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Exactly 100 years after its launch, International Women's Day offers an occasion for reflection on the role of feminism and the campaign for the liberation of women, whose evolving objectives no longer command the consensus they enjoyed in previous decades. The European press reports: "Exactly one century ago, women from 17 countries meeting in Copenhagen decided to establish a day for the celebration of women everywhere in the world," which became International Women's Day (IWD)  explains Evenimentul Zilei .

In the run-up to the Slovak general elections on 12 June, the campaign has degenerated into a nationalist overkill contest. The latest brainwave: have the national anthem played at schools and town halls, on radio and television. On 2 March, Slovakia claimed the dubious distinction of being the only European country to decree that henceforth – starting 1 April – the national anthem is to resound in the nation’s schools every Monday before classes begin. And before every municipal meeting in every town and village. To top it all off, public radio and television are to play the tune on their programmes.

Their planes could have crossed paths over Europe. On 1 March the newly-elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych arrived in Brussels for his first official trip abroad. That very evening his Russian opposite number, Dmitry Medvedev, touched down in Paris for a three-day visit with great pomp and ceremony. This chassé-croisé is the very picture of Europe’s internal contradictions.

On 6 March, the citizens of Iceland vote in a referendum on the reimbursement of their country's national debt. The collapse of the banking system and sharply declining standards of living have prompted many to turn their backs on Europe and seek economic salvation in traditional industries. You won't find many signs of severe economic distress on the streets of Reykjavik. The Icelandic homeless never sleep outdoors, not in summer or in winter. There are accommodation centres for men, for women, and also for couples.

The Ruhr region has seen the rise and fall of the coal industry in the space of 170 years. Now, during its stint as 2010 European Capital of Culture, it aims to complete its modernisation process. But its cities are running out of funds, reports Der Spiegel. When Joachim Seifert tells his life story, he begins “in the year 1864”, and proceeds by a series of short and snappy sentences. "Helmet’s warmer than cap,” he says, so he still wears a miner’s white helmet with his anorak: that model stood him in good stead for 30 years down in the pit.

Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party has made a major breakthrough in the 3 March local elections. The polls provided what may be a foretaste of the upcoming general elections on 9 June, in which the Muslim-baiting demagogue aims to cash in on his current momentum. It remains to be seen how the Dutch consensus-based system will absorb the shock. The latest municipal elections have ushered in a political sea change for Almere and The Hague, the only two cities in which Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) ran for a seat in local government. This was the very first time the PVV has ever ventured into the local fray, and the far-right party emerged overnight as a new player that cannot be ignored or wished away any more: it came in first in Almere, and second in The Hague.

Brandishing the spectre of "the threat of Islam," populist leader Geert Wilders obtained a breakthrough in the 3 March local elections, which will constitute a major step forward in his campaign to become prime minister. For Czech daily Mladá Fronta Dnes, Muslims are not a real threat to multicultural Dutch society: the main danger is the manner in which the majority of the population intends to live with them. If Geert Wilders succeeds in obtaining the post of prime minister in the June general elections, for the first time ever an EU state will be governed by a man who believes in the existence of Eurabia — a mythological future continent that will replace modern Europe, where children from Norway to Naples will learn to recite the Koran at school, while their mothers stay at home wearing burqas.

Six years after becoming the first European country to impose a smoking ban in restaurants and pubs, Ireland is now at the centre of a continent wide illegal tobacco trade. The Irish Times looks at the role of former IRA members and drug gangs in this lucrative industry. When gardai and Customs officers staged a major raid on suspected cigarette smugglers last November they found something there weren’t expecting. Instead of the usual large boxes of cigarettes – either fake imports or legitimately produced smokes on which import duties had not been paid – the authorities found evidence of a very sophisticated operation. A search of a truck parked in a yard in smuggling country near Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, yielded enough tobacco, cigarette paper, filters and packaging for 12 million cigarettes.

The German Constitutional Court has ordered the immediate deletion of all private telecommunications data stockpiled since 2008 in the fight against terrorism. But whilst civil rights activists are whooping it up, the Süddeutsche Zeitung regrets that the judges missed a golden opportunity to quash the contentious EU counter-terrorism directive. The ruling scraps Germany’s current data retention rules and orders that all information gathered on the basis of existing legislation be thrown away.

How much control should we have over personal information on the web? A generation gap exists over attitudes towards privacy, remarks British columnist David Aaronovitch. Not so long ago I found myself in characteristically pugnacious discussion with a senior human rights figure. The issue was privacy. Her view was that there was an innate and largely unchanging human need for privacy. My view was that privacy was a culturally determined concept. Think of those open multiseated Roman latrines in Pompeii, and imagine having one installed at work.