In contrast to the great emphasis given to it in the Italian press, the main international dailies “welcome” the Russia-NATO accord, signed at Pratica di Mare (near Rome) on 28 May, with a good deal more “sobriety” . The Herald Tribune (29/5) dedicates, however, its opening title to the event, which is called by most commentators the “first step” in the process of rapprochment between the two former enemy blocs, after the end of the cold war. “For all the hopeful rhetoric that accompanied the creation of a NATO-Russia Council within the Atlantic Alliance comments John Vincour it was clear that, when Russia acquired a role in NATO, it entered into a limited partnership. In the consultation within NATO, Russia will have an equal voice on a pre-established number of proposals that range from antiterrorism to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. But Russia will not have the right to block or veto decisions taken by the North Atlantic Council, the highest authority of the organization”. “The campaign against terrorism on the agenda of the Nato-Russia meeting in Rome”, is the laconic title of Le Monde (29/5), which relegates the event to its second page, as a kind of coda to a long article on the last report of Amnesty International, focused on the fight against terrorism after September 11th. “George Bush intends once again to confront the partners of the Alliance with their responsibilities towards Iraq”, is the “nub” of the article, in which Laurent Zecchini points out that with the accord signed on the previous day, “the Atlantic Alliance gives the impression of being in unison with the exhortations of President Bush who, in Berlin, asked the Europeans to combat ‘global terror’, which is the ‘new totalitarian threat’ after September 11th. It is due to this defeat, and in some sense thanks to it, that the UNO intends to find a new ‘inspiration’, and it is in any case due to the common terrorist threat that the Atlantic Alliance has signed a new partnership with Russia”. On the front page of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) of 29/5, the editorial “ What will come after” signed by Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger comments on the NATO summit at Pratica di Mare; after stressing the importance of the accord with Russia in combating transnational terrorism, he points out that “ Nato has never been so important as it is today, since the new institutional link between Moscow and Brussels represents the most recent expression of the process of far-reaching change” that is going on in the Atlantic Pact. “Ever since the fall of the wall”, he continues, “we have been posing the question of the meaning and purpose” of NATO, which would therefore become (following its overhaul) a kind of “ OCSE (Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe) with military muscles“. The Pope’s journey to Azerbaijan and Bulgaria aroused great interest and was given extensive coverage in the German press. The appeal to peace, “ So long as I have a voice, I will cry out: Peace, in the name of God!“, is reported at the beginning of the article of Heinz-Joachim Fischer in the FAZ of 23/5, in which he describes the Pope’s meeting with the religious and political leaders of the Caucasus, to whom he addressed the plea “ for tolerance and transparency“. In the FAZ of 24/5, the Pope’s determination “ to bring peace to a region in which two continents with different peoples, cultures and religions conflict” is underlined. The Holy Father’s meeting with youth and the “ political burden” of the journey are addressed in the article in the same paper on 27/5, in which the correspondent of the German paper observes that “the policy of the proffered hand, demonstrated by words and gestures, characterized this last international journey“; the Pope, he comments, “sought a meeting with the Islamic authorities, not only in Azerbaijan”, but also in Bulgaria, where “ he met the Grand Mufti”, as well as finding the time to “ pay courtesy calls to the representatives of the Jewish religion and the heads of the Protestant communities“. Cristiane Schlötzer writing in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 23/5 describes the welcome given to John Paul II in Azerbaijan and, in the article entitled “ Mission ‘Spiritual guide’” from the name of the hotel in which the Pope stayed during his visit points out that John Paul II is esteemed in the Caucasian Republic “ especially thanks to the role he played in the collapse of the Soviet regime“.
