The state of the UNO is prominent on the front pages of the European press. There is wide comment in Germany, a country that has requested a permanent seat on the Security Council, as has Italy. This is what K.F. writes in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (15/9): “ The day of the inauguration of the UN summit already marked a negative balance sheet. Many things were ascertained simultaneously, many whether deliberately or by negligence contributed to turning the ambitious agenda of reforms of the UN Secretary General into a confused document that at most will allow the organization to progress a little bit here and a little bit there. But it will not represent an injection of efficiency and credibility for the UNO. … Perhaps, even those who contributed to preventing it will one day regret the fact that a “great pact” between North and South in terms of security, progress and human rights failed to see the light of day”. And the commentator continues: “ These United Nations are divided and even those that already saw themselves sitting in the front rows of the Security Council, and were already propagating this success, have been disappointed. The Council will not be enlarged; the opposition was too fierce. The ambitions of Germany’s red-green government in seeking an enlargement of the Security Council were great and in pursuit of this goal sometimes combined fanaticism with blindness. The failure is all the more devastating“. “ Between success and fiasco“, headlines the Frankfurter Rundschau (14/9). In his article Pierre Simonitsch comments: “ The result of the UN summit was for the most part already decided even before the arrival of the heads of state and of government. It is debatable how much value the union has for example in terms of human rights. … On the value of the result” of the discussions “there are various opinions. For some the glass is half full, for others half empty, while others go so far as to consider the result a fiasco. …The negotiations on a reform and enlargement of the UN Security Council will have to begin again from scratch“. Reflections on the UNO also fill the Spanish press. An editorial of 14/9 in the daily El Paìs points out the great challenge of “adapting the UNO, the one institution of global government, to the needs of the 21st century, or leaving it to continue to wheeze along in its 60-year-old stumbling progress”. El Paìs points out the issues and challenges facing the UN, especially that of the fight against poverty in the world through the Millennium Goals, which are considerably behind target. “But if the USA has finally accepted any mention of these objectives observes the editorialist there is still resistance to committing itself to allocating 0.7 of GDP to development aid by the end of this period. Principles, yes, pledges, no”. According to the Spanish paper there is no “minimum consensus to make the Security Council more representative, nor was it possible to reach an accord on a precise definition of terrorism, even if important legal instruments to combat it depend on this. At the end what seems on the whole guaranteed is the creation of a Commission for the consolidation of peace to monitor the UN’s many operations, and the foundations for a Council for Human Rights that would effectively replace the Commission for Human Rights that Cuba or Libya have been able to manipulate as they please”. The French daily La Croix (14/9) focuses attention on “ The priorities of Benedict XVI”, declaring that “ before the Pope’s journey to Istanbul, for which Ankara’s confirmation is awaited, the Church will commemorate the adoption of the conciliar texts ‘Dei Verbum’ and ‘Nostra Aetate'”. The journey to Turkey writes Isabelle de Gaulmyn would be “ Benedict XVI’s second foreign journey after WYD in Cologne, but the first to be planned by the Pope himself“. “ In effect she adds the Pope may have doubts whether his visit may not be used by a government seeking to improve its standing for its bid for European integration“. Yet “ his journey, if it takes place, will undoubtedly have a significance for relations between Islam and Catholicism“. As for the ecumenical implications of this journey, according to de Gaulmyn “ the visit is likely to be hardly any less complex … since the two main stumbling blocks, petrine primacy and uniatism, remain“. “ Policing seminaries” is the title of the editorial of the UK’s Catholic Herald (9 September), with reference to the numerous cases, especially in the USA, of priests accused of homosexual practices. “ There are occasions the editorial begins in which we must be grateful for the fact that the Roman Curia moves with arthritic slowness. If Vatican bureaucracy were to move with the efficiency of a multinational enterprise, the instruction for the admission of homosexual men into seminaries would have been published a long time ago“. According to the paper, “ it is on the commitment to celibacy, rather than on sexual orientation, that the Church must concentrate if it wants to tackle the problem in a comprehensible manner“.———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1414 N.ro relativo : 63 Data pubblicazione : 17/09/05
