Italy’s general elections two weeks ago resulted in an absolute majority for Silvio Berlusconi’s rightist alliance. Mr. Berlusconi thanks his victory to the astonishing and pivotal electoral success of the Lega Nord, a constituent of his alliance. The Northern League completely wiped away the left in the north of Italy. It doubled in size and won a stunning 8.3% of the national vote, sending 60 deputies (+37) and 26 senators (+13) to Rome. In some northern regions it had the support of up to 50% of the electorate.

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Following the victory of Silvio Berlusconi’s rightist alliance in Italy, The Economist wrote a condescending editorial, entitled “Mamma mia.” The article stated that Berlusconi was not The Economist’s choice and said that the “Italians may come to regret electing [the jester of Italian politics] once again.” Barely a month earlier, Spain had re-elected its own “jester,” Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a man whose main ambition is to destroy Spain’s Christian heritage and substitute it with a postmodern, multicultural utopia where homosexuals marry and the state raises children. At that election, however, The Economist did not feel compelled to snub the winner. It just told its readers that Spain needs “a bipartisan approach to […] solve big questions of national identity.”

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This Sunday it will be exactly 40 years ago that Enoch Powell, a then 55-year old Conservative member of the British Parliament and a former government minister, gave a speech in Birmingham. It became know as the “Rivers of Blood speech” because it referred to a verse from the Roman poet Virgil prophetizing “wars, terrible wars, and the Tiber foaming with much blood.” The Tiber is the river that runs through Rome.

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Adolf Hitler realized the importance of having a good press. In Nazi Germany with its press censorship, it was easy for Hitler to have a good press. However, during the 1930s the Nazis also tried to control the media in the neighboring European countries that Hitler was planning to invade. The Nazis bullied the democratically elected governments in these countries to censor everything that resembled what today might be called “Naziphobia” – criticism of Nazism.

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Last May, when Nicolas Sarkozy was running for president of France, I wrote on this page that he was “Europe’s best hope.” Mr Sarkozy won the votes of 53 percent of the record 85 percent of the French electorate that came out to vote in the presidential elections. The French approved of his tough rhetoric against the Islamist “thugs” (his word) who control many no-go neighborhoods in the country, where more than 10 percent of the population already adheres to the Muslim faith.

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During the past two centuries three major European continental nations have tried to impose their will on the rest of the continent, indeed, on the globe. First France in the early 19th century, then Germany in the first half of the 20th century, and finally Russia. France was defeated in 1815, Germany in 1918 and 1945, and Russia in 1989. Britain stood up to all these attempts of the major European countries to gain European and world hegemony. In 1815 America was too young to become involved in Europe’s wars, but it became entangled in European affairs from 1917 onward. The willingness of Britain, and later also of America, to stand up against continental Europe’s bullies made London and later Washington into the natural allies of the smaller European countries, who feel threatened by their big neighbors.

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Leading newspapers in Britain, France and Spain, as well as the BBC, are collaborating with the Belgian authorities to improve the international image of Belgium. Last month, Belgium’s interim government ordered the Belgian ambassadors abroad to spin the international media “to promote a positive image of Belgium.” The ambassadors were told to take “informal” and “discrete” initiatives which must “result in positive radio and television broadcasts or newspaper articles” in the foreign media. They should, however, avoid press conferences because these might have “the opposite effect.”

Apparently, the ambassadors in London, Paris and Madrid have already been able to arrange interviews of Belgian Interim Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt with The Financial Times and BBC World (Britain), Le Monde (France) and El Pais (Spain). The interviews with Le Monde and BBC World were taped recently; the interviews with El Pais and the FT are scheduled next week.

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By the end of this year, when Americans know who their 44th President is, Europeans will know who the first President of Europe will be.
 
