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BRUSSELS — The European Parliament passed a resolution on Thursday demanding that the free-trade pact now under discussion with the United States exempt “audiovisual” industries so that countries like France could shelter their movie businesses from foreign competition. The resolution, which also called for similar protections to be granted for online media, underlined the sensitivity in parts of Europe to the encroachment of American culture. It also represented a reality check for trade talks that in their early stages had generated enormous optimism but could still bog down in trans-Atlantic acrimony. “This vote shows the honeymoon phase is over,” said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch member of the European Parliament for the free-market D66 party. She was referring to the excitement that many trade advocates had felt since February, when President Barack Obama endorsed U.S. efforts to reach a trade deal with the European Union that would create a partnership between the biggest markets in the world. While the resolution is not binding on the Union’s governments, which still must agree on a mandate for the European Commission to begin negotiating with Washington, the vote was a signal that the Parliament was prepared to use newly acquired powers to block any [...]

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The economic turmoil of the past several years has pushed Europe toward greater integration, starting with financial stabilization and a banking union that is still a work in progress. Everyone now recognizes that a single currency zone without a common fiscal policy invites the kind of crisis we have all been experiencing. Europe has reached this stage grudgingly and with great strain, through agreements among national government leaders in which many see the largest and most powerful states as undemocratically foisting their policies on the rest. Especially in Italy, Greece and Spain, where the social costs of adjustment have been high, a backlash against the very idea of Europe is under way. We are now seeing the worrying rise of political parties and movements whose supporters seem to think nationalist assertion will free them from the common imperatives of governing Europe, or who believe protectionism will enable them to escape addressing Europe’s lack of competitiveness. What is manifestly clear is that European citizens will not follow the path of reform and further integration unless they have a voice in shaping its course — and unless there is a common, emergency jobs program that shows that Europe works. There are several [...]

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“Klimt showed there in 1905,” he said. “That is mind-blowing to me. Since then there has been Morandi and Picasso, Rauschenberg, Johns and so on. Maybe I’m romanticizing, but the past is still very present.” On a rainy afternoon in April Mr. Gioni was having lunch at his regular haunt, a tiny Italian restaurant in Lower Manhattan near the New Museum, where he is associate director and director of exhibitions. His BlackBerry was buzzing with e-mails and his phone kept ringing. Yet Mr. Gioni, 39, ignored it all, speaking earnestly with his usual intellectual intensity jolted with unexpected moments of deadpan humor. He was explaining what it’s like to be the youngest artistic director in 110 years to organize the first, oldest and most venerable international art event in a calendar packed with an unrivaled number of them. “Of course I’m nervous,” he said. “This is center stage and it’s difficult because it comes with so many expectations and so much history.” As he braces for the art world to descend on Venice for three preview days beginning on Wednesday, followed by the public opening on Saturday, Mr. Gioni estimated that nearly 500,000 people would come to see the Biennale [...]

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But not any more. These days, Italy’s affluent are more likely to be selling their second home on the lakes than buying one. “There are homes which have been in families for years and years, coming on to the market,” said Gemma Bruce of Casa & Country, a property search agency based in London and the Italian town of San Gimignano. The economic slowdown, higher property taxes and significant maintenance costs have meant that having a second home in a fashionable Lake Como town like Bellagio, Laglio or Argegno is not as desirable as it once was. “We are seeing a willingness from some owners to entertain the idea of selling, and one or two Italians are a little nervous about the tax man,” said Rupert Fawcett, head of the Italian division of the real estate company Knight Frank in London. He added that the wish to sell was also generational, with children not wanting to pay for the upkeep of their families’ large old homes. Italy’s land registry is not open to the public, so there are no official sales records. But five years ago, about 5 percent of the large period homes at Lake Como were for sale, [...]

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In April, Germany‘s central bank, the Bundesbank, was optimistic. Springtime would bring a rapid recovery from the winter blues and an increase in investment, it said. “Business activity expectations for the German economy have recovered quickly and strikingly in the last three months,” the Bundesbank wrote in its report. The bank’s optimism, however, may have been a touch premature. German exporters are becoming more pessimistic as the spring progresses. On Thursday, the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK) released the results of a survey showing that companies dependent on exports are much less optimistic than a short time ago. While 30 percent still expect overseas turnover to rise, one in eight believe it will fall. “Exports are likely to develop less dynamically in the coming months,” the DIHK writes in the report, which is based on survey of 25,000 companies. The new report comes at a time when many are forecasting an extended period of stagnation for the euro-zone economy. Last week, the European Union statistics office released growth numbers for the first quarter of this year indicating that nine of 17 member-states of the common currency zone are now in recession, with the zone as [...]

