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Zurich, October 29, 2008: After a shaky start, following controversy over further changes in the abortion laws, supported by pro-abortion groups but highly opposed by the Catholic church and other organisations, Jose Luis Zapatero was able to gradually improve his media image by trying to unite leaders of the opposition parties into finding solutions to steer the country through the present credit crisis; a bombing campaign by the separatist group ETA temporary halted his ratings recovery, despite Zapatero´s vows that Spain would never submit to criminals.

On the other hand, Sarkozy´s image deteriorated after strikes were called in protest of 6,000 job-cuts at Renault and there were increasing reports on France´s economy also entering a recession. "France holding the presidency of the European Union and therefore being involved in the rescue plan and banking reforms in Europe gave a push in the right direction to the French President´s press credibility," says Montserrat Vine, analyst of Media Tenor International.

"By contrast, Silvio Berlusconi suffered mainly because of Alitalia and the government heavy approach when handling immigration and minority issues," Vine notes. International criticism over the treatment of the Roma community in Italy throughout the summer, reaching its peak as disturbing photographs of two drowned children were left among beachgoers, the Italian government was able to temporarily readdress this topic thanks to a swift response to Mafia killings of six African immigrants and an Italian national, only to later approve a bill in the lower chamber of Parliament that proposes to place children of immigrants on special classes if they fail a compulsory test on citizenship, which was presented by the Northern League party as a way of helping integration but was widely perceived as xenophobic.

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