In a pun headline — “mit links” means “with the left” and also “with ease” — Die Tageszeitung announces its support for a petition entitled “Another Europe is possible”, which was launched on May 15 by social-democratic MPs, representatives of the Left, the Greens, and several trade unions, as well as intellectuals and scientists from Austria, Germany, Italy and France.

For the left-wing daily —

This is the first time that several European left-wing parties have come together to launch a supranational protest against European policy, and in particular the policy of the [German] chancellor, Angela Merkel.

The protest focuses on the introduction of a “Convergence and Competitiveness Instrument” that will force Eurozone countries to push through structural reforms, which are to be approved by the European Council in June. The newspaper explains that for the signatories of the petition —

… the ‘instrument’ will simply pave the way for wage dumping, privatisations and cuts to the welfare state.

"Cultural exception: France rallies 13 EU countries," announces French financial daily La Tribune, which reports that French Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti has managed to convince 13 of her fellow ministers in other EU states to sign a letter, sent to the European Commission and to the EU's Irish Presidency calling for the film and audiovisual sectors to be excluded from talks on a free-trade agreement with the United States.

The letter was signed by representatives of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. La Tribune continues —

… the minister has pointed out that "the letter from fourteen European States, representing a vast majority of the population of the EU" – with the notable exception of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands – shows the will to retain this "cultural exception", which consists, in the face of "the power of the American audiovisual industry," of excluding all audiovisual services [...] from any commitments to free-trade regulations.

The daily notes that the free-trade agreement with the United States is on the agenda for an up-coming meeting of EU culture ministers to be held on May 17.

In a verdict announced on May 13, the federal court in Germany ruled that Google's auto-complete system, which automatically generates search suggestions, infringes the rights of individuals and companies.

To illustrate the issue, the compact edition of Die Welt publishes the suggestions prompted by a search on Angela Merkel —

Angela Merkel / Angela Merkel naturism / Angela Merkel twitter / Angela Merkel CV / Angela Merkel swimsuit / Angela Merkel Joachim Sauer [Angela Merkel’s husband] / Angela Merkel thesis / Angela Merkel private / Angela Merkel contact / Angela Merkel holidays

“In this case, the search terms added by Google are moderate and amusing,” notes the daily. But from now on Google will be obliged to remove them if someone believes his or her rights are being infringed.

The court ruled in favour of a businessman who sued Google for automatically associating “scientology” and “fraud” with his name.

Across the world, celebrations have been planned to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) on May 5.

De Groene Amsterdammer reports that his focus on the existence of the individual, as well as awareness of oneself and one’s future have led to a significant resurgence of interest in the work of the “Socrates of Copenhagen”.

His essays on “the possibility of achieving authenticity through freedom have ensured that Kierkegaard is still very relevant [...] even though the mission that he confers on the individual is fundamentally different to the encouraging advice found in today’s self-help manuals.”

Marking World Press Freedom day on May 3, the Turin daily is publishing a special edition dominated by a photo of its war correspondent Domenico Quirico, who has been missing in Syria for 3 weeks, and the yellow ribbon symbolising the campaign for his release.

“An international effort to make the the regimes limiting press freedom feel the pressure of public opinion may make a difference,” writes editor in chief Mario Calabresi in his editorial.

In a guest column, Reporters sans frontiéres Secretary General Christophe Deloire celebrates “our heroes”, the journalists who risk their freedom and life to “defend our right to keep our eyes open.” Among them is Mazen Darwish, the jailed head of the Syrian media centre who was awarded the organisation’s press freedom prize in 2012.

A petition signed by 80 European film-makers demanding that Brussels exclude audiovisual media from negotiations on a free trade agreement between the EU and the US was sent to the European Commission on April 22. Treaty talks are scheduled to begin this summer.

The film-makers hope – Belgian and French in the lead – to defend the "cultural exception" which allows restricting the free trade of culture on the market and allows each country to promote its own works.

