European press review

Today's European papers feature a rail crash in Belgium, nuclear waste protests in Germany and EU policy in Macedonia. They also find time to discuss the Middle East peace process and the future European rapid reaction force.

Belgian rail horror blamed on lack of cash

The Belgian press is dominated by photographs of the aftermath of the head-on collision of two passenger trains in southern Belgium on Tuesday, in which at least eight people died and dozens more were injured.

The front page of La Libre Belgique shows one train perched upon the other, with the headline: "Was it the mistake of just one man?".

An editorial in the same paper, however, points to what it calls "the poor state in which the railways have been kept for years".

"The rail network greatly needs us to invest in it: faith, first of all, but also a lot of money," the paper writes.

Germany's "national duty" to nuclear waste

Berlin's Die Welt says the German Government should take the concerns of protesters who have been trying to stop a consignment of nuclear waste from France more seriously.

The paper concedes that the shipment is necessary since the reprocessed nuclear fuel must be taken somewhere, and the law provides for it to be stored in Germany.

But it adds that the demonstrators are responding to a display of state power that the paper describes as "both legitimate and problematic".

"If the demonstrations are a sign of a failure of communication," the paper says, "then, rather than just sending in the police, the government must show its colours."

Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau takes a similar line.

It points out that the nuclear waste is of German origin and that therefore "taking the stuff back", as the paper puts it, "is a national duty".

But it adds that the protesters are entitled to reassurances about the material's long-term storage .

For France's leading daily Le Monde, the anti-nuclear demonstrations in Germany prove that "this trade cannot be regarded as an ordinary economic activity".

"Even if the management of nuclear waste in both countries is quite well regulated in the short term," the paper says in an editorial, "it remains fundamentally dangerous, and demands the strictest precautions."

The fact that ordinary citizens are reminding the authorities of this "cannot be such a bad sign," the paper adds.

Schroeder leads EU army into Washington battle

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says that when he visits President Bush later this week, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will seek to dispel "the widespread suspicion in the United States" that the European Union's planned rapid reaction force will be in direct competition with Nato.

The two leaders' first ever meeting is also "likely to show up differences over environmental policies", the paper notes, particularly after Mr Bush's reversal of his campaign pledge to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

Despite this discord, "close transatlantic co-operation" is indispensable, the paper quotes a German Government spokesman as saying. "The wars in the former Yugoslavia have shown that a joint US-European approach is necessary." As for differences of opinion, they must be addressed as "a necessary condition for maintaining credibility among allies".

EU spot on in Macedonia

The French Le Nouvel Observateur describes Europe's response to the crisis in Macedonia as "exactly right".

Europe's role in the Balkans should be "to stop aggression or separate warring sides", the paper says in an editorial, "not to impose political solutions that must come from the local governments or the people themselves."

And such governments and peoples must put their houses in order before nurturing any wider European hopes: Bringing the "ferment of violence and ethnic hatred" into the European Union is "out of the question", the paper says. "The peoples of former Yugoslavia must start talking amongst themselves before they come to talk to the Europeans."

ETA cop back on the beat

The Spanish daily El Mundo carries a front-page report saying a local policeman convicted of being an ETA informant will be back on the beat starting next week.

It says San Sebastian council had no choice but to reinstate Patxi Anorga, who has just finished serving six years for helping the Basque separatist group plan a car bomb attack.

The paper recalls that ETA shot dead Gregorio Ordonez, a regional leader of Spain's governing Popular Party, shortly after he reported that the organization had infiltrated the local police.

"The paradox could not be bloodier", it comments. "Gregorio Ordonez is lying in a grave and Anorga's getting his uniform and gun back". "Will he have any pangs of conscience?", it wonders.

Arafat's "Stone age tactics"

Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung says Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is showing little interest in a peaceful resolution of the Middle East conflict.

The paper explains that he intends to capitalize on an escalation of the conflict by gaining the sympathy of Arab leaders at the Arab League summit.

It says that he is clinging to what the paper calls "stone age tactics" as his people throws stones and fires guns.

But it warns that Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is doing little to undermine the Palestinian leader's strategy.

"Sharon," the paper says, "who in reality is Arafat's most reliable partner, will do him the favour and react severely to Palestinian violence."

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