The main international dailies in the early days of the new year devote ample coverage to reviewing the progress of the euro following its introduction on 1st January. Thus Le Monde of 8/1, reports, on its front page, on the Italian “case”, after the resignation of Italian Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero from the Berlusconi government. “Italy: the resignation that isolates Silvio Berlusconi from the rest of Europe”, is the front-page headline of the French daily. “The resignation of the Italian Foreign Minister, a militant europhile, is causing anxiety in Brussels and to Italy’s partners“, says a brief summary of the article. “ After his ascent to power, the Italian Prime Minister has on several occasions delayed or avoided the decisions reached by the Fifteen”. In a comment on its inner pages, Le Monde reconstructs Ruggiero’s resignation as follows: “A man of talent and experience, a convinced Europeanist, esteemed by all his fellow-ministers, Renato Ruggiero could not long remain Minister of Foreign Affairs under Silvio Berlusconi. He could not in the long run form part of a team in which some members are only too glad to express not their euro-scepticism, but their actual aversion to Europe”. Ruggiero, comments the French daily, “had a precise role to play in the Berlusconi government: as one of the few europhiles in the government team, his role was to ensure the European and international credibility of a Berlusconian Italy that did not at all inspire confidence in his EU partners. Ruggiero strove as best he could over the last seven months. He chose to go on 5 January. He could no longer reconcile his convictions with the line of ‘euro-contempt’ adopted by the Berlusconi government”. Even though the government’s majority “is not threatened” by Ruggiero’s resignation, Berlusconi might have committed “his first real political blunder”, concludes Le Monde . The Herald Tribune (8/1) also devotes attention to the Ruggiero case and notes that the European leaders “have expressed consternation” about the resignation of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, which occurred “after a bitter public dispute with other ministers on their lukewarm reception of the euro. Some European leaders have been given personal assurances by Berlusconi on the fact that Italy remains committed in the ambitious objective of European integration”. An article by Nicola Schwering in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 4/1 paints an upbeat picture of “ the first days of the euro and the beginning of the end of the German mark“. The article describes various experiences of the new currency in the daily life of the Germans, who felt immediately at their ease with it, so much so that “ even the parish priest, in whose collection box at the end of the year many faithful had placed their last foreign coins and low denomination coins worth just a few pfennigs, is astonished: the first euros had already appeared by Wednesday“. The same paper (7/1) also reports the satisfaction of retailers who “ speak of ‘business as usual’” and point out that “ the new currency almost has no effect on the consumer“. The same issue is also addressed by the Spiegel which, in its issue dated 7/1, carries the headline “ Flight from the mark” and, in the article by K.P. Kerbusch, A. Mahler, U. Schäfer and H.J. Schlampf, notes that “ the greatest currency change of all time has gone smoothly – and with some surprises: prices have dropped, the value of the euro has risen“, but, the authors note, “ the long-term success of the new currency will depend on the will and the discipline of European politicians“. “Dialogue with Islam” is the title of the article by Heinz-Joachim Fischer in the FAZ of 7/1. “Everyone is now speaking of dialogue with Islam; the Catholic Church has long been engaged in it” says the journalist, who sees the forthcoming “meeting of the Pope in Assisi with the representatives of the various religious as an occasion to develop a dialogue that has endured for centuries” and points out that “the historical memory of the great communities of the Christian faithful has not forgotten the fundamental fact that it was not Christianity that opened hostilities between the two religions but Islam, when it began in the name of Mohamed from the seventh century on to expand in the Mediterranean”. Therefore, the author continues , “it is not forgotten in the Vatican that the beginning of the disruptive Christian-Islamic ‘dialogue’ was not marked by the Crusades, but by the conquest of the ‘South’ by Moslem warriors in the former Roman Empire“. On the other hand, “history teaches us to adopt a more vigilant attitude to the model of the supposed aggressiveness of religions, since it is for the most part only power politics of various origin disguised as religion”.