The Commission "is accused by the cinema world of having a simply 'free trade' view of culture," notes French financial daily Les Echos, adding that for the film-makers, "culture should be a source [of unity] for the Union at a time when political Europe is 'ailing.'"

The accusation triggered a sharp reaction from Brussels with European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht promising in a press release that "the cultural exception will not be negotiated". His spokesperson explained that this does not exclude audiovisual media from the negotiations.

Les Echos notes that this is not the first time the world of cinema has risen up –

In 1993, during the renegotiations of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) accords, the predecessor to the World Trade Organisation, film-makers did not hesitate to hire an airplane to fly to Brussels to argue their point against the US onslaught, which wanted to assimilate culture to a packaged good just like any other. Twenty years later, they are ready to repeat the operation.

In an email addressed to Politiken, European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Viviane Reding has “accused the Danish government of stalling negotiations on the project for harmonised regulation on the protection of personal data”, which are underway in Brussels.

“The proposed European regulation is supposed to reinforce consumers’ control over their data and to simplifiy the rules for companies,” explains the daily.

The Danish Minister for Justice Morten Bødskov has argued that the text does not sufficiently take into account differences in existing rules in different countries, and that it does not offer users sufficient protection.

The daily illustrates the topic with a cartoon about the case of a retired teacher whose Facebook account became associated with a brand of vibrator when she clicked “like” for a site that mainly sells kitchen utensils.

The Rijksmuseum, the Dutch national museum, reopens on April 13 after a 10-year renovation.

“Nearly everything has changed except for the setting of its famous painting,” The Night Watch by Rembrandt van Rijn, notes the daily.

The museum has been partially closed since 2003 for restoration work meant to take only four years.

The project ran into unexpected difficulties, varying from problems with asbestos to soaring budgets and resistance from cyclists about the closure of a “bike tunnel” under the museum, which all contributed to its delayed reopening. The renovations cost almost €375m.

Six of Europe’s largest data protection agencies launched a joint legal case against Internet search giant Google on April 2 over alleged breaches of EU privacy regulations. The action by France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK is the first such coordinated privacy action by EU member countries against a company. The European Commission reported in 2012 that Google’s privacy policy did not comply with European law because it failed to sufficiently inform users of the data being gathered, and set a four-month deadline for the firm to update its policy. This has now expired without any policy shift from Google. Outlining the penalties Google may face, The Financial Times says –

European watchdogs can currently impose only fines below €1m but new EU-wide rules could soon empower them to inflict on companies penalties up to 2 per cent of their global annual turnover. In Google’s case that would add up to about $760m (€594m), based on its 2011 revenues. The new rules could be approved by the end of this year by EU lawmakers and member states.

While The Daily Telegraph underlines the different attitudes to privacy in the US compared to Europe, writing –

It would probably be too cynical to suggest that Europe’s adversarial approach to Google is, in some quarters, driven by crude anti-Americanism. A different attitude to privacy is ingrained into German culture, for instance. But it is also obvious that, even with the enormous scale of the common market, Europe will always be a secondary market for Google compared with the US. If regulators make it harder for the company to operate in Europe, it is easy enough for it to simply switch bits off. So, should you wake up one day to find that Street View is not available, but Microsoft’s equivalent is, you would have European regulators to thank for that surprising monopoly.

Part of the East-Side Gallery, the most complete block of remains of the Berlin Wall, decorated by artists from the world over, was destroyed at dawn on March 27 by property developer Maik Uwe Hinkel.

Ignoring recent protests by several thousand demonstrators and on-going negotiations with Berlin's city hall, the developer took advantage of a legal loophole to start work on the construction of a 15-story luxury apartment complex on the banks of the Spree.

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, says he is seeking a solution to the problem.

Human Resources Minister Zoltán Balog ordered TV presenter Ferenc Szaniszló hand back a journalism prize the politician had awarded the reporter only a week earlier.

Szaniszló returned the Táncsics journalism prize on March 20.

The decision to grant the prize to Szaniszló, whose antisemitic and anti-Roma remarks have been the subject of several complaints, had prompted an outcry in the European press and an official protest from the Israeli ambassador to Hungary. Several previous recipients of the award also chose to demonstrate their disapproval by returning their medals.

