As regular readers (or those who attempt to find something to read?) will have noticed, the €S posting-frequency has lately slowed a bit. I don’t know whether it’s disappointing to you, but it certainly is to me, as even the cursory run through the various European presses that I’m able to do these days reveals all sorts of articles dealing with the various aspects of the imminent EU enlargement by 10 countries. Especially in those new member-states themselves: worries about prices rising, criminals now being able to move more freely internationally, etc. And of course Czech president Václav Klaus doing all he can to throw cold water on the celebrations, even as he is to be found half-a-world away, visiting China.

The true super-readers, i.e. who follow both my websites in parallel (the other one being SegwayEuroTour, which has very little to do with EuroSavant other than a focus on Europe), will realize that one site is currently losing to the demands of the other. That is, it is currently a busy time for me on the SegwayEuroTour: I am going to be able to experience the EU enlargement ceremonies personally, in Prague (even as I can’t find the time to write about it for you, at least before-the-fact), and then the next weekend I’ll be taking the SegwayEuroTour to Berlin.

After that, though (i.e. after about 9 May), the SegwayEuroTour takes a break, so I’ll be able to roll up my sleeves and get back seriously to reviewing the European press to find interesting things to present to you and comment upon. By that point we can even expect to experience the first wave of articles along the lines of “This is what it’s like in the EU?! I want to go back!”

I wanted to put this notice here to stop people from visiting my site in vain, when there is not actually any new content there to see (although you can always browse my archive of articles over there on the left!). The best solution for that, though, is of course RSS, i.e. making use of that white-on-orange “XML” mini-box I have over there at the top-left. If you aren’t familiar yet with RSS, maybe you’d like to learn about it – try here, to name but one place on the Net that can instruct you. (Although, by the way, the RSS reader that I use is Abilon, from Active Refresh. It’s free, of course, and it’s good – the only minus is that it comes with all sorts of feeds pre-installed, which then you have to go through and delete, those that you don’t want to get, anyway.) Wherever you go to find your own RSS Enlightenment, you’ll soon realize that RSS means that you let new content come to you, so you don’t have to go out and needlessly chase it all the time.

Whether it constitutes a shameful retreat in the face of terrorist attack, or an angry reaction to an incumbent government trying to twist the facts surrounding a national tragedy to its own ends – we’ve already covered all of that here, at least from the German point-of-view, and it doesn’t matter anymore, since José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is now the Spanish premier as of last weekend and the Spanish troops will withdraw from Iraq. What is new and interesting is what Zapatero and his Defense Minister, José Bono, promptly announced with almost unseemly haste just after assuming office: that they will withdraw those as soon as possible. You might remember that, in the wake of the 11 March Madrid train bombings and the victory of Zapatero’s Socialist Party in the ensuing Spanish general election, the new prospect of the Spanish troop withdrawal was at least couched in the fig leaf that such a withdrawal would be canceled if operations in Iraq were put under a proper United Nations basis by the passing of a suitable UN Security Council resolution. Now that fig leaf is tossed aside: the Spanish troops are basically outa there, and as fast as possible consistent with security concerns, meaning in effect in six weeks or even less. George W. Bush is not pleased.

Spanish troops now make up the third-largest national contingent in the Polish-assigned sector in southern Iraq – once thought to be a quiet backwater since the area is dominated by Shiites, but now containing some hot spots indeed, like Najaf and Karbala. (So reports Gazeta Wyborcza, without naming contingents numbers 1 and 2 – I’m guessing that those are the American and Polish troops, respectively.) So how do the Polish authorities feel about the Spanish action? Let’s take a look at their national press. (more…)

Time to go back to that “Europa XL” series from the Danish newspaper Politiken, now that I’ve rediscovered it on the re-designed Politiken website. For those who came in late, that’s the series-of-photo-series in which the culture of each of the current European Union member-states is depicted via choices in a fixed set of categories (“Painting,” “Photograph,” etc.) made by a leading current literary figure from that country.

(Note that, while the good news is that I now know again where this “Europa XL” series is to be found on the Net, it’s also true that they’ve modified its format so that it’s only viewable in Internet Explorer, not in the Opera or Mozilla browsers.) Later update: That’s no longer true, the pages render fine in Opera.

Now we get into terra incognita, since today I’d like to discuss the presentation on Portugal, as chosen by writer Agustina Bessa-Luis, “a living myth among the Portuguese,” best known for her 1954 novel “The Sybille,” which has also been translated into French and German. (No mention of English or even Danish.) This is a country whose language I don’t even know per se, which I instead try to approach, when I need to, via similarities with Spanish. (more…)

It’s time to resuscitate the long-dormant “Poles in Iraq” series, dealing as it does with coverage in the Polish press of what’s happening with that contingent of Polish soldiers sent to perform occupation duty – indeed, to command a sector – in support of Coalition forces. And you probably can figure out why now is a good time to bring “Poles in Iraq” back to life: the country is in an uproar, or at least the central “Sunni triangle” is (which has already been in at least a state of simmering rebellion since the war) as well as the heretofore quiet Shiite-dominated south, which is exactly where the Poles command their very multi-national occupation force, because it was considered a safe part of the country back when the occupations were drawn up.

