Culture & Ideas
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Cinema: Estonia’s signature melancholy
19 September 201163 Postimees Tallinn -
Eurozone crisis: Europe returns to national identity
16 September 201132715 The Guardian London -
Political fiction: Three Eurozones are better than one
16 September 201119912 De Volkskrant Amsterdam -
9/11, 10 years on: The East rises over Ground Zero
9 September 20111132 The Guardian London -
Netherlands: Cracks open in Dutch digital dykes
6 September 2011PresseuropNRC Handelsblad -
Greece: Shattered films from a shattered country
2 September 20111701 The Guardian London -
Eurozone crisis: Time to get angry, Europe
31 August 20111966 Der Spiegel Hamburg -
Netherlands: Dutch register will eat your cookies
30 August 201142PresseuropDe Volkskrant -
Music: The opera Belgium can’t see
29 August 20112673 NRC Handelsblad Amsterdam -
Youth: The hooliganism of losers
25 August 201116610 Die Welt Berlin -
Germany: German humour is dead
24 August 2011PresseuropBild -
Political fiction: A brave new superpower
22 August 20111525 Le Figaro Paris -
Poland: Hollywood beckons for Polish producers
22 August 2011PresseuropRzeczpospolita -
Information: Readers 'Too small to change the world'
19 August 201115116 Die Zeit Hamburg -
Poland: Poles apart from reality
18 August 2011PresseuropGazeta Wyborcza -
End of the line for the euro 4/4: Shanghai endgame
17 August 2011481 Le Monde Paris -
United Kingdom: Journalist’s letter reignites hacking scandal
17 August 2011PresseuropThe Independent -
End of the line for the euro 3/4: Wall Street's harsh judgment
16 August 201191 Le Monde Paris -
End of the line for the euro 2/4: Trundling towards doom
15 August 201183 Le Monde Paris -
End of the line for the euro 1/4: Berlin gets ready to leave the euro
12 August 201178610 Le Monde Paris -
Debt crisis: Are there any leaders out there?
8 August 20113825 The Guardian London -
Debate: Human horror, in cold blood
1 August 20111051 Corriere della Sera Milan -
United Kingdom: Phone-hacking scandal deepens yet again
29 July 2011PresseuropThe Independent -
Norway: Anders Breivik – non-entity without a cause
25 July 20114038 The Daily Telegraph London -
United Kingdom: Murdoch faces down MPs
20 July 201121PresseuropPresseurop -
A town in Europe: Slavonice, Moravia’s bohemian outpost
19 July 201177 Lidové noviny Prague -
United Kingdom: Phone hacking scandal - police chief quits
18 July 2011PresseuropThe Times -
Germany: Death of a media tycoon
15 July 2011PresseuropDie Welt -
United Kingdom: Phone hacking: questions for police
15 July 2011PresseuropThe Daily Telegraph -
Eurozone crisis: Euro – a right-wing dream gone wrong
13 July 201185511 The Guardian London -
United Kingdom : Gordon Brown was hacked too
12 July 2011PresseuropThe Daily Telegraph -
European Union: Democratization can’t save Europe
11 July 201118923 Der Spiegel Hamburg -
United Kingdom: Murdoch flies in to save crumbling empire
11 July 2011PresseuropThe Times -
Debates: Europe the gentle giant must wake
8 July 20112266 De Groene Amsterdammer Amsterdam -
Bulgaria: The superheroes of Soviet Sofia
8 July 20113591 Dnevnik Sofia -
United Kingdom: Murdoch sacrifices News of the World
8 July 20111PresseuropThe Times -
United Kingdom: PM’s future hacked by the Murdoch empire
7 July 2011121 The Daily Telegraph London -
Debt crisis: Only a new Marshall Plan can do it
6 July 20113244 The Guardian London -
Spain : Digital download tax aborted
5 July 2011PresseuropLa Vanguardia -
Debate: Cosmopolitanism can set Europe aright
1 July 201131215 Die Zeit Hamburg -
Basque country: Saint Sebastian, capital of peace and culture
29 June 2011PresseuropEl Correo -
Debate: Geert Wilders, a Voltaire for our times?
27 June 201130912 Trouw Amsterdam -
The Netherlands: Culture's last march
27 June 2011PresseuropTrouw -
Debt crisis: Amartya Sen: let's wrest democracy back
24 June 20117443 The Guardian London -
Debate: Europeans have a right to the truth
22 June 20112125 La Repubblica Rome -
Finland: Nokia: communications breakdown?
22 June 2011751 Helsingin Sanomat Helsinki -
Debt crisis: Democracy comes home to Greece
16 June 20113554 The Guardian London -
Debate: A united Europe – good for bureaucrats
15 June 20111007 The Daily Telegraph London -
United Kingdom: Hacking scandal now includes Tony Blair
9 June 2011PresseuropThe Guardian -
Debate: Let Europe shake
2 June 20111966 Hospodářské Noviny Prague
Since independence, Estonian film makers appear to be incapable of producing anything other than films where melancholy plays the leading role, remarks Postimees, which argues that a certain dolefulness has become the hallmark of culture made in Estonia. 
The looming Greek default has brought an arrogant and overbearing EU to a turning point. And a return to a national dimension is the outcome we can look forward to, writes a British columnist. 
There is no denying the reality: Eurozone countries are so different that there will be no common exit to the current crisis. The solution, argues a Dutch economist, is to divide states using the single currency into three groups governed by different rules. 
We have spent the years since the attacks on US soil focusing on the terrorist threat and wars in Afganistan and Iraq. But we have been blind to the real global change : the slow but unstoppable rise of China, writes Timothy Garton Ash. 
