Safe Democracy Foundation - Safe Democracy

Predictions paint a dismal scene: in 20 years, Mexico may need to import all of its oil when only recently it appeared to be in the big leagues of hydrocarbon production. The oil company PEMEX not only needs a multimillion dollar injection to revive itself, but also the technology to explore and drill at depths in which only select multinational corporations are able to work at full capacity.

• Energy Reform in Mexico: the Great National Soap Opera
  por Diego Fonseca

Many Mexican citizens have resigned themselves to accept insecurity as something inevitable due to the inability (or the corruption) of the police and judges with regards to the control of drug trafficking and organized delinquency. The Calderón government only manages to tackle occasional skirmishes against the local mafia, affirms the author.

No one disputes Juan Carlos I’s role as facilitator of democracy during the Spanish transition. Regardless of the current crown-wearer’s behavior, the author believes it is necessary to open up a serious debate concerning the viability of the monarchy, and he directly points to the type of regime that we want in Spain.

In spite of sustained macroeconomic growth, which was close to 4 percent in 2007 but not duly reflected in the majority of the population’s pockets, Spain continues to suffer from important production, competition and exportation shortages, among other problems. Neither the Socialist Party nor the Popular Party’s programs addresses the economic transformations that Spain urgently needs.

• Why Spain’s future is at stake
  por Luis Méndez Asensio
• The electoral contest intensifies in Spain
  por Sagrario Moran

There are two unresolved matters in the Spanish democracy outside of the current situation that no government has managed to resolve since the Transition: the political aspirations of certain autonomous regions and the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Spanish State. The first challenge is Spain’s territorial configuration, which continues to be questioned by a minority of the population that is by no means insignificant, capable of influencing, by means of its political representation (PNV and CiU), the Government; the second, the need to proclaim constitutional laicism in order to avoid religious interference in governmental affairs.

Hugo Chávez must build bridges to the other bank: if the president suffers from arrogance, his adversaries lack the slightest bit of endurance, says the author. If the rise in internal confrontations and the excessive international pressure following the referendum persists, there will be a strong social split. Dialog and internal consensus are missing in the Venezuela of today, and barriers abound, he points out.

Luis Méndez Asensio considers that despite its relative youth, the European Union is beginning to show signs of exhaustion: attachment to sovereignty, slowing of the economy, the regression of the welfare state, and conflict between its members. In Méndez Asensio’s opinion, the only solution for a weakening union is the revitalization of its foundations, involving the citizenry of Europe in the progress and woes of the entire community.