On the eve of the signing of the new Constitutional Treaty, the decisions taken by President-designate of the European Commission, Manuel Barroso, and the “impasse” that led him to ask for a month’s more time to finally “confirm” his “team”, are at the centre of debate in the main international dailies. “Barroso yields to MEPs and withdraws his Commission” is, for example, the headline in Le Monde (28/10), over an editorial analysing the “Buttiglione affaire” as “source of the conflict between the Commission and the deputies in Strasbourg”. “Barroso does not want to give way before the European Parliament”, says another French daily, La Croix (27/10), in an article in which Caroline Chaumont and Alain Guillemoles analyse in detail the quandary of the President-designate of the European Commission having to come to terms with “ a European Parliament hostile to the composition of his team”. “Barroso is reconsidering his European team”, says the front-page story of the Herald Tribune (28/10), in an article in which Graham Bowley notes that “in a dramatic crisis just a few hours before the vote in Strasbourg, Barroso did an about-turn with the 24-member team proposed by him, when it became clear that the Parliament would not have guaranteed his approval”. At the centre of the “crisis”, recalls the American daily, is the “case of Buttiglione”, whose opinions highlighted a European Union “divided between a modern and progressive Europe, largely atheist and tolerant of homosexuality and new lifestyles, and another, old Europe that no longer exists”. “The role of faith in modern Europe recalls the author of the article had already been called into question earlier this month by the debate on the admission of Turkey into the European Union. This had caused a firm reaction by large parts of the Continent, worried by the prospect of the entry of a large Muslim nation into what had hitherto been an exclusively Christian club. The resistance was so strong that France has promised to hold a referendum on Turkish entry”. The question of Turkey and the “Buttiglione case”, argued Bowley, “have emphasized the debate on the authentic nature of the European identity, in a period in which immigration and new social tendencies are already changing the European lifestyle”. “Europe has a need of dangerous geniuses” is the title of the ‘counterpoint’ of Riccardo Chiaberge in the cultural insert of Il Sole 24 Ore; recalling the Ventotene Manifesto of Altiero Spinelli, he writes: “What’s needed to warm the spirits of Europeans left cold by their Constitution?…” Answer: “In this Union, or rather Disunion, that quarrels about almost everything, we would need ‘dangerous’ innovators like Spinelli, dangerous for the men of power and the national egoisms that are acting against Europe”. The events linked to the new European Commission are also subjected to various comments in the German press. Commenting on the postponement of the presentation of the names of the new Commissioners to the European Parliament, Günther Nonnenmacher writes as follows in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (28/10): “ The cavillers of all the parliamentary groups are celebrating the withdrawal of Barroso as a victory of parliament and as a growth of democracy in Europe. Who knows whether this opinion can withstand a more careful examination? The fact that a candidate has been rejected for his religious convictions, in spite of the fact that he supported the traditional European differentiation between ethics and law, is certainly not a glorious page for multiplicity and tolerance in Europe”. Of a different view is the comment of Martin Winter in the Frankfurter Rundschau (28/10), according to whom the incident “ serves to reinforce European democracy […]. The persons proposed by Barroso in more than one case do not correspond to the legitimate aspirations for the Commission […] Not always the best candidates are sent in Europe, but sometimes only those the national governments can do without. And the fact that this is the case is also Parliament’s fault. Now, MEPs have corrected the image of a weak and all things considered cowardly Parliament“. The weekly magazine Der Spiegel (25/10) also devotes extensive coverage to Europe; it comments on the signing of the European Constitution in Rome and on the Franco-German doubts about the future of the Union: “ The Franco-German motor, that had driven the little Europe without problem, is easily stalled by the big Europe of 25 or even 30 member states. Paris and Berlin no longer find enough allies with which to form an advance guard or hard core in the EU. To ensure a policy of reinforced collaboration, the Constitutional Treaty prescribes the minimum participation of a third of the members of the EU; but today Germany and France know they can only count on Belgium and Luxembourg“. Prodi announces that there will be a new Commission on 17 November, reports the Spanish daily La Razon (27/10), which comments: “Jose Manuel Durao Barroso will have to make more than one change”. The paper explains that Prodi has asked Barroso to “create as soon as possible a new team of Commissioners that has the support of the Chamber”. The magazine Epoca (27/10) observes, on the other hand, that we are faced by “an old and new European Commission” and emphasises that “the Prodi era was the protagonist of important changes in Community life, even greater than that of one of the fathers of the EU, Jacques Delors”.——————————————————————————————— ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1336 N.ro relativo : 76 Data pubblicazione : 30/10/04
