<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Editorials</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/europe/editorials?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><description>Editorials</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[Mr. Wolfowitz and the Bank]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14382-2005Mar30.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14382-2005Mar30.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE WORLD Bank's board will meet today and will almost certainly confirm the nomination of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as its new president. The initial expressions of shock from Europe have proved unserious and, in some cases, even hypocritical. Louis Michel, the Belgian  who serves as the European Union's development commissioner, insisted that Mr. Wolfowitz fly to Brussels for an interview before getting Europe's blessing but when the candidate arrived yesterday, Mr. Michel himself was in the Caribbean. Equally, many Europeans had lashed out at the undemocratic fashion in which Mr. Wolfowitz was chosen; instead of an open, meritocratic, international competition, the White House presumed to install its own choice. Yesterday, however, France was hotly insisting that the No. 2 job at the World Bank be reserved for a Frenchman, and it was not shy of suggesting which one.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Deadly Ignorance]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56611-2005Feb26.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56611-2005Feb26.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE BUSH administration is quietly extending a policy that undermines the global battle against AIDS. It is being pushed in this direction by Congress, notably by Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.). But some administration officials zealously defend this policy error, claiming scientific evidence that doesn't exist.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mr. Bush in Europe]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38526-2005Feb19.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38526-2005Feb19.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  PRESIDENT BUSH'S visit to Europe beginning today has a different character from those of his first term. He goes not to attend obligatory summit meetings or to confer with governments that have been supportive of his policies but in an effort to refurbish the broader transatlantic relationship and to urge Europeans to join in his ambitious effort to spread democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere. The fact that Mr. Bush perceives the need for partnership with Europe on what he has described as a generational project to address the causes of Islamic extremism is encouraging; even more so is his greater willingness to treat European governments as independent allies who must be coaxed and listened to.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pain at Home]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33518-2005Feb17.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33518-2005Feb17.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   ONE NEED NOT embrace the incendiary rhetoric of the mayor of Baltimore, Martin O'Malley, who likened the Bush administration's proposed budget cuts to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to agree that their impact will be felt in counties, cities and neighborhoods -- in some cases severely. Under President Bush's fiscal  2006 budget plan, non-Medicaid grants to state and local governments would decline by $10.7 billion, or 4.5 percent, to $225 billion. In the Washington region as elsewhere, what is hidden in the abstraction of those numbers are the effects on communities of reducing or eliminating funding for programs in job training, adult education and affordable housing.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Europe and Turkey]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35593-2004Dec29.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35593-2004Dec29.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   IN MILITARY TERMS, Europe's contribution to the war on terrorism has been modest. More than once its diplomats have worked at cross-purposes with those of the Bush administration. There is reason to doubt whether most Europeans really understand the threat of Islamic extremism or agree with Americans that an overarching, generational commitment must be made to defeating it. Yet this month the European Union launched an initiative that eventually may contribute as much to overcoming Muslim militants as anything the United States has done since Sept. 11, 2001. It agreed to begin formal membership negotiations with Turkey, a country of about 70 million Muslims that in more ways than one serves as a bridge between Europe and the Middle East. If the talks progress successfully, both Europe and Turkey will be positively transformed -- and the "clash of civilizations" between the West and Islam sought by ideologues such as Osama bin Laden will be far less likely.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Holiday Spirit]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23571-2004Dec23.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23571-2004Dec23.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THE HOLIDAY SEASON has suffused the  stock market, which has bubbled exuberantly to its highest level in 3 1/2 years. Americans who own stocks can count themselves a bit richer, which means they can spend a bit more freely, which means that corporate profits will brighten -- which means that the stock market might just keep heading up. But this perpetual motion machine has a flaw in its engine. The more it accelerates, the nastier the potential consequences if it seizes up.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Correction]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34022-2004Aug25.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34022-2004Aug25.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ An editing error changed the meaning of a sentence in the Aug. 20 op-ed  column by Morton Abramowitz and Richard Burt. The sentence in question should have read:]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lance at Six]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19777-2004Jul27.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19777-2004Jul27.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA["Welcome to the NFL," Americans like to say to someone who's just entered a world where the conditions are brutal and the competition unforgiving. But after three weeks of watching Lance Armstrong on the roads of Europe, outracing the world's best cyclists over a 2,000-mile-plus  course for the sixth straight time, we may have a new standard: "Welcome to the TDF" -- the Tour de France. Welcome to cycling a hundred and more miles a day at a pace that would leave most of us gasping after five minutes. Welcome to climbing nearly vertical mountain roads with your lungs burning and just about every male inebriate on the European continent getting in your face. Welcome to time-trial torture, and the prospect of hurtling off a mountainside at 50 mph.