While the first good news on the economic crisis is arriving from the US, Barack Obama continues to fight on all fronts, with rigour and courage. In contrast, in the European Union there is a marked lack of responsible leaders, writes Mario Soares, ex-president and ex-prime minister of Portugal. In this article, Soares writes that European elections are set for the first days of June, and given the lack of new ideas and the anaemia of the debate, a low turnout is expected. The European Socialist Party has a seven-point plan to weather the economic crisis and use the opportunity to fashion a better and more just future. Yet three European prime ministers -Brown of the UK, Spain's Zapatero, and Portugal's Socrates- have all endorsed current EU president Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, candidate ...
martina - 8 months agoBRUSSELS (AP) — Center-right parties hailed European Parliament election victories as a continent-wide vote for conservative approaches to the economic crisis and pledged Monday to forge ahead.Right-leaning governments came out ahead in Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, while conservative opposition parties won in Britain and Spain.Many Socialists ran campaigns that slammed center-right leaders for failing to rein in financial markets and spend enough to stimulate faltering economies. But voters did not embrace their cause."The center-right has been addressing the economic crisis," said Sara Hagemann, an analyst at the Brussels-based European Policy Center think tank. "The center-left parties failed to sell that message."Voters angry over poor economic conditions and political ...
martina - 8 months ago
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