Are the brilliantly strange films of Yorgos Lanthimos and Athina Rachel Tsangari a product of Greece's economic turmoil? And will they continue to make films in this troubled country? 
The European common currency is in trouble, several EU countries are facing mountains of debt and solidarity within the bloc is declining. It is European youth, in particular, who have drawn the short stick. Closer cooperation is the only way forward. 
The opera, The Mute Girl of Portici, has been a symbol of Belgian unity since 1830. But to see it staged today, you have to go to Paris, because in Brussels it could arouse political controversy. 
A Europe long at peace is once again a seething continent. In France, Greece and Spain crowds of youths are out demonstrating against their situation, and in London they have reduced neighbourhoods to rubble and ashes. What is going wrong here? wonders a German columnist. 
Le Figaro's fictional series "The world in 20 years" begins with the view from Europe. In 2031, the launch of a European flagship inaugurates an age of shared defence and marks the final move in a "great awakening" that began fifteen years before. The Union is a superpower at last. 
When a pro-Europe article brings in storms of angry comments for an editor at Die Zeit, he decides to stop in on one of his critics. Where does the rage against Brussels come from? The answer he finds is both surprising and alarming. 
In the last episode of the political fiction published by Le Monde, a journalist for the Wall Street Journal finally catches up with the source of the document that has rocked the Eurozone and sowed panic in stock markets all over the world. 
Le Monde's fictional series about the demise of the single currency continues. Gathered around guru George Soros and the former European commissioner Mario Monti, the leading lights of international finance consider the critical situation of the euro, which has been brought about by the ineptitude of European leaders. 
Le Monde's fictional series 'The end of the euro” continues. After the German constitutional court invalidates the euro stability mechanism, the 27 member states seem resigned to the idea that one of their number will default. Charles Leesby of the Irish Times finds himself attending another midnight conference on the fate of the euro … 
On the night of his re-election, Nicolas Sarkozy learns that Angela Merkel is about to be overthrown by a faction in her party that wants to leave the euro. A short time later, Germany’s constitutional court invalidates the euro stability mechanism. In this political fiction, Le Monde examines a possible scenario — which may be more likely than it seems — for the end of the single currency. 
Faced with the euro crisis, world leaders look at best paralysed and at worst irresponsible. But a situation this serious needs heads of government who can take the bull by the horns. 
Beyond the political delusions that pushed Anders Breivik to assassinate more than 70 people, it is evil in it most imbecile form that was revealed by his actions, says Italian writer Claudio Magris.
There is nothing in the mind of Norway’s mass killer that needs studying. Instead of rationalising his deeds, we'd do better to ignore his narcissism and puerile ideology, writes columnist and London's mayor Boris Johnson. 
In its tumbledown Renaissance splendour, this town on the Czech-Austrian frontier has become a haven for intellectuals and artists who come from Prague in search of authenticity. 
With the very existence of the euro is in question, an American economist points out the fundamental difference between the single currency and the EU: while the former is the fruit of a right-wing political project, the latter stems from a project for solidarity between nations. The death of one does not mean the death of another. 
Despite the myriad problems currently facing the European Union, democratization is not the answer. Rather, the EU's elites need to improve -- and power has to be taken away from the periphery. 
In this early 21st century, many commentators compare Europe to a gentle, grassing eating dinosaur. In order to adapt to the new world being forged, it must come out of its sloth, urges Dutch writer Geert Mak. 
In mid-June, anonymous artists repainted the Soviet soldiers on a war monument in Sofia as comic-book superheroes. Beyond merely irritating the authorities with the farce, the gesture raises the question of the relationship between power, art and history. 
As more and more sordid revelations emerge of British tabloid News of the World’s culture of phone-hacking, the Daily Telegraph’s chief political commentator argues that the buck stops with PM David Cameron, who is personally implicated in press baron Rupert Murdoch’s social clique.
To emerge from the enduring debt crisis, Europe needs a programme as ambitious as the post-war US sponsored plan. But this time, it has to find the resources internally and foster a continent-wide redistribution. 
For sociologist Ulrich Beck, a federal Europe or a union of nation states are outmoded either/or options. It's time now to give the project a cosmopolitan dimension, more open, and more democratic. 
Geert Wilders's acquittal on hate speech charges may open up a new trend in Europe. Now that governments have stopped defending multiculturalism, critics of Islam can come back out into the open, writes a Dutch intellectual pleased with the decision. 
The Greek crisis illustrates what happens when political authorities abandon responsibility in favour of non-accountable bodies such as rating agencies, writes the Nobel prizewinning economist. 
The financial crisis has exposed the deception and subterfuge of politics, yet the leaders of Europe continue to deny the obvious. Only honesty, and the courage to tell the truth, can save Europe. 
The mobile phone manufacturer is a source of national pride, but it's struggling to keep pace with the competition. This highlights a technology gap that that has become a handicap for the entire country. 
While Greece’s PM George Panpandreou struggles to push through a second round of crippling austerity measures, the capital’s Syntagma Square has become a model of direct democracy, writes a Greek columnist, where Athenians of all ideologies, ages, occupations come to express their outrage. 
In the wake of Tony Blair’s declaration that Europe needs further integration, with a democratically elected president to lead it, a Daily Telegraph columnist argues that the only people who will benefit is Brussels’ army of Eurocrats. 
With our states indebted and international institutions like the IMF rocked to their foundations, no-one knows what the future will bring. But from out of the crisis, a new way thinking should emerge, argues a Czech economist.