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fix This Bill]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37472-2004Jun12.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37472-2004Jun12.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   CONGRESS IS preparing an overhaul of corporate taxation that could inflict further complications on the tax code, confirm the belief of corporations that ruthless lobbying pays off handsomely and drain more than $150 billion from federal revenue over 10 years. The Senate has already passed a bill that is heavy with pork for special interests; the House is expected to pass an even worse version in the next few days. The one opportunity to fix this legislation will come during House-Senate conference negotiations. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, who has sat on the sidelines, needs to support congressional leaders who want to produce something respectable. In the absence of big improvements, the bill should be vetoed.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Arab Backlash]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44737-2004Mar9.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44737-2004Mar9.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THE BUSH administration's new democracy initiative for the "greater Middle East" is prompting an animated and occasionally contentious discussion across the region and between Europe and the United States. For a part of the world that has resisted change for decades while breeding poverty, religious extremism and terrorism, that is already progress of a sort. Much of the debate, however, has taken on a disappointingly familiar cast. Entrenched Arab autocrats, such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Syria's Bashar Assad, have tried to stop the initiative by denouncing it as an outside imposition or by claiming that no liberalization is possible before a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- which, they insist, can occur only by outside imposition.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Wrong Priorities]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44395-2003Dec7.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44395-2003Dec7.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THEY PROVIDE what one Lithuanian politician calls "neutral, solid, Western programming" reflecting Western values. They give an American point of view but are not generally regarded as propaganda. They have millions of listeners across the new democracies of Eastern Europe as well as a long tradition. They cost, by U.S. budgetary standards, very little: The overall funding, for 11 countries, is $11 million a year. Yet if congressional appropriators have their way, one of the cheapest, most effective and most popular tools of U.S. public diplomacy -- the foreign language services of Radio Free Europe -- will soon cease to exist. Seven languages are to be cut altogether, including the services to Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia and the Baltic states. Several more, including services to Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Serbia, will be cut by 25 percent.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Rethinking Kyoto]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37183-2003Dec4.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37183-2003Dec4.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[NOT MANY PEOPLE really like the Kyoto Treaty on global warming. President Bush's domestic opponents criticized him for abruptly abandoning attempts to ratify it when he  took office in 2001, conveniently forgetting that the Senate had voted 95 to 0 to reject it in 1997, a margin that surely reflects broad bipartisan opposition. Among the many European countries that have also complained loudly about the United States'  failure to ratify the treaty, only two, Britain and Sweden, are actually on track to meet Kyoto's targets for reduction of greenhouse gases. This week the European Union's  environment commissioner sent a scolding letter to all 15 member countries, complaining that the trend of emissions is "going in the wrong direction." Canada, which has also assailed the United States for abandoning the Kyoto accord, may now be close to also pulling out of the treaty. Worse, an unforeseen flaw in the treaty's design has left Russia, not a country with a deep commitment to the environment, with an effective veto over the whole affair. Russia is now being coy about whether it will ratify, apparently hoping that it can extract advantages from Western Europe in exchange for doing so.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Help for Democracy]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28573-2003Nov11.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28573-2003Nov11.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[VLADIMIR PUTIN'S latest campaign of persecution against a perceived political opponent, oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has demonstrated that neither democracy nor capitalism has taken hold in Russia. Sadly, the same is true in many of Russia's neighbors: From Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan to Ukraine and the Balkans, those who support free elections, a free press and free enterprise struggle against a daunting array of adversaries, from murderous criminal syndicates to resurgent secret police. There are limits to what the United States can do to help the liberal politicians and independent journalists and young entrepreneurs of this region -- yet one of the few things it has done well is now in danger. Blaming budget pressure, the Senate is moving toward elimination of funding for exchange and training programs in Russia, the former Soviet Union and the Balkans -- an extraordinarily shortsighted decision.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Time for Half Measures]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4369-2003Aug16.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4369-2003Aug16.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[PRESIDENT BUSH has proclaimed the democratization of the Arab world a central goal of his administration. Writing on these pages recently, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, urged "the transformation of the Middle East." She likened the dedication needed to achieve that goal to the generational effort by the United States to rebuild Europe after World War II and anchor democracy there. Some critics assert that the goals are too sweeping -- that the Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East are not ready for democracy, or that the stakes do not justify the resources that would be demanded of the United States and its allies to hasten such a transformation. We disagree on both counts. Mr. Bush's goal of political liberalization throughout the Middle East is a noble one, worthy of the highest traditions of U.S. foreign policy, and also is important to long-term U.S. national security. In the long run, the economic and political success of now-impoverished Islamic nations would diminish the threat of radical Islamist terrorism. But we agree that the goals put forward by the Bush administration are extraordinarily ambitious, and we continue to question whether the president is mustering the resources necessary for the challenge.