“Stop the presses” | Youropa’s press review #6

This week the leaders of the G20 gathered in Mexico and the topic on the top of the agenda was of course the trouble in the Eurozone.

Der Spiegel, as many other newspapers, concludes that “the Eurozone leaders are tired of the criticism from abroad”. This is due to the  European Commission President Barroso, who clearly showed at a press conference that he had enough. He erupted in frustration on Monday and insisted that Europe is doing all it can.

The Daily Mail paints us a lively picture of the little speech Mr. Barroso gave the Canadian journalist who asked him why North America should pay for the follies of Europe, an actual picture is included.

Besides describing Barroso’s outburst, Der Spiegel gives us an overview of the different opinions the leaders of the G20 have about what should be done. From “this is no longer a European affair” to “we need to solve this together”, for all is clear that action needs to be taken and Der Spiegel gives us a good insight in the G20 ‘plan of growth’ and how this meeting will affect the upcoming summit at the end of the month.

This meeting of the big European heads of state creates some tension among our leaders, decision need to be made and quick, as Mario Monti points out in an interview with the Guardian. This interview gives us a very in-depth and interesting understanding of what Italy’s prime minister thinks needs to be done. “To emerge in good shape from this crisis of the Eurozone and the European economy, ever more integration is needed,” he told the Guardian.

But how can this further political integration be achieved the Deutsche Welle asks. Although the big four, Italy, Spain, Germany and France say they want to fight for the euro and integration is the only way to go, they often disagree on the measures that will solve the currency. Monti doesn’t want bond purchases as Merkel suggests, Merkel doesn’t want to be laible for all the eurozone citizens’ savings as Monti suggests, but Hollande finally got the thumbs up from Merkel on his growth package.

And Spain, well, as we can read in El Pais, the subway will shut down during the week around midnight to save some money. So the fantastic four have some work to do.

Youropa put the spotlight on the European citizen’s initiative a month ago, it is supposed to be a new way of including normal citizens in the European decision making process.  The EUobserver comes with a critical opinion piece this week,  the citizens’ Initiative risks being strangled by EU commission the headline reads. According to the EUobserver the new democracy instrument has gotten off to a poor start.

Of the first six officially registered initiatives, not one has begun to collect signatures. This state of affairs is due to the fact that the online signature collection system offered by the Commission is not yet up and running.

Worst of all is that the commission has refused outright to register several initiatives. The ECI – “My vote against nuclear power”, which seeks to phase out the use of nuclear energy within the EU – is one such rejected initiative. The justification for the rejection of the Anti-Nuclear ECI is that proposals contravening primary law are inadmissible.

The writer Carsten Berg is the General Coordinator of The ECI Campaign and board member of Democracy International.