The UK’s main three political parties, the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats, are rumoured to have agreed a deal on press regulation, following the conclusion last year of the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics.

The Inquiry recommended establishing a new independent press watchdog backed by law. Prime Minister David Cameron has resisted calls for such a watchdog, as have most newspapers. Details of the plan were expected to be announced today and put to a vote by MPs this afternoon.

Beside a photograph of UK WWII prime minister Winston Churchill, The Sun urged MPs “not to shame Britain by throwing away 318 years of Press freedom.”

“A spectre is once again haunting Europe – the spectre of German power,” writes historian Brendan Simms in The New Statesman’s cover story, dedicated to “The German problem”. The weekly outlines how the last five years have witnessed a “remarkable increase” in German influence, while Berlin has simultaneously fared well during the economic crisis and stopped the European Central Bank (ECB) from embarking –

on the bond-buying spree that the countries of the bankrupt European periphery so crave, prescribing for them a diet of unpalatable fiscal ‘rules’ instead. […] It is not surprising, therefore, that this period has also witnessed a surge of political and popular Germanophobia across the continent.

Simms believes that throughout most of the last 500 years, Germany has vacillated between being diplomatically too strong or too weak.

Today, Germany is both too strong and too weak, or at least too disengaged. It sits uneasily at the heart of an EU that was conceived largely to constrain German power but which has served instead to increase it, and whose design flaws have unintentionally deprived many other Europeans of sovereignty without giving them a democratic stake in the new order.

The question we face now is this: how can the Federal Republic, which is prosperous and secure as never before, be persuaded to take the political initiative and make the necessary economic sacrifices to complete the work of European unity? One way or the other, the German question persists and will always be with us. This is because, whenever Europe and the world think they have solved it, events and the Germans change the question.”

Meanwhile, historian and columnist Dominic Sandbrook, writes in the Daily Mail that an increasing number of Europeans are arguing that “for the third time in less than 100 years Germany is trying to take control of Europe.” He refers to the comments of former Eurogroup President Jean Claude Juncker, who drew parallels between 2013 and the year before the start of WW1 and warned that the threat of European war still exists. Speaking of the Germans, Sandbrook continues –

If they continue to impose brutal economic strictures on Europe’s peoples, the consequences in terms of social alienation, international disputes and the rise of political extremism could be dramatic. Already we have seen bloody protests against the German economic yoke in Athens, Rome and Madrid. [...] Thanks to this seemingly endless political crisis, Germany is increasingly being seen not as Europe’s economic saviour but its oppressor. [...] Yet the truth is that lashing together the economies of nations as disparate as Portugal, Greece, France, Italy and Germany has served only to inflame old enmities.

The Budapest labour and public administration tribunal ruled on March 5 to invalidate an order preventing Hungarian radio station Klubrádió from applying to renew its licence to broadcast on its current frequency.

The order, which was issued in 2011 by the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH), a body largely staffed by supporters of Viktor Orbán’s conservative government, was viewed as an attempt to censor the opposition radio channel, which has more than 400,000 listeners a day.

In 2012, Klubrádió’s case was upheld by four court rulings. However, these were never applied by Hungary’s Media Council.

“Benedict XVI bade a very personal farewell to the Catholic community” in front of 100,000 people gathered in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome, the daily reports.

His pontificate is officially scheduled to end on Thursday evening at 8pm, at which point he will take on the new role of emeritus pope.

In its editorial, the daily notes that supporters of the German pope praised “a shy intellectual who was a blessing for the Church. However, he did not succeed in leading it into the modern era.”

Otfried Preussler, the author of children's books, died on February 20 at the age of 89. His stories, including The Robber Hotzenplotz, The Little Ghost and Krabat have stimulated the imagination of children and young adults in Germany, and elsewhere, for the past 60 years.

His books have been translated into 55 languages.

