Lisbon's daily underlines the economic priority in José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero second mandate. "The new government is made up of nine women and eight men, making parity the norm at the summit of power. Otherwise, this only confirms the role of women in the Spanish workforce, already strong for the last ten years. ... Zapatero's announced priority is the economy. But it won't only be a matter of overcoming the construction crisis. Recognising the insufficient level of progress in productivity and the necessity of strongly developing high value-added services and technology are also priorities of the new government. And it's on the results of these policies that Zapatero and his new team will be judged in four years." (13/04/2008)

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

Peter Gaupp examines the new Spanish cabinet, the most important change in which has been the appointment of a female defence minister, Carme Chacón. "The balance between the sexes in the government, which is a top priority for Spanish Prime Minister Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has shifted in favour of women with this latest addition to the cabinet. Now there's parity even when you count in the prime minister - not just the team around him. Spain probably now has the most female government in the world, and equality of the sexes as a government goal is also embodied in the new ministry for equality. Naturally it's led by a woman, 31-year-old Bibiana Aído, who until now was active in regional politics in Andalusia, and is largely unknown in Madrid." (14/04/2008)

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

The daily examines the composition of the new Spanish government, announced April 12th. "The first government of the second legislature of the era of Zapatero ... embodies all the best political qualities of 'Zapaterism' - audacity, boldness, modernity, innovation and imagination - but also a large number of its faults: stubbornness, frivolousness and sectarianism. The make-up of this executive, as well as the head of government's explanations of the criteria used for its selection, show that Zapatero wants to go down in history as the great moderniser and that he's naming his ministers accordingly, with the idea of creating a 'social pedagogy'. Not because they are the best people to manage Spain's problems, but because they are the ones who best project the image Zapatero wants people to have of him." (13/04/2008)

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

Ukrainian Germanist Jurko Prochasko explains why he wants Ukraine to join the EU: "I don't want to be angry at the EU or jealous of it - I want to be proud of it. This is only possible if you belong to it. I don't want to live without that feeling of being part of Europe that was so natural to my grandparents. ... The EU is the new Europe - every bit of it: as a self-creation, a self-discovery, a self-interpretation, a self-modernisation and finally as a quest. This really is a beguilingly new concept. We need this renewal of ideas, technologies and life styles. You need the renewal that the remembering of things forgotten brings. We must shed some of our cynicism; you must shed some of your ignorance. We need you; you need us. We need the sense of belonging; you need the sense of being a whole. We need this too. We are prepared to go all the way." (14/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Ampliación de la UE, » Ucrania
Todos los textos disponible de » Jurko Prochasko

In France, Germany and Poland, the year 1968 is commemorated in many ways, Petr Uhl writes, but it is met with a lack of interest in the Czech Republic: "And who commemorates the commitment of both members and non-members of the communist party to a different type of socialism? Where are the debates in schools, the media and assemblies? Or were we really all mistaken back then, as the 'normalisers' [the orthodox communists after 1968] claimed? There seems to be no desire for discussion. This means the triumph of the absurd claim that what happened back then was nothing more than an inner-party power struggle, and that Soviet intervention convinced people once and for all that socialism was simply a dead end." (14/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Historia, » La República Checa
Todos los textos disponible de » Petr Uhl

Italians continue to vote in the second day of legislative elections - which should have a winner before the day is over - billionaire Silvio Berlusconi is polling to win. In an interview conducted by Charlotte Bozonnet, French political scientist Pierre Musso compares Berlusconi with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "There are a number of similarities between them, not only with respect to the media or psychology, but firstly in terms of political position. The key point: both of them position themselves against traditional politics and present themselves as men who break with the past. They bring the criticism of politics into politics itself. This goes even farther in dealing with their criticism of the providential state, which they wish to transform into a liberal one. It means reforming institutions for the benefit of corporations, and managing the state like a company. It's a profound strategy." (10/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Francia, » Italia
Todos los textos disponible de » Charlotte Bozonnet, » Pierre Musso

On Sunday March 13, Bulgaria's Interior Minister Rumen Petkov resigned. He came under attack after meeting up with entrepreneurs of dubious repute and was also accused of failing in the battle against organised crime. Last week an entrepreneur and an author of books about the Mafia were shot dead. The daily comments: "Four weeks after the scandal broke out, one of the country's most powerful politicians, Interior Minister Rumen Petkov, has resigned. He even admitted to making mistakes in his personal policies - which was very out of character for him. This is the end of the Petkov affair. What remains to be seen is whether it will lead to a change in the status quo in Bulgaria. The close ties between state and criminality are alarming. Politicians don't want to admit it, so now it's up to the journalists to pull the emergency brakes." (14/04/2008)

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

Two weeks after the NATO summit in Bucharest at which Macedonia's accession to the military alliance was postponed owing to its name dispute with Greece, the Macedonian government under Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has resigned. The country is facing a test of endurance, Michael Martens reports: "The collapse of the coalition in Skopje is above all a strategic game played by the ruling parties. But it also shows how fragile the agreement signed between Albanian and Slavic Macedonians in August 2001 under pressure from the EU and Washington is. ... This most recent crisis [should] remind us of three things: firstly, there is no other country in the Balkans whose future depends more on developments in Kosovo than Macedonia. Secondly, its unity will be threatened if Greece decides to thwart its efforts to join the EU after having thwarted its NATO ambitions. And thirdly, this would be bad for the entire region." (14/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Ampliación de la UE, » Política de seguridad / Crisis / Guerras, » Política interior, » Sudeste de Europa
Todos los textos disponible de » Michael Martens

