The government should respond to the decision of the constitutional court, demands Ion Vianu. "It would be incomprehensible if the Securitate archive became secret once again. This also applies to the archive of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR), which is to be made accessible to the public shortly. If the agency is in fact dismantled, it would lead to isolation within the EU, and we would become a post-Soviet state. For some, this might be opportune, but it would be incompatible with our EU status. We can only hope that the attempt to close the agency down leads to its functioning more effectively. ... In the end, the agency need not pass judgement at all. It must simply describe what can be found in the archives. It is then up to the public to judge." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Historia, » Rumania
Todos los textos disponible de » Ion Vianu

The issue of public access to the Securitate files does not mobilise the masses, Martin Woker regrets, even though Romania risks EU sanctions in the field of justice. "Dan Voiculescu, the successful plaintiff, had been unmasked as a civilian informant of the state security system. Under Ceausescu, he had had a high-ranking position in foreign trade. Directly following the transformation, he established a media empire which ensured him and his insignificant Conservative Party decisive influence in the political realm. His critics regard him as the most repugnant of all the turncoats in the country. ... Observers in Bucharest consider the fact that he, of all people, succeeded in sabotaging the investigating agency as further evidence that the sinister characters of the old system are gradually being rehabilitated." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de la UE, » Política interior, » Rumania
Todos los textos disponible de » Martin Woker

Constantin Ticu Dumitrescu, initiator and member of the agency to investigate the Securitate, criticised the EU for its silence regarding the dismantling of the agency in an interview with Laura Balomiri. "The constitutional court annulled the decisions of the agency retroactively, which is not permissible according to any legal norm in the world. Our activities are now completely blocked because they have become very threatening for many politicians and officials in the justice system. ... Now, as we are in command of two million files, they decided that the only way to rescue themselves is to dismantle the agency. Before, they had not dared to pull off anything like that, now they are doing it shamelessly, with Europe's consent. This proves that joining the EU has helped these people, as the EU has demonstrated several times that it is not interested in uncovering communist structures." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Historia, » Rumania
Todos los textos disponible de » Constantin Ticu Dumitrescu, » Laura Balomiri

Edward Lucas, Central and Eastern Europe correspondent for 'The Economist', warns that "the West must stand up to the Kremlin now. ... Russia plays divide and rule with the West, ruthlessly using our democratic politics and open economies to undermine us. ... Russia has cowed and muzzled the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), supposedly the Continent's main democracy-promoting and election-monitoring body. It has nobbled the Council of Europe, a talking shop that is supposed to be the custodian of human rights. ... At its summit in Bucharest in April, Nato's European members are all set to kowtow to Kremlin pressure and give a cold shoulder to Georgia's bid to move towards membership. The EU can not even summon the willpower to liberalise its internal energy markets, let alone counter the Kremlin's ruthless use of cheap energy deals and lucrative pipelines. Our biggest weakness is money." (05/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Relaciones internacionales, » Política interior, » Rusia
Todos los textos disponible de » Edward Lucas

Poet and literary historian Gábor Schein misses a well-considered cultural policy in Hungary. "Since the political transformation, government cultural policy and its subordinated central cultural institutions have taken a position of adopting the old views and protecting the previous economic and cultural structures. In doing so, they define themselves and the cultural models they represent as losers both of the transformation and of globalisation. ... Education at schools and the university level are getting worse and worse, public spaces are steadily disappearing and the culture of reading is falling by the wayside. A comprehensive concept of cultural modernisation which also defines the functions of the central institutions anew has been lacking since the transformation. For this reason, a public discussion about the nature and content of democratic cultural policy in Hungary should be launched. This issue remains to be debated." (05/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política Cultural, » Hungría
Todos los textos disponible de » Gábor Schein

