Culture & Ideas
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Press: A newspaper for Europe’s “Generation E”
31 May 20121175PresseuropGazeta Wyborcza, Le Monde, El País & 3 others -
Estonia: Two-thirds reject privacy-busting Facebook
28 May 20122246 Postimees Tallinn -
Humour: Even the gods can’t get their heads around this crisis
25 May 201232665 The Times London -
Debate: Europe must choose
25 May 20129829PresseuropThe Economist -
Eurovision 2012: Baku intent on buying respectability
25 May 20128020 Eesti Päevaleht Tallinn -
Eurozone crisis: Don’t isolate the Germans
22 May 2012145237 The Independent London -
Profile: Sascha Lobo, nerd king in internet desert
22 May 201281 Die Zeit Hamburg -
Debate: Europe’s new soft right is winning
21 May 20121578 Aftonbladet Stockholm -
Eurozone crisis: Let’s be more American!
18 May 20129425 Hospodářské Noviny Prague -
Eurovision: Rambo Amadeus, the cliché slayer
18 May 2012951 Tportal Zagreb -
Eurozone crisis: Listen to the cry of Athens
17 May 20121040176 La Repubblica Rome -
Debate: The European grand coalition
16 May 201216015 Süddeutsche Zeitung Munich -
Greece: Life as murky as a thriller novel
16 May 20122995 The Guardian London -
Germany: Enough “politically correct” films!
11 May 2012982 Die Zeit Hamburg -
Debate: A petition of naivety
10 May 20125712PresseuropAftonbladet -
Contemporary art: Paintbrush factory brightens Cluj-Napoca
4 May 2012155 România libera Bucharest -
Profile: Max Schrems, the man who de-friended Facebook
27 April 20129254 Süddeutsche Zeitung Munich -
Debate: Let the Germans clean up Europe
26 April 201214871 De Volkskrant Amsterdam -
Eurozone crisis: The people have become a nuisance
24 April 2012137898 Frankfurter Rundschau Frankfurt -
Eurozone crisis: Schadenfreude, mon amour
13 April 2012303165 El País Madrid -
Italy: Dearth in Venice
12 April 20123529 Corriere della Sera Milan -
Economy: Greece is our vanguard
28 March 2012129101 Hospodářské Noviny Prague -
Netherlands: Something’s gone wrong in Tulip Land
26 March 201225828 NRC Handelsblad Amsterdam -
Debate: The Germans, workaholics no more
21 March 201235350 The Guardian London -
Debate: The end of ideology
15 March 201245613 Polityka Warsaw -
Fiscal Compact: Thatcher has won battle for Europe
12 March 201228525 Aftonbladet Stockholm -
Economy: Is Keynesianism now a thoughtcrime?
7 March 201255948 The Irish Times Dublin -
Debate: Should politicians be tried for the crisis?
6 March 201245520 El País Madrid -
Fiction: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the eurozone crisis
2 March 201234410 Cicero Berlin -
European Council: There are alternatives to the fiscal compact
2 March 201215842 The Independent London -
Internet: Brake on ACTA, Google reprimanded
2 March 20124551PresseuropThe Guardian, El País -
Bosnia-Herzegovina: “In the Land of Blood and Honey” - soothing for elites and victims
28 February 20121317 Oslobođenje Sarajevo -
DSK affair: Soul searching in the French press
28 February 2012703PresseuropLibération -
Eurozone crisis: Europe says goodbye to solidarity
24 February 201233186 Financial Times London -
Eurozone crisis: How Brussels is destroying Greece
17 February 2012663102 The Daily Telegraph London -
Debate: Europe will be saved by nations
16 February 201217130 Gazeta Wyborcza Warsaw -
Debate: Lazy Greeks, a neo-liberal cliché
13 February 201287028 CriticAtac Bucharest -
Internet: ACTA headed for dustbin
13 February 20121311PresseuropRzeczpospolita -
Cultural heritage: How Europe hawks its monuments
8 February 20122012 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Frankfurt -
Hungary: Orbán makes an exhibition of himself
7 February 201227011 SME Bratislava -
Germany: Call us Nazis if it makes you happy
3 February 2012144304 Die Zeit Hamburg -
Theatre: A play about Breivik is essential for our time
27 January 2012833 Politiken Copenhagen -
Debate: Ingo Schulze - 10 theses about the crisis
27 January 2012162524 Süddeutsche Zeitung Munich -
Press: A newspaper for the Europe of tomorrow
26 January 20121127PresseuropLa Stampa, Le Monde, Gazeta Wyborcza & 3 others -
Interview: “Web is foundation of young people’s lives”
25 January 20122241 Gazeta Wyborcza Warsaw -
Internet: Right to be forgotten law welcomed
25 January 2012577PresseuropLa Repubblica -
Portugal: Guimarães - can culture beat the crisis?