"[British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown may have been disappointing. But he isn't a disaster. He has been too timid. But that doesn't mean he is a 'coward'. And most of those who have turned on him have their own axes to grind," writes Jackie Ashley on Brown's fading popularity. "Instead of calculating who will replace Brown and when, or elbowing one another, ministers should be asking themselves why they are not making a better fist of defending the government as a whole. There has been little plain speaking and a lot of hiding under the sofa. The curse of pseudo-presidential politics is that everything, good and bad, is loaded on to one person, while the rest of the government act like commentators, not the players they really are. Whether or not Labour loses power at the next election, there's a good year and more still to go, and a lot of governing to do." (14/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Política interior, » Gran Bretaña
Todos los textos disponible de » Jackie Ashley

Journalist and writer Soli Ozek comments on the judicial procedure brought against the AKP (Justice and Development Party) in Turkey, accused of threatening democracy and working to build an Islamic state. "For many observers, the document prepared by the highest court of justice is more political than legal... . Turkish democracy proved itself to be mature when the AKP comfortably won the [2007 legislative] elections. It would have been able to, without missing a step, taken on the political and economic reforms necessary to be in sync with the EU. But the AKP instead gave the impression that it wasn't moving toward membership and didn't seek a bigger domestic consensus. ... Turkey finds itself with a government that is a real lame duck, with a mediocre capacity to deal with crises." (11/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Ampliación de la UE, » Política interior, » Turquía
Todos los textos disponible de » Soli Ozel

In the wake of food riots that occurred in several countries over the weekend, Didier Pourquery argues that "the gap is widening between the problems of the north and those of the south. Certainly, we've noticed a large increase in food prices in Europe as well. Bread prices are rising, but here, bread doesn't make up such a large proportion of family budgets as it does is poor countries. In the north, we have considered the question of European crop self-sufficiency as resolved, and to reduce the weight of the agricultural policy, we've begun to reflect on alternative farming: more economical, responsible, organic, etc. ... Faced with skyrocketing demand, a falling stock market, rising food prices and food riots, it's time to get back to production. Produce a lot, quickly and cheaply." (14/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Economía agrícola, » Global
Todos los textos disponible de » Didier Pourquery

Finance ministers and central bank governors of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank member countries delivered their evaluation of the international financial situation this weekend, "to ensure that light is shed on the magnitude of the financial disaster provoked by the subprime loan crisis in the American market," writes Marian Stepcynski. "Because it becomes intolerable to sit by, day after day, watching an ever-growing bill that never seems to be final. ... It would be wrong, and totally counter-productive, to restrain the banking and financial sector's ability to manoeuvre because the economy as a whole, and growth quite simply, depends on it. On the other hand, it is time to break the asymmetry of a system that, via large bonuses, encourages intensive risk taking without any serious threat of sanctions in the very probable case that the craziest wagers are lost." (14/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Economía política, » Mercado de finanzas, » Global
Todos los textos disponible de » Marian Stepczynski

The Polish government wants to abolish radio and TV licence fees and use the national budget to finance state television and radio. Renowned artists have protested against the plans in an open letter to Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Above all they fear the move could lead to the privatisation of state media. Wojciech Maziarski retorts: "For generations, the cultural identity of the nation has formed without intervention from the state (for centuries the Poles didn't even have their own state). To this day the state doesn't publish its own books, it doesn't print newspapers or magazines and it doesn't record music. There are no state cinemas, cabarets, web pages or blogs, so why do we need state television or radio?" (14/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Medios de comunicación audiovisuales, » Política de los medios de comunicación, » Polonia
Todos los textos disponible de » Wojciech Maziarski

Columnist Pol Mathil comments on the release of the second volume of Franco-German history, treating the period running from 1815 to 1945. "How did the Germans and the French overcome the most difficult challenge that faced them, namely to be able to offer to their youth a common view of the events - thus the memory, the emotions and the totally different visions - that have always divided them? ... What is possible in the west thanks to democracy and European unification, and what is essential for the recognition of different peoples, is still to be done in Old kidnapped Europe, where for half a century all truth was banned from classroom instruction and as a result, from historical and political debate. How can we accommodate the memory of the Polish, for whom the massacre ... of Katyn was a genocide, with the Russian version ... ? The project of a common Polish-German textbook is underway. It won't be any easier." (14/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Historia, » Alemania, » Francia, » Polonia
Todos los textos disponible de » Pol Mathil

The Czech Republic is increasingly a destination rather than a transit country for immigrants. This was the result of a study according to which of all the post-communist countries, the Czech Republic is the most popular destination for migrants. Tomas Nemecek comments: "Where else should one go in Central Europe? Hungary has economic troubles. Slovakia is growing but its society is cutting itself off from the rest of Europe. Poland is busy trying to bring back its own young people. The Czech Republic, on the other hand, offers plenty of jobs and a peaceful and safe refuge for the nouveau riche of the ex-Soviet Union. Within five years the number of Russians alone living in Prague has doubled. And finally, unlike most French or Germans, the majority of Czechs don't feel the newcomers are taking away their bread. Most of the immigrants are Ukrainians or Slovaks, or in other words people from countries whose culture, language and history are close to ours." (14/04/2008)

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Más de la revista de prensa sobre el tema » Migración, » La República Checa
Todos los textos disponible de » Tomáš Němeček