EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - German chancellor and Christian Democrat Angela Merkel has voiced regret there will be no reference to Christian roots in the revised EU treaty, amid controversial remarks about damage to churches in Turkish Cyprus at a meeting of religious VIPs in Brussels.

"You know what my personal view is. I would have liked the constitution to deliver such a reference. But as president of the European Council, I see there is not much of a chance," she said on the prospects of God appearing in a preamble to the EU text. "I can't hold out any hope," she added.

Her statement comes in the context of Germany's push to fix the broad outlines of a new EU treaty - still called a "constitution" by some - in late June, following months of bilateral consultations with EU states after the rejection of the original EU constitution in 2005.

The God debate is at least as old as the 2002 convention that wrote the old EU constitution, with Roman Catholic states like Poland and the Vatican pushing for the reference, but with France and the UK worried over national secularist traditions or damaging relations with Islamic EU candidate Turkey.

The EU's 50th birthday declaration in March rejuvenated the discussion. But in the end the birthday text made no reference to Christianity, while praising "identities and diverse traditions of member states" and how the EU is "enriched" by a "variety of languages, cultures."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU remains in post Soviet-era strategic thinking and has yet to adapt itself to the new threats posed by terrorism and radicalised Islamic ideology, according to Portugal's foreign minister.

Giving a preview of his country's priorities when it takes over the EU presidency on 1 July, Luis Amado on Tuesday (15 May) at a meeting of NGO Friends of Europe indicated Lisbon will shift the political focus of the bloc towards euro-Mediterranean and African countries, which he said were the origin of many of these new challenges.

"I think we need to understand that the strategic environment has changed after the 9/11 events," said the minister referring to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001.

He added that the bloc is still working in a "post-Soviet era," with much of the focus on Europe's borders to the east.

Instead, said Mr Amado, the EU should find the same "strategic vision and leadership" that it used to keep peace in its eastern neighbourhood after the disintegration of the Soviet empire - which eventually resulted in the EU taking on eight new member states from the region - in a new focus beyond Europe's southern borders.

Passionately pro-European and Atlanticist, Tony Blair sought good relations with both the EU and the US, although his pragmatic successor Gordon Brown is more likely to achieve both.

From Winston Churchill to Tony Blair, every post-war prime minister has been consumed by a foreign policy that has boiled down to the choice between Europe and the United States while trying to establish an independent British role in the world.

Although Britain emerged as an allied victor from the ashes of World War II, some say she won the war, but lost the peace.

Her vast imperial empire had disintegrated, and the "special relationship" with the United States, a partnership forged by a common heritage and the war, went through rough patches after the Suez Crisis in 1956.

 

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Wartime leader Winston Churchill (right) chose the US over Europe

The Anglo-French conspiracy to topple Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser met with US hostility, shattering both British pretensions in the Middle East and illusions about the loyalty of its closest ally.

Britain is to be offered an "opt-out" from some of the most sensitive parts of a revamped European Union constitution, as Angela Merkel, German chancellor, steps up efforts to negotiate a deal on a treaty.

Ms Merkel's allies have identified Britain and Poland as the biggest obstacles to an agreement, but her team remains confident it can end five years of constitutional wrangling at a Brussels summit next month.

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To help win Britain over, Ms Merkel, who holds the EU's rotating presidency, is said by colleagues to be willing to let London choose whether to take part in police and judicial co-operation on criminal issues when national vetoes in the area are abolished.

The move could help unlock an agreement on a streamlined treaty to replace the EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, allowing the bloc to play a more active role in the world.

But Poland remains strongly opposed to a proposed change in EU voting weights, while Britain has other concerns about a charter of fundamental rights - which businesses fear could give workers more rights to strike - and a change in the status of EU foreign policymaking.

In the land that launched the cartoons war between Islam and the west, Asmaa Abdol-Hamid finds herself on the frontline, gearing up for a new battle.

The 25-year-old social worker, student and town councillor describes herself as a feminist, a democrat, and a socialist. She has gay friends, opposes the death penalty, supports abortion rights, and could not care less what goes on in other people's bedrooms. In short, a tolerant Scandinavian and European.

