The German Constitutional Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, decided today that the European Arrest Warrant Act of 2002,  which replaced the various national extradition systems by a unified European one, is incompatible with the German Constitution. According to the Bundesverfassungsgericht the German Constitution overrules European Union legislation. Consequently a German citizen cannot be extradited automatically to other EU member states to be taken to court there, but is entitled to a verdict by German courts.

We have already pointed out that on the European continent, and especially in France,  people have begun to notice the difference with Anglo-Saxon political culture. Though there are Americans who deem that France is in some respects to be preferred to Britain it is significant that Nicolas Sarkozy, the current French Minister of the Interior and the most likely future President of France, is an admirer of Britain and hopes his country will follow the British example.

XTC or ecstasy (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is a popular “party drug” among adolescents and young adults. It reduces inhibitions and promotes euphoria and increased sensuality. However, XTC can interfere with the ability to regulate body temperature. This can lead to a sharp increase in body temperature (hyperthermia) resulting in liver, kidney, and cardiovascular failure. Repeated use of the drug can also cause permanent brain damage.

Belgium and the Netherlands are the world’s major producers of XTC tablets. Though XTC is an illegal drug in both countries, operating clandestine laboratories is a very lucrative business for criminals. Small laboratories can produce large numbers of tablets quickly at low cost. Moreover, the risk of being caught is minimal: the laboratories are inconspicuous and can be easily cleared and moved. Reports estimate that over 2 million tablets produced in Belgium and the Netherlands are smuggled into the U.S. each week.

Some really good news is coming out of the Low Countries this week. Sleep quietly tonight, ye burghers, for a devilish menace has been exorcized. Or rather, has been debunked. For one, the Lonsdale brand name is OK again. On 12 and 13 July 2005, the papers happily announced that according to the findings of the Dutch state security service the vast majority of “Lonsdale youngsters” are not far-right fanatics. The media had created a negative hype about Lonsdale clothes being the secret uniform of xenophobic and even neo-Nazi youngsters. This helped to create a climate of apprehension about an imminent threat from “renascent fascism”. One would think that it is but a step from Lonsdale to committing genocide. As a result, some importers and distributors of Lonsdale gear went out of business.

The four young British suicide terrorists of Pakistani origin who committed last week’s London bombings appear to have become Islamic extremists at a government-funded youth centre in Leeds: the Hamara Youth Access Point. The Canadian Globe and Mail reported yesterday that apart from the British government the European Union, too, funded the centre. People working at the centre described it as a hub of radical Muslim politics and a hotbed of Islamic organizing, routinely hosting mysterious figures to speak about extremist politics. "It had become so radical and so hateful that I asked if I could stop working there," said one of the employees. Considering these testimonies one wonders why the British and EU authorities never inquired about what was going on in the centre. Is it standard policy just to pour European taxpayers’ money into projects without assessing what is being done with the money?

Philippe Servaty

For decades Tintin has been the world’s most famous Belgian reporter. But now it looks like he may have a competitor. Philippe Servaty is the 42-year old chief economics correspondent of Le Soir, Brussels’ most influential newspaper. This modern Tintin’s adventures took him to Morocco several times over the past years. There dozens of women ended up in his bed and naked in front of his camera lens.

One of them is 42-year old Samira, a teacher in Agadir. Servaty told her that he loved her and asked her to pose nude for a souvenir picture. He had her stand on all fours with a leash around her neck while he took her doggy-style. “These sluts are so naive. If you promise to marry them and take them along with you to Brussels they do whatever you ask,” Servaty wrote on a website where he posted Samira’s picture. Another woman, 23-year old Amina, was photographed while Servaty urinated on her. He had promised her that he was going to help her flee the husband of her arranged marriage and use his media connections to make her a movie star.

The European Commission is worried about the spread of radicalism among Muslims in Europe. Recent intelligence reports in Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands have frightened political authorities.

Who said the European Union was intended to create an internal market? Perhaps that was true in the past, but it is hardly true after today’s verdict of the European Court of Justice about the 2002 food supplements directive. The health food industry had complained that the directive was invalid. The Court dismissed such a claim as well as the legal opinion of the advocate general.

In an editorial in the German conservative newspaper Die Welt Thomas Kielinger referred yesterday to the different ways in which British and Spanish politicians reacted to the bombings in London last week and Madrid last year. “London differs from Madrid in this respect that there were no panic reactions from politicans calling for a departure of troops from Iraq. For the first time this demand has even become an issue of secondary importance. For the first time in five years Tony Blair is experiencing a precipitous rise in popularity. The people sense how in a moment of crisis they have a head of government who does not simply talk about leadership, but lives it. A nation that is led like this is united in itself and with its ruling elite and will remain prominent.”

Today, in Amsterdam, the trial began of Mohammed Bouyeri, the 27-year old Moroccan who murdered Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh on November 2, 2004. Bouyeri ritually slaughtered van Gogh because the latter had made a critical movie about the position of women in fundamentalist Islamic societies. The assassination of van Gogh, two years after the May 2002 murder of the popular anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn, sent shock waves through Dutch society. During the first day of the trial Bouyeri, who wore a Palestinian scarf, refused to say a word. He did not react and displayed the same calmness he had shown eight months ago whilst he slit his victim’s throat in a busy Amsterdam street.