Now that is no longer true, what with the uprising lead by the young Shiite cleric as-Sadr and his “Mahdi Army,” which is still in control of parts of a number of southern cities. I was looking for a good account of all of this in the Polish press, one that didn’t just repeat the general news reports about what was currently happening but that also included some Polish angle for the local readers. There was coverage, of course, but coverage that didn’t really meet this criterion, in Gazeta Wyborcza (generally) and in Dziennik Polski (Calm Before the Storm?), but the series of articles on one webpage published by Rzeczpospolita (starting at the top with Every Day a Kidnapping) was better. (more…)

EuroSavant will be off-line for the Easter holidays, back on Tuesday, 13 April. It’s in fact going to be a rather interesting Easter weekend, to include being interviewed by a number of Flemish newspapers; details, if I’ve piqued your curiosity, you can find here.

Until then: What other disfunctional Central European government have I got left to discuss? Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, wild-man Lukashenka’s Belarus – I’ve already covered them all. Oh yes, there’s the recent removal-by-impeachment of Lithuanian president Rolandas Paksas. But that was an instance of the new democratic system actually working as advertised!

Let’s continue today our “When Good Central European Electorates Go Bad” series in which, while defending to the death the right of voters there to choose the governments they want, we take out our spectacles, lean in for a closer look, and then blurt out “You want to choose that lot?!”

Today’s subject is one I mentioned in passing in this weblog’s last post, namely the seemingly unstoppable ascent of Vladimir Meciar to the presidency of the Slovak Republic. I took a closer look myself, and while the crisp, succinct, bottom-line summary of what’s going on that I’ve just given you is bad enough, in fact the situation viewed more broadly is even worse – not that there aren’t plenty of comic elements that can’t be extracted to put a little sugar on the bitter pill. Or at least that’s for those of you who are not Slovak and so will not have to live through the next few years with the results of what is about to happen. We’ll do our best to do this in the following, so get yourself in tune for some bittersweet humor. (more…)

Regular €S readers (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!) will have picked up certain themes to which this weblog returns regularly: Alyaksandr Lukashenka, for one, and the Polish forces in Iraq, for another. (Well, I’m supposed to do the latter; it’s been rather inactive for a while.) Another such theme seems to be shaping up quite spontaneously: that of sounding the alarm over Central European states that are threatening to make “bad” electoral choices. Sure, as proud new members of the community of democracies they’re more-or-less entitled to make whatever electoral choices they want. But really, elect back into power in the Czech Republic the KSCM – the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, which is “unreformed” and therefore unashamed of the over forty years of misery its predecessor inflicted on the country? Or, in Slovakia, elect as president in the immediate wake of NATO membership, on the very eve of EU membership, the corrupt political thug (we’re talking here about Vladimir Meciar, for those who came in late) whose behavior in the mid-1990s was responsible for Slovakia missing both such boats then? Or, in Poland, elect into power a farmers’ party notorious for blocking highways and throwing livestock products recklessly around in order to make its political points, whose leader has been banished from the Sejm (Poland’s legislative lower house) a number of times for his reckless accusations and other attacks on other leading political figures? (more…)

Wild-man Alyaksandr Lukashenko, who happens also to be “President” of Belarus, is at his antics again according to this recent report from the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline:

President Alyaksandr Lukashenko said on 31 March that his recent directive “On Measures to Enhance Public Safety and Discipline” met with support from most Belarusians, aside from drunkards, crooks, undisciplined workers, and the opposition, Belapan reported [that’s the “Belarusian information company”], quoting the presidential press service. Lukashenko reportedly said the opposition is guided by the principle, “The worse for the people and the government, the better for the opposition.” The president charged that the opposition seeks sociopolitical destabilization in the country and poses a threat to public safety.

(more…)

Europe, you can say, is very “green”-minded. Sure, this attitude does vary slightly as you travel from one part of the European Union to another (at least as it’s constituted in its present form, slated to last not too much longer until next May 1). But what can stand as a symbol of this attitude is the multiple trash-separation bins (plastic; glass; the rest – or however it works in your neighborhood) to be found in most countries of the Union, together with local residents standing in front of them, meticulously sorting their trash into the separate bins in which it belongs (or so at least in theory).

Russia, on the other hand, is one country destined never to make it into the EU, for geopolitical reasons or what have you. (Who knows, though, some commentators say differently.) Nonetheless, trash separation has now found its way as far east as Moscow, as reported in a highly-amusing article in the French Libération by Lorraine Millot (Eco-Trash Gets All Moscow Enthused). When it comes to trash-separation, we know that Germans will do it, at least; but will Slavs do it? Mme. Millot explores this fascinating sociological question. (more…)