Europe, but also domestic affairs, are at the centre of numerous comments in the German press. The future of Europe is speculated on by Carola Kaps (13/1) in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ( Faz): “ It seems Europe must first eliminate its “mental” blocks before being able to grow in the role of a “global player. […] Even the question whether Europe really wants to assume this role has not yet had any clear response“. Commenting on the developments connected with the Stability Pact, Martin Halusa writes in Die Welt (14/1): “ After the political defeat suffered in the battle on the Euro Stability Pact, the EU Commission is trying to get its own back by instituting proceedings against member states“. “ With an unprecedented legal action, filed against the fifteen member states at the European Court of Justice, the European Commission is taking the struggle for power to the highest level. Who takes the decisions in Europe?“. “ Only bureaucrats react in this way“, comments Martin Winter in the Frankfurter Rundschau (14/1), who adds with regard to the Commission’s decision to seek legal redress: “ No one would have had occasion to complain about the Commission if it had renounced legal action following a sensible and politically acceptable evaluation“. The weekly Der Spiegel (12/1) publishes an article on Poland in the aftermath of the failure of the Summit on the European Constitution. “ On 1st May, the country that lies between the rivers Oder and Bug will become a member of the European Union; all the treaties are by now binding. But right from the start Warsaw is fighting for its future place in the Community and the former Soviet bloc country is ambitious“. The birth rate in Spain is increasing: the Spanish daily ABC (10/1) underlines the fact that “Spain is registering the greatest increase in the birth rate within the EU”. According to data published by Eurostat, the EU statistical office, between 2002 and 2003 there was an increase of 6.4%, i.e. a total of 438,000 new births in a year. The figures exceed those of Germany, Greece, Italy and Austria. The Irish continue to top the league table, with 15.5 births per 1000 inhabitants. They are followed by the French, Dutch and Danes. “Spain will continue to chair the antiterrorist Committee of the United Nations”, informs the same paper, pointing out that Spain is aiming to “create a dynamic and active executive arm to respond to the most serious threat to peace and security” in our time . There will however be a change of strategy, given that “the proposal is to substantially reinforce a committee that has hitherto been limited to sending letters to countries inviting them to adjust their legislation to the twelve conventions on terrorism”. The visit to Iraq by Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio is the cover story in the Spanish press on 12/1. El Periodico (12/1) observes that the minister “is calling for a rapid transfer of power to the Iraqis”. Palacio also asked for “security and stability” during what is her fourth visit to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein and expressed the “support of the Spanish government for the transfer of power, which must be achieved as soon as possible”. The suicide bomb attack in the Gaza strip, in which a young Palestinian woman exploded herself killing four others, is the lead story in the Herald Tribune (15/1), in which Greg Myre signs an article providing some further information about the young Palestinian woman in question: Reem al-Reyashi, 22 years old, the mother of two children (respectively aged 3 and 1). The kamikaze attack, notes Myre, “is the first suicide attack to kill Israelis since 25 December, after the explosion at a bus stop in Tel Aviv, which also caused four victims. The violence in the Middle East has recently decreased, but the explosion has raised tensions and delivered a blow to the peace efforts which had been bogged down for months”. The French papers comment on the recent address of the Pope to the diplomatic corpse, in which John Paul II warned of the danger, evident in some parts of Europe, of transforming the principle of the “lay state” into “secularism”, especially with regard to the relations between religions and “public life”. “The Pope attacks the French model of the lay state, judged too restrictive for religions”, is the headline in Le Monde del 14/1. “The Polish Pope rejects the distinction between faith, which allegedly belongs to the private sphere, and the public commitment on behalf of this faith”. “John Paul intervenes on the lay state”, is the headline carried on the front page of La Croix (13/1), which contains an editorial in which Michel Kubler sums up the Pope’s words as follows: “The liberty of the State in its relations with religions is fundamental for the kind of society everyone, whether believers or non-believers, would like today. At the same time, the freedom of believers to be able to express their convictions in public must be protected and not repressed by the law”. According to Elio Maraone ( Avvenire , 13/1), “it is as if the Pope were denouncing an alarming retrogression of democracy in Europe (…) that derives from the confusion of the lay principle with secularism and from the failure to recognise that Christianity in particular, also thanks to its ecumenical impulse, represents a precious resource for society”.————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1263 N.ro relativo : 3 Data pubblicazione : 16/01/2004
