Far-right leaves bad smell, but Czech goat’s cheese is worse

By Craig Winneker

Date: 23/09/04

EUROPEANS are fretting once again over a surge of support for right-wing candidates - and, no, they're not referring to the US presidential campaign. Rather, a strong election showing for extreme right candidates in German regional elections has furrowed brows across the continent.

Die Welt sees a "worrying potential for protest on the far-right fringe", but the paper assures that "neither the republic nor [German] unity are at stake". Berliner Zeitung writes that for the ruling SPD "things went about as badly as expected, which means disastrously".

But Süddeutsche Zeitung says opposition leader Angela Merkel is the main "indirect" loser as support for her Christian Democratic Union in Saxony "plummeted by over 15%", losing the party its absolute majority in the state.

Dresden's Sächsische Zeitung puts things in perspective. The results, it says, do not mean "that all those who voted [for the far-right] are neo-Nazis rational arguments had no effect on these frustrated protest voters. But it is only a question of time before the voters come back down to earth".

Denmark's Politiken also takes a more relaxed view: "There are also very right-wing parties in France, Austria and Denmark without it being the end of the world."

But Austria's Der Standard says that "the general political situation in Germany has changed as a result of these elections. The debate will become fiercer again".

Dutch paper Volkskrant argues that Germans do not know how to deal with undesirable political phenomena such as the extreme right, but adds: "All the attention for the extreme right is diverting attention away from a phenomenon that is at least as troubling, namely the fact that once again only 60% of the electorate made use of their right to vote. This is leading to a steady erosion of the power base of the political moderates."

Meanwhile, in the Paris-based online Newropeans magazine, correspondent Catalin Gherman takes aim at Europe's elusive foreign policy. "The EU external policy to be carried on by the Barosso Commission seems to be weak and fragmented," he writes. "The structural changes and the profiles of the three commissioners in charge leave the EU without a strong international voice until the EU foreign minister steps in. This leads us to ask, why bother?" Why, indeed, Catalin? "Leaving aside the problematic question of how the Commission president, the foreign minister and the Council of Ministers chair will work together on the EU external policy when [Javier] Solana will step in, I wonder what happens to the EU external policy until then? Is it suspended? Will everybody "cease fire" waiting for the EU to structure and define its position? Unfortunately no."

Finally, leave it to the UK's Daily Telegraph to find the European story of the week.

It's the tale of a Czech goat farmer who has taken to labelling his organic cheese as animal feed in order to skirt new EU hygiene regulations to which food producers in his country suddenly find themselves subject.

He's put up a sign advertising his cheese as follows: "Goat's cheese made from non-pasteurised milk. Hand-kneaded. Recipe kept for six generations. Absolutely failing to meet EU norms, therefore designated for animal feeding purposes. Tested on people."

According to the paper's investigative team: "Armies of health inspectors have taken to standing outside the farm, interviewing customers about what they plan to do with the cheese.

"One customer, a pensioner living in a one-bedroom flat whose only pet was a goldfish, denied eating it himself, saying it was for a neighbour's dog."

• Craig Winneker is the editor of TCS-International (www.TechCentralStation.be), a Brussels-based website.

International press review covering the gains of right-wing parties in the two German regional elections of Brandenburg and Saxony and EU external policy.