European press review

Today's press makes predictions about the European Commission's accession report for Romania and Bulgaria.

Elsewhere, the dirty tricks scandal continues in France, Germany's press comments on the education of immigrant children and a French paper criticises the EU over pollution.

Conditional EU accession?

Germany's Berliner Zeitung says Romania and Bulgaria are not ready to join the European Union but should be allowed to do so anyway.

The paper predicts that today's EU Commission report will contain "alarming data" about environmental problems, agriculture and organised crime.

But it feels the real question is whether problems, such as organised crime, can best be tackled if these countries remain outside the EU or if they are "tied into a European anti-crime network".

"The answer should be obvious," the paper says.

It adds, however, that it would be sensible to suspend the enlargement process after Romania and Bulgaria's accession and to find "intermediate" forms of association for other countries.

Analysts have predicted that the European Commission will today say "yes, but with conditions" to Romania and Bulgaria, says Romania's Azi.

If their predictions are correct, "the accession date will not be on the agenda of the European Council next month", Azi believes.

Confidence tricks

It is difficult to see how the right will be able to wipe out the disaster of the Clearstream affair Le Monde

The French Socialist Party is fulfilling its role as the opposition in presenting today its third motion of no confidence in Dominique de Villepin's centre-right government, writes France's Le Monde, this time over the Clearstream dirty tricks scandal.

"It is difficult to see how the right will be able to wipe out the disaster of the Clearstream affair," it says. But it questions the left's capacity to present a viable alternative.

With a "plethora" of Socialist candidates lining up to contest next year's presidential elections, "each potential candidate is keeping his good ideas to himself".

The risk, according to the paper, is that voters will either veer towards the far right, or that "public opinion will tire of these little games", and will "take refuge in abstention or anger".

Austria's Der Standard says the leader of a French centrist party is right to back the no-confidence motion.

The paper agrees with the Union for French Democracy's Francois Bayrou that the status quo has become untenable.

"The combination of a backlog of reforms and affairs is perfectly apt to drive large numbers of voters to the far right," it says, "and the longer the current absurd political constellation lasts, the greater their number will be."

France's Liberation comments on the government's indignation over leaks in the press from the pre-trial investigation into the Clearstream affair.

"The loud cries from those in power can be interpreted as attempts to deprive citizens of information to which they have a right," the paper states.

"There are many judges and lawyers who support the controlled violation of the pre-trial investigation secrecy," it continues.

"Secret justice," it concludes, "besides being well-nigh impossible, is dangerous justice."

German education policy

Germany's Die Welt warns the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development against political interference after a report published by the organisation pointed to shortcomings in the education of immigrant children.

According to the daily, the OECD report shows that Germany comes out worst among the 17 countries studied.

But a commentary in the paper questions the purpose of the study since its results are "anything but new".

"For some time suspicion has been aroused that increasingly the OECD wants to interfere politically in German educational policy," it says.

It is particularly unhappy about a call for Germany's selective tripartite system to be reformed since, according to the paper, there are many regions where it works well.

Germany's Die Tageszeitung urges the government to do more to help immigrant children rather than trying to push up the birth rate.

Lessons in pollution

"European countries are nearly all excellent ecology pupils!" says France's Liberation rather sarcastically after figures released yesterday showed most EU countries emitted less pollution in 2005 than their government-set quotas allowed them.

The paper condemns the "European shambles" of fixing the quotas at a high level which it says "could turn out to be counter-productive, because it gives ammunition to those who mock the Kyoto accords for being unworkable".

"By their lack of seriousness in managing the quotas, the Europeans have shot themselves in the foot," it says.

"This should be a reason to do twice as well next time," the daily advises.

EU "not family oriented"

"According to the Eurostat survey, traditional family life is not one of the basic values in the EU," Slovenia's Dnevnik says.

"Wedding vows are soon broken," Dnevnik adds, noting that "50% of marriages end in divorce".

The daily finds it "worrying" that "one third of children are born outside marriage".

Slovenia has the lowest marriage rate among the EU countries.

The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.