Angela Merkel’s speech to the European Parliament is carefully analysed by German commentators. The FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG (18/1) observes: “ What Mrs. Merkel did in Strasbourg is more that a presentation of her own thoughts on European policy: it marks the beginning of an attempt to reconcile citizens with the work of European unification, the past with the future. At a time of crisis of constitutional policy and widespread scepticism, she recalled the fundamental motives and core values of unification. […] And with the pragmatism that distinguishes her, Merkel combined this historical analysis, and the discovery of the tolerance as the soul of Europe after the traumatic experiences of the contrary, with the tasks of external and economic policy that await the Europeans. These tasks … are just around the corner, such as Kosovo, and extend as far as the long-term strategic objectives of energy and climate policy .[…] It will not be possible to realize them all: Merkel is not a faith-healer, in the best of cases she is a protagonist of European political convictions. One of these is not to take to extremes the oppositions in the Union for reasons of power. The slogan chosen by the German Presidency is good: Europe succeeds if she holds together. Only if she holds together“. On Merkel’s speech to the EP the FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU comments: “ A style can already be recognized, though the contents are necessarily still lacking, given the little time that has elapsed: the style consists of the Merkel method, which is aimed at achieving the major breakthrough with a series of small steps, successfully negotiated – in a pragmatic, almost scientific way, without any great gestures or rhetorical hot air . […] The approach adopted by Angela Merkel is convincing. It is right to discuss the future of the Constitutional Treaty at first in private with the governments involved. And she is skilful in exerting pressure, convinced as she is that a European Union that has failed to make the necessary constitutional reforms is incapable of acting. It is undoubtedly effective, moreover, to bring home to the British and Polish enthusiasts of enlargement that the EU cannot be expanded without the Constitution. If there is a way of taking forward the reform of the Union, it is this: although what appearance the final result will have remained wholly obscure in Merkel’s speech“. “Never will a Presidency of Europe hold so many cards in its hand. Since the start of the year, Germany is the queen of Europe” says the editorial in the French Catholic daily LA CROIX (17/01). “Leader of the Council of Ministers; powerful in the European Commission in the person of Günter Verheugen, Vice-President; President of the European Parliament after the election of Hans-Gert Pöttering, the Federal Republic benefits from an unprecedented configuration in the history of the Treaty of Rome”. But this is a strength that, according to the author of the editorial, “will not be devoid of weaknesses”. These weaknesses “are especially to be found in France” in whose public and electoral debate “ the Union is the great absentee”. The one hope is that “at the end of the electoral campaign, at least, the position of France on Europe will be better defined”; for the time being “nothing indicates any strong inclination” in this direction. Though “Europe is a compromise in which the opinion of France also counts, the fact is that this opinion is lacking. That’s why Germany, in spite of her good will, will remain, in the next six months, a giant hampered in her movements”. “Sorrow and hope” : that’s how the Polish Catholic weekly GO?? NIEDZIELNY entitles its whole number (2/2007), dedicated to the latest events in the diocese of Warsaw whose archbishop Stanis?aw Wielgus, recently nominated by Pope Benedict XVI, was forced to resign due to his past collaboration with the Communist regime. “These have been difficult days for the whole Church. We felt ourselves simply lost and confused”, writes Father Tomasz Jaklewicz in a leader, while Father Andrzej Szostek, former Rector of the Catholic University of Lublin, and currently Professor of Ethics at the same university, maintains, “There’s a need for an examination of conscience”. The Archbishop of Lublin Józef Zyci?ski in an interview with the same magazine declares: “The events of these last weeks represent a very painful experience for all of us. It is as painful an experience as if we were to participate in the events on the night preceding Good Friday. The case is not closed. Some questions shall continue to recur. The pain shall remain. We have however the hope that after Good Friday the Sunday of the Resurrection will arrive”. “There does not exist, and there ought not to be any support in the Church for a process of vetting (of collaborators with the past regime) conducted in a spirit of vendetta, hatred and witch-hunting. In the Church there is no place for pitiless judges and self-appointed hangmen” warns ?ukasz Ka?mierczak in the weekly PRZEWODNIK KATOLICKI (2/2007). Other Polish weeklies (such as WPROST of 15/01) and dailies (such as RZECZPOSPOLITA of 17/01) continue to denounce other collaborators of the former Communist regime among leading politicians and well-known journalists.
