French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he will decide by late 2008 or early 2009 whether France will fully rejoin the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is one of the more important issues left unresolved at the recently concluded Bucharest Summit, where Sarkozy proclaimed: “I reaffirm here France’s determination to pursue the process of renovating its relations with NATO.”

Spanish conservatives are now in open warfare against each other as two opposing factions seek to gain control over the ideological future of the center-right Partido Popular, the main opposition party in Spain. The internal battle has been brewing for a number of years, but has become a very public affair ever since Mariano Rajoy, the party’s leader, lost the general election on March 9.

With the current state of Spanish alliances, there will undoubtedly be trouble ahead for transatlantic relations, regardless of who occupies the White House next January.

More than 13 million Spanish wage-earners and pensioners will begin receiving 400-euro (about $600) income tax rebates in June. The money should arrive just in time to help them pay the credit card bills for the mini-holidays they traditionally take during Holy Week (which the Spanish secular elite now call “Spring Vacation”).

Spanish voters on March 9 narrowly re-elected Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to another four-year term in office. But he defeated his rival, Mariano Rajoy, the head of the center-right Popular Party, by only a narrow margin and fell far short of gaining an absolute majority in the lower house of parliament.

Voters in Spain will elect a new government on March 9. The highly competitive race pits the leader of the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP), Mariano Rajoy, against the incumbent Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

In 1991, as the Balkans were disintegrating, the then-Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, Jacques Poos, proclaimed: “This is the hour of Europe. It is not the hour of the Americans.” It was (presumably) his way of saying that European governments had a responsibility to intervene in a crisis that threatened the stability of Europe.

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero recently boasted that the average Spaniard is now richer than the average Italian. Referring to new economic data published by Eurostat, the European statistics agency, Zapatero pro-claimed that: “Spain has overtaken Italy. I told Romano [Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi] it would.” Zapatero went on to say that Spain is now hot on the heels of France and Germany.

The outcome of the US presidential elections will undoubtedly have global affects. Therefore, many Europeans argue that they should have a say in the election process. European media is saturated with election coverage that is heavily biased in favor of the Democrats. And, as in past elections, European elites are demanding the right to help choose the next occupant of the White House. What follows is a brief survey of what some Europeans are saying about the American way of democracy.

How can America improve its image abroad? Answers to this question are being bandied by all of the presidential hopefuls. Hillary Clinton says she would “send a message heard across the world: The era of cowboy diplomacy is over.” John McCain promises to “immediately close Guantanamo Bay.” Ron Paul and Barack Obama both say they would withdraw American troops from Iraq.

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