In the debate on the referendum for the abrogation of the Italian law on assisted fertilization, called for by a committee headed by the Radical Party, the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire (19/05) has published an article by Enrico Negrotti citing the thinking of Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Opposing “structures of sin” is according to Martino “an inescapable duty for Christians …who sometimes finds themselves in an impasse: either abdicating their own values and principles, or abandoning the road of democracy and social harmony”. The cardinal has asked for an active commitment of Christians “to fundamental ethical values, such as the sacredness of life, the indissolubility of marriage, the soundness of information, scientific research and economic options”. “Little is needed to re-ignite anti-Americanism in many countries. And the profanation of the Koran, the sacred book par excellence for Muslims, is not ‘little'”: so reads the editorial in La Croix (18/05), signed by Dominique Quinio, who comments on the news story carried by the magazine Newsweek (later withdrawn), according to which “some prison guards at Guantanamo, where the Americans are detaining over 500 prisoners of various nationalities suspected of being terrorists, as a gesture of provocation, allegedly threw a copy of the Koran down the lavatory”. “The allegation, widely disseminated by various agitators, caused violent protests in Afghanistan, causing the death of several persons”, reports Quinio, wondering whether “in an area of non-law such as Guantanamo”, it is “truth or a lie”. The end result however is: “The defence of democracy, that the USA wishes to bring to the whole world, is singularly weakened”. The EU Constitution and the enlargement of the UN Security Council are a focus of attention by the German press. Commenting on the European Constitution, Peter Müller writes as follows in Die Welt (15/5): “The Europeans would do well to be satisfied with this necessary but uninspiring document… Europe is more than a theme park for the entertainment of a society without frontiers. In the age of globalization, the EU gives to the national states the influence they would have long lost by acting alone. The Union widens the possibilities of action of its members to the external world. For example, in the case of big mergers, American corporations would need to ask for authorization not of a German regulatory body on economic cartels, but of the antitrust agency in Brussels. The individual states have a power of co-decision on the EU institutions: a reality ignored by those who see the EU as the end of the national state”. On the question of the UNO, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (19/5) observes: “If the negative view attributed to US Secretary of State Rice is true, the federal government will have to do far more to convince the America of George W. Bush that having its former model ally Germany as a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN would represent a real advantage”. In the comment it is suggested that the US position is due to the cracks in the alliance that opened up on the occasion of the war in Iraq. “The Chancellor must not be deceived… by the friendly tones of Paris and Moscow: there, too, no one is burning with enthusiasm. Is everything lost? It’s time to show our hand or rather: begin the negotiations”. The inequalities between men and women registered in 58 countries by the World Economic Forum which also judges Spain and Italy negatively are commented on in an editorial in the Spanish daily El Paìs of 17/5. “One of the reasons of this poor result writes El Paìs is the difficulty of reconciling working life and family life, which Rodriguez Zapatero has referred to in the past as one of the questions that his government intends to tackle during the current legislature. The People’s Party has the merit of having been the first to adopt by law some measures in this sense during its government, but a lot still remains to be done. The insertion of women in the world of work 50% of women in the public sector and some 40% in the private and that of men in domestic tasks and in the upbringing of children are still insufficient; there are also many forms of discrimination in terms of salaries and important roles”. El Paìs concludes by urging that “the legal provisions be expanded and supported by an efficient network of public services”. In its editorial with the title “Controversial Directive” the daily La Vanguardia of 16/5 comments on the EU Directive that claims that workers in the European Union should be able to work for over 48 hours per week: a measure which “ought to permit the needs of flexibility of employers to be reconciled with the needs of health, safety and time for leisure and the family requested by the trade unions”.———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1390 N.ro relativo : 39 Data pubblicazione : 20/05/05