In December, governments leaders of the 27 European Union member states convened in Lisbon to sign the EU Reform Treaty. This treaty of 76,250 words is a rewrite of the EU Constitutional Treaty, which was rejected in 2005 by referendums in major European countries. However, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the author of the reform treaty, pointed out: “The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact.” This was confirmed by former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the author of the constitution, who acknowledged: “The proposals in the original constitutional treaty are practically unchanged.”
 

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Yesterday, Belgium’s interim Minister of Defense, the Christian-Democrat Pieter De Crem, revealed a NATO top secret which his predecessor, an anti-American Socialist, had managed to keep: i.e. where the (American) nuclear weapons in Belgium are located. During a visit with journalists to the Belgian military base of Kleine Brogel, just south of the Dutch border, Mr. De Crem told Belgian radio that there is "nuclear capacity" at the base.

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Karel De Gucht, the Belgian interim minister of Foreign Affairs, has urged all Belgium’s ambassadors abroad to “take initiatives to promote a positive image of Belgium.” In a confidential memo Mr. De Gucht urges the ambassadors to take “informal” and “discrete” initiatives which must “result in positive radio and television broadcasts or newspaper articles” in the foreign media. He emphasized, however, that the ambassadors should avoid press conferences – one never knows what journalists might ask – and other “spectacular initiatives” because these might have “the opposite effect.”

The memo instructs the ambassadors to counter the negative image created by the political crisis in Belgium. They are to assure their foreign contacts that it is not unusual for Belgian politicians to take a very long time to put together a government coalition. The ambassadors are also to persuade the international media that the political crisis in Belgium will not affect the country’s international obligations and economic stability.

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Last November, 15-year old Mouhsin and 16-year old Lakamy were killed in Villiers-le-Bel, an immigrant suburb of Paris. The boys, joyriding on a stolen motorbike. collided at high speed with a police vehicle which happened to be passing in a neighborhood where the police normally do not venture.
 
Though Moushin and Lakamy were French-born and of French nationality, their families had them buried in Morocco and Senegal – the countries of their ethnic origin. The self-imposed segregation extends even beyond death. Muslims, who claim that France does not have enough separate Islamic cemeteries, do not want to be buried near Christians or Jews.

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Politicians who run for office need loads of campaign cash. The candidates in this year’s presidential campaign are busy raising money from corporate America. Critics warn that this makes politicians dependent on big business, because the politicians are obliged to do something in return once they get elected. Some liberals are proposing to outlaw corporate donations and replace them by state subsidies. They cite Europe as the example to follow.

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Belgium is a multinational country of 10 million inhabitants, consisting of 60% Dutch-speaking Flemings and 40% French-speaking Walloons. The new coalition has a two third majority of 101 of the 150 seats in the Belgian Federal Chamber of Representatives. The coalition is predominantly Walloon, backed by 53 Walloon seats (out of a total of 62 French-speaking Representatives) and 48 Flemish seats (out of a Flemish total of 88 Representatives).

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Last Thursday, the heads of government of the 27 member states of the European Union convened in the Portuguese capital Lisbon to sign the EU Reform Treaty. That "Treaty of Lisbon" is almost identical to the European Constitutional Treaty, the so-called EU Constitution, which was rejected two years ago in referendums in major EU member states.

The EU rules stipulate that treaties only become effective when they have been ratified in all 27 member states. The "no" votes in the 2005 referendums killed the constitution, which would have transformed the EU from a supranational organization of 27 sovereign member states into a genuine single European federal state with 27 provinces. It was clear from the outset, however, that the peoples of the various European states were not willing to renounce their national sovereignty for a "United States of Europe."

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The Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced today that Denmark will not hold a referendum on the treaty of Lisbon on the EU constitution, the so-called “Reform Treaty”. Denmark will ratify this treaty through a parliamentary decision. Mr Rasmussen’s Liberal Party and the Social Democrats have the necessary majority to ratify the treaty in parliament.

The Danish PM claims that Denmark’s sovereignty will not be affected by the Reform Treaty. The EU authorities in Brussels want the Reform Treaty signed on 13 December and then ratified, regardless of national democratic sentiment.

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