The French sociologist Michel Wieviorka considers that the definition of war formulated by the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in the 19th century, who considered it "the extension of politics by different means", is now obsolete. "Resorting to force now goes beyond all political objectives by adopting a supra political aim, notably religious. Thus terrorism has engendered situations that mean that war is no longer an extension of politics, but an ultimate, absolute combat in which each enemy treats the other as if it were ultimate evil. When a state uses force to destroy an enemy, to eliminate it, it creates certain conditions of extreme violence that do have some things in common with the fundamental concept of war. But there is no longer any political content." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política de seguridad / Crisis / Guerras, » Global
Todos los textos disponible de » Michel Wieviorka

French Members of Parliament approved the revision of the Constitution on February 4th, a necessary procedure prior to the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. The daily explains that this text is going to be adopted without difficulty this week. "So Europe will escape another Berezina, another calamitous defeat, as long as the 27 members all approve the Lisbon Treaty. It has not however been relaunched ... . Far from it. These last three years of dialogue and their current epilogue not only failed to bring Europe closer to the populations that it is composed of, the reforms planned in the Lisbon Treaty, even if elected bodies are reinforced, hardly guarantee an easier comprehension of the way the Union works. On certain key points, such as the Union's presidency, we can even fear the contrary. As of tomorrow, we are going to need more than tactical capacities to give back a meaning and an impetus to the European project." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Constitución de la UE, » Francia, » Europa

Forty years ago, religious instruction in schools in Bulgaria was abolished – today, people are discussing its reintroduction. Bojko Pentschev argues for ethics as a subject to provide an alternative for non-Christian parents. "The proposal plans for religion as an elective subject for the first twelve years, with an expressly secular character. Knowledge about different religions (with a focus on Christianity) is to be taught, but also understanding and respect for other beliefs. ... Such teaching should go hand in hand with the subject of ethics, because there will be parents who do not want their children to participate in religious instruction – and they have every right not to. They may be atheists or orthodox believers who do not accept secular treatment of the subject matter. They have a right to say no, especially in a state that has had sad experiences with indoctrination of certain 'values'." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Religión, » Bulgaria
Todos los textos disponible de » Boiko Pentchev

This Wednesday, February 6th, the Italian president of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano is due to announce the dissolution of parliament and organisation of early elections in April. Luigi La Spina dwells on the return of Silvio Berlusconi in the political sphere. "The centre-right leader, Silvio Berlusconi, will have to use his pyrotechnic propaganda to get people to forget the numbness felt in the elections of 2006 and 2001 ... . The Cavaliere has decided to modify his message. He no longer wishes to be the Sarkozy-style man of 'rupture', as they say, breaking away from and reacting against the traditional hypocritical song and dance and false alliances. This time he wants to be the dialogue man, the only one capable of putting an end to this sterile war where everybody is against everyone else and which has led Italy to the edge of decline. " (05/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Italia
Todos los textos disponible de » Luigi La Spina

Jean Portante considers that Germany, France and Italy are currently going through similar political situations. "In all three cases, one senses how exasperation is making citizens oscillate between opposite camps, without those who take turns in power ever managing to carry out satisfactory policies in difficult areas ... . Social divides denounced as old-fashioned by the champions of liberalism remain, however, the lynchpin of all politics as the global economical recession is casting its shadow and the degradation of the standard of living for most Europeans is very likely to get worse. ... [But] voters no longer see any difference between left-wing and right-wing governance and throw themselves into the arms of the former one moment and the latter the next, losing a bit more of their faith in politicians each time, thus undermining democracy." (01/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Alemania, » Francia, » Italia, » Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Jean Portante

After nine years of debate, the dispute between Germany and Poland about a planned Centre against Expulsions in Berlin was officially resolved. Poland will not participate formally in the planned documentation centre in Berlin, but collaboration on the part of Polish historians was not ruled out. Bartosz T. Wieliński remains sceptical. "Yesterday's compromise ... did not end the discussion about a place of commemoration for the expellees. The dispute took too long. Too many politicians in Poland and in Germany bear mutual animosity for the agreements reached yesterday to be able to end their argument. Politicians of the [Polish party] PiS will continue to pillory the government because it allegedly capitulated to Germany. The German Federation of Expellees will cry out because it wants to dictate how people commemorate the deportations, not the German government." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Exposiciones / Museos, » Migración, » Historia, » Alemania, » Polonia
Todos los textos disponible de » Bartosz Wielinski

