The Iraqi crisis continues to monopolise the attention of the main international dailies, after the ultimatum given to Italy by the kidnappers of the three Italian hostages. The video shown on the Arab TV channel “Al Arabya” is commented on, for example, by Le Monde of 28/4, in an article in which Jean-Jacques Bozonnet discusses the reactions of the Italian government to the “blackmail” of the Iraqi kidnappers. “ The Italian premier points out the French daily has repeated on several occasions that the Italian contingent would remain in Iraq. Maintaining its silence about the negotiations still in course, the government has repeatedly denied rumours that it has paid a ransom for the release of the hostages. On Monday evening, Berlusconi’s spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, declared that the government would ‘continue to do everything in its power to achieve the liberation of the hostages in Iraq and the recovery of the body of Fabrizio Quattrocchi'”. “Iraq galvanising Europe”, is the headline in the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire (28/4), which contains an editorial in which Giorgio Ferrari gives a positive analysis of the way in which Europe, “only apparently in disarray”, is tackling the Iraqi crisis. According to the author of the article, “there’s a huge capacity for political initiative in Europe today, far more significant that the divisions by which it is beset. Our richness consists precisely in this sum of diversity. There are those who have confidence in the European spirit, in spite of everything. And we are among them”. The case of the Italian hostages is also taken up on the front pages of the Spanish dailies. “Italians to demonstrate for the release of the hostages”, is the headline in El Periódico (28/4). The paper adds that “these demonstrations are strictly humanitarian and pacifist” and that “the government and the opposition in Italy yesterday rejected the ultimatum of the kidnappers of the three Italians in Iraq”. On the Spanish withdrawal from Iraq, the same paper (28/4) reports the news that “José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has announced the withdrawal of the Spanish troops by 27 May“. Many comments in the French and German press are devoted to Europe, Cyprus and imminent EU enlargement. La Croix of 26/4 dedicates its front-page headline to a “welcome to Europe” to the ten new member countries. The same paper also contains an extensive dossier on “everything you need to know about the 25-member Europe“. It’s the first instalment of a “ major survey” over six weeks dedicated by the French Catholic daily to the process of enlargement. “ Europe comments Dominique Quinio in the editorial presenting the survey is demolishing the walls that divide it. But not yet all. It is attracting the countries on its frontiers, but sometimes disappointing its old members. It needs to convince them”. “ The hope that a united Cyprus could enter the EU on 1st May has been dashed… it has foundered on the narrow-mindedness of the political leaders of the Greek south of the island, but also on the fears of many Greek-Cypriots. Evidently, mistrust in the Turks is deeper than had been thought“, writes Gerd Höhler in the Frankfurter Rundschau ( 26/ 4). “ The Greek-Cypriots and their politicians … will pay dearly for their ‘no’. Hitherto they had enjoyed the solidarity of the international community. They have squandered this capital. No one will listen to them any longer when they complain about the unjust Turkish occupation and the division of their island“. According to Horst Bacia in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ, 26/4), “ the vote” of the Greek-Cypriots “ is a slap in the face for the United Nations, for the Americans, who had backed Annan, for the European Union and last but not least for the Turkish-Cypriot inhabitants of the island. It is also a clear “no” to reconciliation, collaboration and a common future in short to everything that makes the Union a project of European peace“. Commenting on enlargement, Holger Steltzner notes in the FAZ (28/4): “ The opportunities of EU enlargement are great […]. But equally high are the risks associated with the Community’s biggest enlargement […] United Europe must be rooted in people’s hearts and minds. The Union of Europe is too important to be left to a few euphoric politicians in favour of enlargement“. The weekly Der Spiegel (26/4) dedicates its cover story to the same question: “ One of the victims of enlargement to the East already seems certain: East Germany […] Squeezed between the old economically strong countries and the new states in a phase of economic expansion, East Germany risks being strangled“.———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1292 N.ro relativo : 32 Data pubblicazione : 01/05/04
