The initiators' goal was to change society's attitude to abortion. However the campaign has failed on all fronts. It has generated negative emotions, hurt women who have already had an abortion and brought something to our streets that not only for the sake of our children didn't belong there, but which also contradicts our entire culture. The argument that it's necessary to use extreme and fear-provoking campaigns to change people's way of thinking is untenable." (17/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Cultura cotidiana, » Política de los medios de comunicación, » Eslovaquia
Todos los textos disponible de » Lukáš Fila

Following the European Heritage Days that took place in France last weekend, September 15-16, Didier Pourquery notes that "Since the1930s, there has been very heated debate between historians and architects concerning what should be protected or restored. Should works of art be restored or all places of national memory be celebrated? Should a flamboyant policy be pursued or a doctrine of transmission followed? Successive governments have rarely been decisive. A bit of this, a bit of that... Also, for forty years, this question has been a bone of contention between the State and local communities, who are often reluctant to save sites that would be used to more immediate ends. And the debate is all the more complicated by the fact that half of protected building are privately owned!" (15/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Arquitectura / Ciudades, » Política Cultural, » Francia
Todos los textos disponible de » Didier Pourquery

Marta S. Halpert describes how the American Ed Serotta is gradually putting together a virtual museum about Jewish pre-war life on the Internet. "'Centropa' is the name of this unique Vienna-based institution which uncovers and records the ordinary lives of the Austrian-Jewish men and women who became the witnesses of a tumultuous century. To counter the fading memory of these times, the oldest method has been combined here with the latest technology. Virtually everything that this generation's fascinating long-term memory can provide is recorded and presented in hour-long interviews. 'Centropa' gives people access to these irretrievable treasures of oral history over the Internet. But above all this virtual museum lives from the many personal photos, most of them yellowed with age, published here for the first time. When you let yourself be caught up in the magic of these portraits, holiday photos and village scenes, you can feel and get a partial picture of the history of Central and Eastern Europe over the past 150 years." (17/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Historia, » Centroeuropa, » Europa del Este
Todos los textos disponible de » Marta S. Halpert

"There were 27 of them striking a pose on Saturday [September 15th] ... . 27 from 27 countries in the European Union contributing to the exhibition 'It's Our History', scheduled for October 25th to March 23rd, in Brussels. ... Each will be representing a moment of post war Europe”, writes Pascal Martin referring to a photo shoot prior to this exhibition which will later form the Museum of Europe's fixed collection, once a permanent building has been found. "The exhibition will tell visitors their story and the story of their countries with the aid of videos installed around the exhibition. ... The Museum of Europe has not given up the idea of setting itself up at the foot of the institutions that govern the Union in Brussels. Meanwhile, its promoters are consoling themselves by saying that it is not the building that makes the museum, but its collections." (17/09/2007)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Exposiciones / Museos, » Política Cultural, » Bélgica, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Pascal Martin