Eduardo Damaso highlights the importance of economic questions in the Spanish legislative elections to be held on March 9th. "Four years ago, many analysts announced spectacular growth for Spain, turning it into the eighth strongest economic power on the planet. But at the time some had the courage to say, beware ! This growth depends too much on concrete and real estate. Now the crisis is well and truly here. The Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is not responsible for it and has not added to it either. He even has the courage to go against the grain during this campaign, pointing out that there is little technological innovation and development in the Spanish economy. If he wins, he will face the biggest political challenge in his career. And as far as we [the Portuguese] are concerned, we had better not even imagine what would happen to us if Spain were to fall ill..." (05/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » España
Todos los textos disponible de » Eduardo Dâmaso

The industrial group Mittal-Arcelor announced the partial closure of a steelworks in Gandrange, eastern France. The French president, who went to the site on February 4th, announced that the State was ready to implicate itself financially to save activity there. Philippe Escande is sceptical. "If you really want to help industry, you can't confuse interventionism with willpower. ... When the president invites himself to the Gandrange steelworks to lecture Arcelor management on their trade under the pretext that the price of steel is higher, there is a change of register. Industrialists, who know their business, need neither lessons, nor advice from the public executive. What they need is a set of clear and stable rules. This is also what employees are asking for: the protection of their futures, rather not dreams that can't come true." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Empresa, » Francia
Todos los textos disponible de » Philippe Escande

The little film 'La Soledad' ('Solitude'), by Spanish director Jaime Rosales, created a surprise in the Goya awards ceremony on February 3rd when it was given three prizes, including that of Best Feature-Film. For Pilar Cernuda, this film does not help Spanish cinema. "Spanish cinema is indeed of high quality and recognised as such beyond our borders. But it is tainted with hackneyed progressiveness which no doubt constitutes its main problem. Viewers get up and leave auditoriums showing Spanish films because they have had enough of hearing about the misery of the Civil War from the same old point of view, they can no longer stand scenarios about abuse, street violence, marginal groups, stereotypes, vulgar women or kooky civil servants who are obsessed with sex. There are of course superb films, but there are far more films that leave one with a bitter after taste, a feeling of ennui, or worse still, of shame." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Película, » España
Todos los textos disponible de » Pilar Cernuda

"Never before has pop music had such a presence at an international film festival," declares Kai Müller, commenting on the Berlin International Film Festival which will open officially tomorrow evening with Martin Scorsese's film about the Rolling Stones. "The proximity of pop and cinema is based on a misunderstanding – namely the assumption that the two art forms could benefit from one another – particularly in times of economic crisis. ... Nonetheless, cinema cannot elude pop music. It has become the dominant language of culture. Whenever the globalised world of consumption seeks to clarify its own position, it finds illustrative material in pop. And not only with historical distance, but in the moment it manifests itself in fashion, language, behaviour – in all those strange signs with which young people deck themselves out. The heroes of this knowledge, which is still 'ungrasped', are the pop musicians." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Película, » Música, » Alemania
Todos los textos disponible de » Kai Müller

For some time now, a joint Hungarian-Slovakian history textbook has been planned. Yet the textbook, following a German-French model, has not been published to date. Differences in opinion between the historians was not to blame, explains Slovakian historian Dusan Kovac in an interview with József Szilvássy. "Regarding reconciliation of the two countries, I consider the German-French example to be a model, but with one caveat. That process was initiated by the two statesmen, and only later did the intellectuals and citizens get on board. In our region, in contrast, this approach is supported only by those intellectuals who are dedicated to European values – but not by the politicians, neither on the Slovakian nor on the Hungarian side." (06/02/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Historia, » Hungría, » Eslovaquia
Todos los textos disponible de » Dusan Kovac, » József Szilvássy