World of Opinion On the former Soviet Union:
Moscow’s sway over what goes on in its former sphere of influence is limited, and it will decrease further. Georgia is a good example of this. … The new strong man, the power-hungry Michail Saakashvili, was educated in the United States. He is a friend of the West, and nothing makes that clearer than the spontaneous call for help to Brussels and Washington, asking that they financially prop up the impoverished country. …
Moscow is doubtless still in a position to exercise economic and military influence in Central Asia as well as the Caucasus. In a few countries, among them Georgia, Russian troops are still stationed, and economically they are largely dependant on the energy supplies of their large neighbor. But with no common ideology or basis for identity comparable to that of the European Union, the drift apart is beginning, and the small countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States are forging their own pragmatic paths.
In the struggle over the natural resources of the Caspian Sea, countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbijan and Georgia seek their economic salvation in businesses with America and Britain – and thereby stand openly against Russia’s interests.
The former Soviet republics also have opened their doors militarily to the West and disavowed Russia as the guarantor of order.
American soldiers are stationed in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia. … Moscow has no choice but to more or less put up with this, because it first has to get itself in order – economically as well as militarily.
On same-sex couples:
The time has come to give homosexual couples some legal recognition. … The government is expected to propose that homosexuals be allowed to become “registered civil partners” and assume some of the same rights, and responsibilities, as a married couple. The details of the proposed legislation remain vague, but the focus of the changes would be in the areas of inheritance and pensions, and the granting of the right for a civil partner to act as next-of-kin in times of illness. There is no good reason why a homosexual man or woman, bereaved after decades of faithful union, should face the additional burden of selling a shared home to meet death duties when a partner dies. To state this truth is a simple matter of what is just and practical. It is perverse that existing law should actively discourage any two people in a lifelong relationship from enjoying legal and financial security. … Allowing gay people to affirm their relationship within a civil contract does not undermine the institution of marriage. It might even reinforce it. We will all benefit from greater recognition of stable relationships, of whatever kind.
On the EU’s growth and stability pact:
At first sight there is not a firm connection between the stability pact ignored by the European Union finance ministers and the intergovernmental conference on the European constitution.
The pact is a technical instrument that fixes in an abstract sense the deficit for EU members, and lays out fines for those who do not stick to the rules. The constitution, instead, is the total of all the institutional rules that member countries want to adopt over the long term. But in reality … a link does exist. The “night in Brussels” confirms a trait that is now clear. Governments find it hard to put up with the Commission’s power and want to recover those bits of national sovereignty that they had freely ceded. The wind that blows over Europe is no longer the unified one of the early 1990’s. It is an egotistical and national – if not directly nationalist – wind. …
On U.S. holding prisoners in Guantanamo:
Evidently the United States doesn’t want to take any chances in the war against terrorism, including the part of the war against terrorism that takes place in Guantanamo. The thought of releasing a prisoner because of lack of evidence after which he will fly a plane into another skyscraper is not thrilling. It is difficult to demand the rule of law for people who went to Afghanistan to fight for murderous regimes and terror organizations. They certainly were not in the mountains as tourists. The official acts of war in Afghanistan, and for that matter in Iraq, are over, and a two-year period to find evidence of criminal acts should be more than sufficient. No matter the kind of terrorism, a state can not simply lock up people without a trial until they die.
Berlingske Tidende, Copenhagen, Denmark
On U.S. and Georgia:
It was clearly time for Shevardnadze to step aside. Regardless of how much or how little fraud was present in the previous parliamentary elections, he had nothing more to offer Georgia. He did a final, forced favor to his country by silently resigning.
Events in Georgia are being followed with keen interest both in Moscow and Washington. Russia has a set of strategic advantages and military bases in the country, and refuses to let go of these. U.S. interest in the country is mainly as a geographical passage through which an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea past Iran and Russia could be built.
Mikhail Saakashvili has become the United States’ new pet, which is exactly why Moscow is ambivalent about him. He has promised to make demands on Russia to remove its military bases from Georgia. The struggle for influence in Tbilisi is reminiscent of the cold war days, when an advantage for one side was automatically seen as a loss for the other.
Georgia’s new leadership, however, has already declared a desire to join both the European Union and NATO.
Helsingin Sanomat, Helsinki, Finland
On the EU’s stability pact:
Life is not fair. He who is big and strong can take other liberties than he who is small and thin. That is a truth that most Europeans have learned already in the school yard. Though as a grown-up, we should rather have forgotten that – and at least try to treat everybody the same. Equality and solidarity are also values of central Europe. As is respect for law and agreements. Now the European finance ministers have returned to the lessons of the school yard – the decision to let France and Germany get off with admonitions despite the fact that both countries are violating the stability pact – could be explained only by the fact that he who is big is more right that he who is small.
Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm, Sweden