UPI - Bombs unleashed against the EU

[DemExpat]

Feature: Bombs unleashed against the EU
By Roland Flamini
Chief International Correspondent
Published 12/30/2003 3:22 PM
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The European Union has its opponents even among member countries, but their opposition is usually expressed in words. In the past seven days, however, anarchists in the Italian city of Bologna have been using more drastic tactics: letter bombs to EU officials and institutions.

On Tuesday, Eurojust, the office of the public prosecutor of the European Court of Justice in The Hague confirmed that it had received a letter bomb mailed in the northern Italian city. Dutch bomb disposal experts were called in to disarm the device, and no one was hurt, a Dutch source reported.

This followed the discovery of two letter bombs Monday, one addressed to Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, and the other sent to the director of Europol in The Hague. Postal workers found the Frankfurt letter, which was then disabled by bomb specialists.

Italian sources said Bologna police were informed the letter had as return address a fictitious publishing house, but an existing street in the city.

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http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031230-023937-4767r

[kainah]

1. can anyone shed light on the implications of this?

The book sent in the packet bomb was Gabriele d'Annunzio's erotic novel "The Child of Pleasure." D'Annunzio, an admirer and supporter of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, is a literary hero of the Italian extreme right. This has led some conspiracy-conscious Italians to speculate that the real aim of the bombers was to send a message to Prodi not to return to Italian politics when his Brussels term runs out in October 2004.

Is the Informal Anarchic Federation something people have heard about? Are they Berlusconi supporters?

I'd sure appreciate any education Europeans can give on these events. It's certainly not reassuring to think that bombs are flying around Europe, too.

[xchrom]

2. i'm not european

but some europeans feel that the eu represents some of what we fear here -- the corporatizing of everything.
the squeeze is on the middle class there to some extent like it is here.
there are some differences in that the eu supporters see their vision of the future as a counter-weight to the growing hegemony of corporate america.
however that does little to allay the fears of peole who see their cultures{i.e. jobs, language, and a host of other things} being flattened out resemble one big monotonous landscape.