The recent elections in Germany and the Middle Eastern question: they are two issues that are given wide coverasge in the main European dailies, engaged in reflecting on the “Community” implications of the German vote and on the difficult international situation, dominated by the USA-Iraq crisis and the tragic Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “The Chancellor’s delibitating triumph”, headlines the Herald Tribune (24/9), according to which Schröder, in the aftermath of his election victory, appears “weaker” and more dependent on “the left wing” of his government if he wants to “survive”. To the fraught relations between Germany and the USA is dedicated the comment published by the American paper on the following day (25/9): it points out that this is “the first time, since the second world war, in which the leader of an allied country has won the elections by basing his campaign on opposition to US policy“. According to the Herald Tribune, however, “there is no reason to think that the victory will create a breach in relations between the USA and Germany, founded on a dense array of common interests”. “Schröder announces difficult times ahead to the Germans”, is the headline carried by the French daily La Croix of 24/9, emphasizing that the German chancellor “will have to tackle numerous complex questions, especially as regards the economic situation and unemployment”. “The Greens save Schröder, Germany remains on the left”, announces Le Monde (24/9), which speaks of a “historic victory” of the Greens and a “personal success” for foreign minister Joschka Fischer. The cover story of La Croix of 23/9 is dedicated, on the other hand, to Arafat’s isolation in his shelled headquarters in Ramallah: “Yasser Arafat, alone among the ruins”, is the headline of the article by Benjamin Barthe, in which it is noted that the “strategy” of Israeli premier Sharon “is not the physical elimination of Yasser Arafat, which would lead to Israel’s condemnation by the international community, but his deportation”, the “voluntary” exile of the chairman of the Palestinian National Authority. The elections of the Bundestag monopolize comments in the German press. On the difficult US/German relations, following the controversial statements of the former German minister for justice, Wolfgang Koydl writes in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 21/9: “ Mistrust of Germany has grown in the American political elite. Germany is no longer considered a trustworthy friends on whom to rely. What are the consequences? The future political influence of Berlin will decrease, rather than grow“. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 23/9 comments on the results of the vote as follows: “ Rarely before have there been such enthralling elections“: both due to the “ neck and neck” race between the Christian parties of the Union and the Social Democrats, and due to the “ uncertainty about the composition of the next government. The one certain thing: at the end, a few hundred votes were enough to make all the difference“. On the intervention in Iraq, the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 25/9 observes: “ The Chancellor exploited” the war “ for his electoral campaign, fuelling the anti-Americanism ever present in the country. Of course the paper continues everything will be put right. But in Bush and his allies the impression will remain that he made use of them” for electoral purposes and “ there’ll no longer be a cordial relationship” between Bush and Schröder. In the weekly Der Spiegel of 21/9 many reports are dedicated to the domestic issues that the new government will have to solve. “ The republic blocked“, is the cover headline. “ Germany has no choice: unemployment, the catastrophic situation of the school system and the health service impose the need for drastic reforms. The state bureaucracy also needs to be overhauled. The prescriptions are familiar, but parties and associations vehemently defend the status quo“, writes the magazine.
