Summary: The EPO does the usual right-wing thing (exploiting disaster/emergency for domestic crackdowns), but some bemoan the omission of the explosion at Ansbach (also in Germany)

IT was so obvious that the EPO would mention the attack on Monday. We predicted this over the weekend, having seen Battistelli (personally) milking just about every major incident outside of Germany (especially in France and in one case Belgium, then the US).

"Let us now wait and see whether Mr. Battistelli will express heartfelt sympathy to" Munich, one person wrote, alluding specifically "to the people of the host nation of the EPO headquarters."

"How very Republican of him."The "news" item (yes, they filed this under news) came a bit later than usual and it came from the EPO this time, for a change (it did not mention Battistelli, perhaps for the first time ever). It said (warning: epo.org links can be tracked by HTTP_REFERER) not so much and later on this was mentioned in Twitter.

One person says that "Battistelli has belatedly expressed his solidarity with the citizens of Munich."

"But what about the people of Ansbach? Are they second-class citizens? Does he not care about them?"

Another person writes: "It is well known, several people, perhaps more, have been summoned to the president and told, "You are either for me, or you are against me." It cannot be accepted, that a civil service career should serve a personality cult, and that threats to career and eventually pensions used as the weapons to enforce that cult. The crash when it comes will be big, unfortunately for those of us who are still trying to apply the EPC, which is in fact our only master."

Battistelli, as we noted before, is trying to unify the staff around a common cause which is war on terror ("You're either with us, or against us"). How very Republican of him. Watch what happens in Turkey this month. ⬆