EN | IT – At the invitation of the Polish counterpart, on february 7 Angela Merkel will arrive in Warsaw. However, Beata Szydlo, Head of the Polish governement, will be greeting the german Chancellor at the airport with only a forced smile on her face.
EN | IT | FR | DE – Throughout history, relations between the “Turks” and the “Europeans” have never been simple. In recent years, while Europeans have been happily travelling to Turkey to spend their holidays there (before the region became inflamed), they have not always been so ready to recognise its inhabitants as a veritable alter ego. To start with, religious differences were the main focus of difficulty, but now the growing authoritarianism of its current president is fast becoming the primary cause for concern.
EN | IT – We shouldn’t blame anybody for the actions of their parents, so it isn’t fair to blame David Cameron for the financial arrangements of his father. Nor can we assume that a person shares the values or principles of their parents, so if Ian Cameron did anything wrong, that should not reflect badly on the Prime Minister either. But when a person becomes an adult, forming their own opinions and values, and aspires to elected office, then we are actively invited to assess their character, their values and beliefs.
EN | IT – Indeed, this turning of the back on Europe is itself the work of the abiding British demon of xenophobic nationalism and isolationism. A prime function of the EU is to subdue national demons like these, then to hold them at arm’s length.
EN | IT | PL – The widow of general Czesław Kiszczak, the head of the communist repression apparatus and minister of the Interior (1981-90), disclosed the stolen from the archives and hidden by her husband documents which prove that the legendary leader of “Solidarity” movement had been a paid informant for the Polish communist secret police from 1970 till 1976.
EN | IT | PL – Poland is passing nowadays the democracy exam in front of the Venice Commission, advisory body of the Council of Europe dealing with constitutional matters and protection of human rights. The Polish Supreme Court asked the Commission for expertise and assistance protesting against the reform of the Polish Constitutional Court imposed by the present parliamentary majority.
EN | IT | FR | DE – In contrast to the Fascist movements of the early 20th century, neo-right parties in Europe no longer pursue the objective of the abolition of liberal democracy, but its internal “transformation” through an ethnic consolidation of the political sphere. The Fascist differentiation between master races and inferior races has been replaced by the principle of peaceful co-existence between different ethnicities. The ideology of the so-called “ethnopluralism” affirms the concept of human rights, but erodes their universal substance with a racial interpretation of the term “nation”.
EN | IT – (France) – On December 12, 2014, in Paris, two MPs – Jean Leonetti and Alain Claeys – published a Report which proposed a revision of the French law of 2005 about the rights of patients and the issue of the “end of life”. This revision is considered to fulfil a promise made by François Hollande in his presidential campaign of 2012. Adults with an incurable disease at an advanced or terminal stage which is causing unbearable physical or mental suffering, may request medical assistance to put an end “with dignity” to their lives. This promise was seen at the time as a response to the desire to legalize euthanasia.
EN | ES | IT – (Spain) – Never the income gap in Spain has ever been so wide. The unemployment rate has taken a hard toll on any family income. In more than 1.7 million Spanish families, according to the latest Labour Force Survey, all members are unemployed. Furthermore, only 67% of those registered in employment offices are receiving State aid or provisions. As a result, Spain is the second most unequal country in the European Union after Latvia, and the member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in which inequality has grown the most in the last year.
EN | IT – (Scotland) – If there is an anti-independence ‘No’ vote then I expect this issue to arise again within the next 25 years. I also confidently predict that if there is a pro-independence ‘Yes’ vote then do not expect any campaign in the future for Scotland to give up its independent sovereignty by re-joining the United Kingdom. After all, even during the worst of days of the recent Irish economic recession, when the Celtic Tiger died the death, never once did the citizens of Ireland publicly debate whether or not they should re-join the UK.