Article continues She is also a Palestinian and a devout Muslim who insists on wearing a headscarf, who refuses, on religious grounds, to shake hands with males, and who is bidding fair to be the first Muslim woman ever to enter the Folketing, the Danish parliament in Copenhagen.

For the extreme right, the young activist is a political provocateur, an agent of Islamic fundamentalism bent on infiltrating the seat of Danish democracy. To many on the left, Ms Abdol-Hamid is also problematic, personifying through her dress the reactionary repression of women and an illiberal religious agenda that should have no place in her leftwing "red-green" alliance of socialists and environmentalists.

Although foreign policy played little part in France's presidential election, the newly elected president Nicholas Sarkozy has already announced a major change of course on a number of key issues.

The first change concerns relations with the United States. In his first speech after victory, Sarkozy said that the first message he wished to send was addressed to the United States.

"We are on your side," he said, indicating that France would abandon Jacques Chirac's policy of scoring points against the US whenever possible. "Our recent separation was tragic," Sarkozy added, recalling Chirac's campaign to prevent the liberation of Iraq in 2003.

By all accounts, Sarkozy is the most pro-American president that France has had under its Fifth Republic that started in 1958.

The eurozone's robust economic growth rate slipped only modestly in the first three months of the year and still comfortably outpaced the US as the damaging impact of higher German VAT failed to live up to expectations.

Gross domestic product in the 13-country region increased by 0.6 per cent in the first quarter, after a 0.9 per cent rise in the final three months of 2006, according to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical unit. The latest figure compared with a 0.3 per cent rise in the US.

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With growth expected to accelerate again in the second quarter, the latest data led economists to revise up forecasts for the full year, which could see the region matching last year's 2.7 per cent annual growth rate.

Eurozone growth was supported by a stronger-than-expected performance by Germany, which saw GDP rising by 0.5 per cent in the first quarter. That was only half the pace seen at the end of last year, but economists had expected a sharper slowdown as a result of a three percentage point increase in VAT at the start of the year. The country's statistical office said that consumer spending had been "braked significantly" but growth had been powered by strong investment spending.

A survivor bids adieu to the Elysée

(...)

In 1997, only two years into his first presidency, he called early elections to win a bigger majority for Alain Juppé, his prime minister, and endorsement for economic reforms. Instead, he suffered a dramatic reversal, and victory for Lionel Jospin's Socialist party, forcing him into a stalemate of "cohabitation". That was the end of economic reform.

And thus the Jospin years, which saw record growth, record job creation, a fall in budget deficits and the overall tax take, are summarily dismissed.

I could scream.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Tax Evaders for Increased Foreign Aid

     

That is not the name of Bono's organization, but perhaps it should be. The NYT devoted an article to the Irish rock star's complaints about a particular crisis of credibility among wealthy countries who have not carried though on their commitments to help poor countries. Such words are especially ironic coming from Bono. He became a Dutch citizen a few years back to take advantage of a provision in the Netherlands tax code that applies a very low tax rate to royalty income.

It is good to see the NYT devoting attention to the important issue of helping the world's poor, but there are many individuals and organizations that are engaged in this task who both have more expertise than Bono and don't have the same issues of credibility. The space probably could have been better used presenting the views of Joe Stiglitz or Jeffrey Sachs or Doctors Without Borders, rather than a multi-millionaire rock star who apparently believes that others should pay the taxes for what he considers an important moral committment.

--Dean Baker

The US will not allow Russia to stop it from deploying anti-missile defences in Europe, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said in Moscow.

"I don't think anyone expects the United States to permit a veto on American security interests," she said after meeting President Vladimir Putin.

Earlier, they agreed to tone down the rhetoric in public exchanges.

These were the first talks since February when Mr Putin accused the US of seeking global dominance.

Washington is not seeking confrontation, but wants Moscow's co-operation over sensitive issues such as Kosovo, Iran and missile defence, the BBC's defence and security correspondent Rob Watson says.

But the agreement to tone down the rhetoric does not mask the continuing differences and the sense in Moscow that Washington has long been ignoring legitimate Russian concerns, our correspondent says.