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A New Job for NATO]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60858-2003Aug14.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60858-2003Aug14.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ON MONDAY the North Atlantic Treaty Organization took control of the 5,000-member, 30-nation, U.N.-sanctioned international force that has been keeping the peace in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, since U.S. forces toppled the Taliban in December 2001. More than 60 people have died in Afghanistan this week as a bus bomb, violent clashes between warlords and attacks on government troops rocked the country in the deadliest wave of violence in more than a year. NATO, which has never before controlled an operation outside Europe, is now faced with one of the most difficult tasks it has ever been asked to carry out.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Baby Bust]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13644-2003Jul5.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13644-2003Jul5.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA["HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS" might well have been the title of last month's National Vital Statistics report, which shows that the U.S. birthrate has hit a record low. The U.S. population isn't shrinking -- yet. But if current trends continue, the country will grow increasingly reliant on immigration to bolster the ranks of its working-age population.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pointless Punishment]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10665-2003Jul4.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10665-2003Jul4.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[DURING HIS LAST VISIT to Europe, President Bush promised new U.S. allies in the eastern half of the continent that they would not be forced to choose between their allegiances to the United States and to the European Union. Yet now the White House is insisting on just such a choice -- in pursuit of a gratuitous ideological point. This week U.S. military aid to nine European countries, including six incoming members of NATO, was suspended because of their failure to conclude agreements exempting Americans from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. The court has yet to hear its first case, much less indict an American. The European governments have all positioned themselves as strong U.S. allies at a time of severe transatlantic tension, and most have contributed materially to the war in Iraq. That they have not met Washington's demand for a court exemption is due only to their status as incoming members of the EU, which has adopted a policy against such accords. Yet Mr. Bush insists on punishing states such as Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia and Croatia by cutting off the aid they are using to modernize their military forces so they can support NATO missions. He persists even though European countries that actually oppose U.S. policy, such as France and Belgium, will suffer no such sanction -- and will no doubt welcome any discord between the United States and the "new" Europe.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Reviving NATO]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28084-2003May7.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28084-2003May7.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THE GOOD NEWS for seven countries of Central and Eastern Europe is that the Senate today is likely to overwhelmingly approve their entrance into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has been the foundation of Western security for more than a half-century. The bad news is that they have real reason to worry whether the exclusive club they are joining will survive much longer. The end of the Cold War weakened NATO's cohesion and sense of purpose; the war in Iraq threatened to shatter it altogether. France's obstruction of a NATO decision to defend Turkey, a member, against possible attack raised the question of whether the alliance's 19 members still have a common vision of security, much less the ability to agree on concrete actions. The danger that the alliance could dissolve, formally or as a practical matter, still exists. But the U.S. ratification of membership for Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania offers reminders of why a NATO with 26 members is needed -- and why the Bush administration should be working to save it.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[United by Free Trade]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16724-2003Mar23.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16724-2003Mar23.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[FAITH IN GLOBAL integration as inevitable and beneficial is eroding. The sentiment was never unanimous of course, but the fight over Iraq has estranged the United States from many of its traditional European partners. Fear of terrorism has led to increased doubts about opening borders to free movement of people and goods. Bedrock institutions of multilateralism -- the United Nations, NATO, the European Union -- are in various states of disrepair.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Democracy's Choices]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45406-2003Feb21.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45406-2003Feb21.html?nav=rss_world/europe/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:08:16 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ONE OF THE GREATEST virtues of democracies is that they do not go to war easily. That is true even when they have been subjected to attack; it is even more so when they are challenged to use force without a proximate act of aggression. The case of Iraq is no exception: In the United States, where a substantial majority of the public supports military action to disarm Saddam Hussein, there have nevertheless been large and passionate demonstrations in opposition. In Europe, where the sense of danger from Iraq and weapons of mass destruction is less, big majorities oppose a U.S.-led campaign, and protest rallies last weekend attracted immense crowds. We continue to believe that war with Iraq will be necessary, unless there is a dramatic change in Baghdad. But if this clamor of opposition is making it harder for the Bush administration and its allies to go forward, that is probably for the better. In a democracy, before any bombs fall, governments should be challenged again and again to explain why force is necessary, why the alternatives are not acceptable and why the outcome will be worth the always terrible costs. The continuing dissent both here and abroad should inspire President Bush to make his case more clearly and strongly.]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>
