European dailies and periodicals

“Why should they remain?” is the title of the cover story in the British weekly THE ECONOMIST (15-21/9) which analyses the situation in Iraq, calling it “a terrible chaos”. “If America could choose again – says the editorial – it wouldn’t enter the civil war in Mesopotamia. But for a superpower there are more serious […]

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No immigration without integration

“A common framework for the integration of citizens of third countries”: that’s the title of the 3rd annual Report on migration and integration adopted during the meeting of European Commissioners in Brussels on 12 September, and presented to the high-level Conference on legal immigration held on 13-14 September on the initiative of the Portuguese Presidency […]

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Educational expenses abroad tax-deductible

With its sentences C-76/05 and C-318/05 issued on 18/9/2007, the Court of Justice of the European Community has confirmed that German federal legislation on the non-deductibility of educational expenses incurred abroad for purposes of income tax violates European law. The sentence of the judges in Luxembourg – which now constitutes the jurisprudence valid for all […]

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EU coordinators for energy

The European Commission last week appointed coordinators for four trans-national priority projects in the energy sector. They are Mario Monti, President of the Bocconi University and former European Commissioner, as coordinator for the project of interconnection of the high tension power grids between France and Spain; the former German Economics Minister Georg Wilhelm Adamowitsch, as […]

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Cooperation between European regions

The Forum on inter-regional cooperation organized by the European Commission and the Portuguese Presidency of the EU ends in Lisbon today. Its aim was to celebrate the success of the EU inter-regional programme Interreg IIIc and to officially launch the new programme Interreg IVc. Interreg is the financial instrument that the Commission places at the […]

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CULTURE AND CULTURES

True dialogue

“Dialogue between cultures should aim not at uniformity of views, but at what is called recognition in Hegelian terms”, which permits “mutual enrichment by overcoming the two opposite temptations of disparagement and a dangerous assimilation of the culture of others”, said Jesuit Father PAUL VALADIER , of the Centre de Sèvres (Paris), in his address […]

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GERMANY

Where does God live?

In an interview conducted by Stefan Orth for the August number of Herder Korrespondenz, FRIEDRICH SCHWEITZER , since 1995 Professor of Practical Theology/Pedagogy of Religion at the faculty of evangelical theology of the University of Tübingen and chairman of the educational council of the EKD-German Evangelical Church, describes the current situation of religious education in […]

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France: rural churches at risk

The alarm was sounded during a seminar at the Senate (on 11 September) on the conservation of the national heritage, reported by the French daily “Le Monde”. The watchdog that monitors the religious heritage maintains that in coming decades a good part of the 100,000 churches on French territory risk falling into ruin due to […]

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Italy: invitation to Christian coherence

The risk of “a country adrift”, a country without a compass and a common sense of direction in which to guide the efforts of its various social and cultural components was pointed out by Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, in his address to the permanent Bishops’ Council on Monday 17 September. […]

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FRONT PAGE

Not every path

During his recent journey to Poland (14-15 September), Cardinal TARCISIO BERTONE , Vatican Secretary of State, inaugurated, at the Jagellonian University in Krakow, the session on “The religious factor and the future of Europe”, as part of the 7th International Conference: “The role of the Catholic Church in the process of European integration”. We open […]

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