25 January 20121484 El País Madrid -
Internet: ACTA non grata
24 January 2012PresseuropGazeta Wyborcza -
Cinema: The secret of Denmark’s success
20 January 20122831 Público Lisbon -
Debate: EU can no longer play the war card
19 January 201218667 De Morgen Brussels
Although they pride themselves on being a wired nation, statistics show that only a third of Estonians have registered with the leading social network. For the other two thirds, it is a question of privacy. 
Europe’s economic woes have forced us to try to understand the secret Olympian world of global finance. But now that we pay more attention to bond yields and stability mechanisms, isn’t it clear that the experts up on their lofty peaks don’t know what’s going on either? 
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is hosted by Azerbaijan, a country that is far from being a model democracy. An Estonian journalist takes a critical look at the deferential treatment enjoyed by the regime in Baku. 
In helping to bail out struggling eurozone economies, Angela Merkel has already gone well beyond what her electorate wants. And the eurobonds France’s new president François Hollande is pushing for might just be a step too far. 
Revolt against data retention, distrust of Google and Facebook: in all things Internet, Germany is an “emerging nation”, says Sascha Lobo. The best-known blogger and Internet pioneer in the country is going through something similar. He is sought after – and hated. 
Triumphant a decade ago, today social democrats have been voted out office in most European countries — a change that is due to a lack of new proposals, but also and more importantly to the right’s appropriation of the language and ideas of social democracy. 
The Greek crisis and the lack of assertive action by European leaders has ended up clouding the greatest challenge to the future of the EU. The USA has the knack of finding effective solutions, and it is time to be inspired by the same spirit, argues a Czech columnist. 
The joyfully subversive turbo-funk singer will represent Montenegro at this year’s Eurovision with “Euro neuro” — a humorous and highly accurate enumeration of clichés about the Balkans and their relationship with the EU. 
Instead of treating Greek officials as outcasts and their constituents like the plague, European leaders, and particularly Germans, would be better off listening. Because, in attempting to prioritise the needs of the economy over those of democracy, they are undermining the Union’s foundations. 
Until now, ideological discussion has been off the menu in a Europe which lacked a genuine culture of debate. Now that we have a French President and a German Chancellor from opposing sides of the political divide, perhaps the EU can revive the interest of its citizens with public exchanges of views on important issues. 
A novel about a serial-killer in Athens is so realistic that its author, Petros Markaris, had to warn readers that it should not be imitated. The reason : it’s about the tax-dodging Greek elite and the victims of the corrupted system. 
Reactions to the film Barbara show that 'feel-good' films worry German film producers. The director, Dominik Graf, implores filmmakers to dare to challenge the highbrow cinema strangehold. 
Located in a former factory in Cluj, the Transylvanian capital, a contemporary art centre managed by several galleries and artists' collectives is trying to break into the European art scene. 
A law student from Vienna is accusing Facebook of contempt for Europe’s data protection laws. For the company, which wants to go public soon, the attention comes at a bad time. 
Instead of dreaming about a federal union which would be at the mercy of countries that are democratic and economic underperformers, a Dutch political scientist argues that we would do better to reinforce the role of more efficiently functioning states and allow them to take care of business. 
A spectre is stalking the financial markets: what if the army of unemployed and poor no longer rubber-stamp the policies of the powerful? No wonder neither politicians nor business leaders want to risk too much democracy. 
The financial crisis is at Spain’s doorstep, and all the other European countries can do is rejoice that this fate has not befallen them. This sentiment, so well expressed by the German word Schadenfreude, puts Europe itself at risk, warns a Spanish political scientist. 
Every year, hundreds of residents are fleeing Venice, abandoning it to multinationals and art speculators and leaving behind a ghost town. Attempts to revive its economy are being hampered by a lack of state funds and the fatalism of those who have stayed behind. 
The near-collapse of Greece is the scenario that awaits other countries if they fail to get their debt under control. The aid to Athens is a sign that the European Union is still alive, but without the discipline of the fiscal pact, it won’t be enough, says a Czech economist. 
Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, has yet to distance himself from the anti-immigrant web site recently launched by the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) headed by Geert Wilders. This silence reveals the country's political divisions and a lack of vision on immigration issues, argues philosopher Paul Scheffer. 
Many countries, including Britain, look up to the Germans as a hard-working people. But such qualities belong to the distant past, points out a Guardian columnist. 
The current economic crisis casting doubts over our economic models and historical narratives may be the first not to create a myth of a new utopia around the corner. Although trust in politicians is fading, the good news is that we will get no new Lenins or Hitlers either – merely politicians without any grandeur at all, notes a Polish writer. 
Intended to assure the euro will survive forever, the fiscal pact adopted in early March endorses the “authoritarian capitalism” promoted by the Iron Lady. The budget cuts it advocates, however, are being dictated not by democratically elected governments but by financial markets, writes a Swedish columnist. 
Ireland will be the only country to put the EU fiscal compact to a popular vote. But what is really on the table, denounces columnist Fintan O’Toole, is that neo-liberal ideology is being raised to the status of unbreakable law. 
The trial of Iceland’s former Prime Minister opened on March 5. Geir Haarde is accused of having being unable to cope with the financial crisis that swept over the country in 2008. Should we follow this example in other countries? El País asked several experts and journalists. 
What if the euro crisis were merely a devilish experiment set up by a gigantic computer disguised as Planet Earth? The Berlin cabaret artist Horst Evers runs though the euro crisis – but by the rules of Douglas Adams’ alternative universe. And he finds the human race isn’t quite up to their job. 
The new treaty signed by 25 member states in Brussels on March 2 is supposed to create a new era of fiscal responsibility and economic union, but it is half-baked and reinforces the EU’s undemocratic credentials, argues a British columnist. 
Given a triumphant welcome in Bosnia – and very criticised in Serbia – Angelina Jolie's film nonetheless maintains the victimisation promoted by a part of the Bosnian political, cultural and religious elite, regrets Croatian writer, Boris Dežulović. 
The solidarity that has always been at the heart of the European project is based upon hard-headed self interest. For the union to survive the current crisis, it needs to relearn this simple principle. 
Sunk into a violent depression, Greece is being bled dry by an “incompetent” EU and its “callous” Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, accuses Peter Oborne, in a vehement broadside. 
With their refusal to build a federal Europe around the single currency, politicians have surrendered power to the economy. To win back this power and to share it with citizens, a Polish historian argues that they should construct a federation of nations. 
Poor and thus blameworthy: amid the ongoing Greek crisis, negative judgements on Southern Europeans appear to be gaining ground in Northern Europe. A Romanian columnist argues that such slurs form part of a simplistic and hypocritical analysis that prevents us from understanding what is really happening. 
As Greece pimps its ancient monuments to bring in the tourists, lovers of cultural heritage are up in arms. But the country is only doing openly what the whole of Europe is: looting historic sites to drum up more ready cash. 
Asserting national values is central to the political project of the Hungarian PM. Since the start of the year, fifteen paintings, specially commissioned for an exhibition in the Castle of Buda, have been putting this ambition on show. 
“Hitler”, “Occupying Power" – it’s always the same. Berlin is asserting its stance on the euro crisis and, in turn, is being abused with comparisons to the Nazis. Die Zeit ponders how Germans should respond. 
Can the radical manifesto of the killer of Oslo and Utøya really be staged? A theatre project in Copenhagen has raised strong protests in Norway and Denmark. But hearing the words of Breivik’s Manifesto 2083 is vital for understanding our times, responds its director, Christian Lollike. 
It is the madness that has become self-evident: for years, the public sphere has been plundered and democracy ruined. The German writer Ingo Schulze has had enough. Here he sets out ten reasons to take himself seriously again. 
As the Polish government prepares to sign the anti-piracy ACTA treaty, thousands of young internet users have taken to the streets in protest. Like most of their fellow Europeans, they fear it may “label their existential choices and free expression of identity as piracy,” explains internet anthropologist Piotr Cichocki. 
A former textile industry boom town, Guimarães is using its 2012 European Capital of Culture status to resurface after over twenty years in the economic doldrums. 
At a time when the drive for austerity has led most countries to cut back on cultural budgets, the Danish film industry remains one of the most successful in Europe thanks to a pro-active policy of grants and support for young film makers. 
European leaders have used the threat of war to justify policies undertaken to save the euro. But this argument no longer works, argues Dutch philosopher Paul Scheffer. The hearts and minds of Europeans must be won with valid arguments.