“Europe is threatening to punish Google for its use of personal data,” announces Le Monde. At an Article 29 Working Party meeting held on February 18, Europe’s national data protection agencies approved a plan to take action against the American group on February 26.

The European privacy watchdogs believe that the search engine giant’s use of personal data “does not comply with European law.” France’s Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), which is the current president of the Article 29 Working Party, had warned “Google to ensure compliance by February 15, 2013”. But faced with “Google’s display of bad grace,” the CNIL has decided to take the matter further.

The goal of the procedure is to decide on a punishment “before the summer”. If the 27 national data watchdogs agree, fines will then be imposed by each national jurisdiction. In France for example, Google may have to pay as much as €300,000 for each non-compliant service.

At the Berlin International Film Festival, the Bosniac Roma actor won a Silver Bear for best actor for his performance in An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, a docudrama by Danis Tanovic, in which Mujić plays himself. The film was also awarded the festival's Grand Jury Prize.

The Golden Bear for best film was awarded to Child’s Pose, by Romanian Călin Peter Netzer.

“We don’t know what will happen after Benedict XVI steps down on February 28, even the Pope himself doesn’t know – he is no clairvoyant after all. So a lot is at stake. [But] the ‘Panzer’ Joseph Ratiznger will go down in history as a great Pope”, writes Warsaw daily’s columnist Jan Turnau.

"For the first time in 719 years, a pope is giving up Peter's seat of his own free will," says the German tabloid. "We are all human," adds the paper, a reference to one of its headlines of eight years ago: "We are all pope! "Yesterday's events will force the Catholic Church to follow a new path. Benedict XVI has never been as strong, now that he is so weak."

"At 8pm on February 28, Ratzinger will leave the pontificate," says the Italian daily. "His decision came about following his return from his trip to Mexico and Cuba in March 2012," the paper explains, adding: "The conclave to elect the new pope will be held in March. Possible candidates include: Cardinal Pasinya of Congo, Cardinal Ouellet of Canada and Cardinals Scola and Bagnasco, who are both from Italy."

In the wake of the announcement of his resignation, the Belfast daily wonders about the contenders who could replace Benedict XVI.

As the film industry gathers in Berlin for the February 7 opening of the Berlinale Festival, the weekly Die Zeit reports on the story of the "stolen film" which sums up the industry's struggle against piracy.

In a long tale, Die Zeit explains how German producer Stefan Arndt tried in vain to earn money from box office revenues from his film Cloud Atlas, before pirates could put a copy on line. A three-hour epic which begins in 1849 and closes with the end of the world 500 years later, the film cost €100m to produce and an additional €100m for marketing and distribution.

As of the summer of 2012, says Die Zeit, Arndt noted that his film was targeted by pirates because eight weeks before the world premiere:

Thousands of people were already registered on on-line file sharing sites for an illegal copy of Cloud Atlas.

Released in Russia a week after the US premiere, at the request of a Russian co-producer, the film was pirated in Khimki, Russia and put on-line in November. Thanks to a digital tracking system of the sound and the image each copy can be attributed to a specific screening, explains the weekly. However, those responsible for the pirate copies – those who record, put on-line, own the pirate sites, own data stocking servers – are lost among front companies and false identities throughout the world.

A few days before the opening of the Berlinale, dozens of illegal copies of Cloud Atlas were already on line, in a multitude of dubbed or subtitled versions. To date, the film has earned €85m of the €200m invested.

Ironically, the weekly adds, Google, the world leader in the highly lucrative sector of matching pirate sites with advertisers, is supplying 100 per cent of the financing for Berlin's Institute for the Internet and Society at Humbolt University, one of whose members is an advisor to German MPs.

"For weeks, discussion has been raging on whether to erase and replace words such as "negro" from children’s stories in Germany," the newspaper reports. Linguists oppose these proposals, while the publishing world says it is normal to adapt the texts of their time.

To illustrate the discussion, the TAZ publishes an extract from The Tale of Cockaigne (Das Märchen vom Schlauraffenland), by the Brothers Grimm, and its modern equivalent.