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For a time in 2012, it seemed that hardly a day would go by without another protest in Southern Europe with signs depicting Chancellor Angela Merkel as a Nazi. Germany, according to the euro-crisis narrative then and now, is the evil virus causing the pain and suffering in austerity-strapped countries such as Spain, Greece and, more recently, Cyprus. But those signs, as it turns out, are not an adequate reflection of how most people in the world view Germany. According to this year’s version of the annual BBC global popularity contest, more people have a positive view of Germany than any other country. Some 59 percent of respondents in 22 countries surveyed believe that Germany has a “mainly positive” influence on the world, up three percentage points from last year. Only 15 percent believe that Europe‘s largest country has a “mainly negative” influence. The results come as a surprise following a series of stories in recent months about the anti-German sentiment brewing in Europe as a result of the euro crisis. Indeed, with images of Merkel in swastika-bedecked SS uniforms becoming common almost to the point of cliché at anti-austerity protests, no less an authority than former Euro Group [...]

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The case concerns a 43-year-old husband and father who traveled to Rome from Mexico to attend Francis’ Mass on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square. At the end of the Mass, Francis blessed several wheelchair-bound faithful as he always does, including a man described by the priest who brought him as being possessed by the devil. Francis laid his hands on the man’s head and recited a prayer. The man heaved deeply a half-dozen times, shook, then slumped in his wheelchair. The images, broadcast worldwide, prompted the television station of the Italian bishops’ conference to declare that according to several exorcists, there was “no doubt” that Francis either performed an exorcism or a simpler prayer to free the man from the devil. The Vatican was more cautious. In a statement Tuesday, it said Francis “didn’t intend to perform any exorcism. But as he often does for the sick or suffering, he simply intended to pray for someone who was suffering who was presented to him.” The Rev. Gabriele Amorth, a leading exorcist for the diocese of Rome, said he performed a lengthy exorcism of his own on the man Tuesday morning and ascertained that he was possessed by four separate demons. [...]

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Jerry Garrett Juan Tonconogy and his co-driver, Guillermo Berisso, streaked toward a Mille Miglia victory Saturday in a 1927 Bugatti T40. BRESCIA, Italy — A sky-blue 1927 Bugatti T40, driven by Juan Tonconogy of Argentina, on Saturday won the 2013 edition of the Mille Miglia Storica. Mr. Tonconogy, and his co-driver, Guillermo Berisso, arrived at the finish line shortly after 10 p.m. in the re-enactment of the famed Italian road rally. They had left the start line here at 7 p.m. on Thursday, embarking along with 415 competitors on a 1,000-mile odyssey to Rome and back, through 196 cities on the Italian peninsula. The cars, all selected from among vehicles that either did race or could have raced in the 24 editions of the Mille Miglia held from 1927 to 1957, had to perform dozens of time, speed and distance trials along the way. Mr. Tonconogy tallied 35,417 points, 576 more than the runners-up, Giordano Mozzi and Mark Gessler, in a 1933 Alfa Romeo 6C 1500 Gran Sport. That same Alfa had won the rally a year earlier, in the hands of a different team of Argentine drivers. A 1933 Aston Martin Le Mans, driven by Giovanni Moceri and Tiberio [...]

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Appearances are deceiving on Klafthmonos Square in downtown Athens. Three imposing bronze statues, the “Monument to National Reconciliation,” shimmer in the bright spring sunshine. But demonstrators at the base of the monument bring to mind the original purpose of the square, the name of which translates into “Lamentation Square.” Until 1911, when the Greek constitution guaranteed all civil servants jobs for life, government bureaucrats who had been let go after a change in government used to come to the square to publicly express their outrage. In the current crisis, no one has a job for life anymore, not even in the public sector. The government plans to slash at least 4,000 jobs by the end of the year and an additional 11,000 next year. Without this assurance, the so-called “troika” — comprising the EU, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank — would have refused to disburse the next tranche of aid money to Greece in the amount of €7.5 billion ($9.6 billion) by June. Government agencies are expected to slash some 150,000 jobs by 2015, representing roughly one-fifth of Greece‘s enormous public sector. Kostas Tsikrikas, the head of the powerful union representing civil servants, is already [...]

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On Wednesday, Germany signaled an about-face in its policy toward the group, with a statement saying Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle supported listing “at least the military wing” of the organization as a terrorist group. The announcement came just a day after Britain’s Foreign Office said it would pursue doing the same, promising to “work closely with our European partners on this issue to reach a robust, collective E.U. position.” France had been undecided, but on Wednesday night Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said it would join Britain and Germany in seeking to have the “military wing” of Hezbollah put on the European Union terrorist list, according to Agence France-Presse. Mr. Fabius was speaking in Amman, Jordan, after a meeting of the Friends of the Syrian People, a group designed to aid the rebellion against Mr. Assad. If approved, such a move could choke off sources of funds from Hezbollah’s members and sympathizers throughout Europe, at a time when the group’s image as a liberation movement has already suffered because Hezbollah fighters are battling in Syria on behalf of the government there. The United States and Israel have long urged their European allies to list the organization either in whole or in [...]

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