European press review

Two of the topics featured in today's papers suggest a hypothetical cartoon with President Chirac of France and British Prime Minister Tony Blair shouting at each other across the English Channel: "You think you've got problems?"

There is plenty of speculation and advice on what will pass at the first ever meeting between Chancellor Schroeder of Germany and President George W. Bush.

And Hungarian patriots, in line with the other Marx (Groucho), wonder if they really want to belong to a club that would accept them.

Mr Blair, in a quandary, runs a temperature

Under the heading of "Mr Blair feeling feverish", France's leading daily Le Monde depicts a Britain in the throes of an animal Armageddon of mass graves, funeral pyres, underground bunkers and "a tourist season in ruins".

The epidemic is Tony Blair's "first truly big crisis" since becoming prime minister, the paper believes.

"Four years after his arrival in Downing Street, the father of New Labour had been planning to call early elections, fairly certain of winning them hands down."

However, with 800,000 animals already culled or earmarked for slaughter, the epidemic - which the paper says is more in keeping with the Middle Ages than with "Cool Britannia" - could jeopardize everything.

"The government seems overwhelmed by this rural crisis, which is damaging the image of modernity that New Labour wants to embody," the paper adds.

Following the European Union's go-ahead to Britain's request to be allowed the option of vaccinating livestock in the worst-hit areas, Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung says London was too slow to consider vaccination as a weapon in the fight against the disease.

Vaccination on purely preventive grounds is costly and bad for exports, the paper says, but it can be useful to combat an outbreak.

"In Britain it should have started a long time ago," it stresses.

The paper points out that only two years ago EU experts recommended emergency vaccinations when an epidemic gets out of control.

"Who would be a lamb in times like these," exclaims a slightly tongue-in-cheek but also thought-provoking commentary in the French Le Figaro, "when the precautionary principle means slaughtering the whole flock, apparently to save them from disease!"

Tony Blair's change of mind on vaccination "was not prompted by the subliminal voice of St Francis of Assisi... murmuring 'vaccinate them!' in his ear", the paper suspects. "Rather it was inspired by a prophetic vision from the bottom of his purse."

The Slovak daily Hospodarske Noviny suspects Mr Blair may be having second thoughts about going to the country.

Despite what the paper calls "a comfortable lead" in the opinion polls, there are fears of hindsight accusations that the elections "worsened the misery of those ruined by the epidemic".

On the other hand the prime minister must also consider the possibility of the political climate turning against him in the coming months, the paper points out.

But some are more equal than others...

French front pages are dominated by President Jacques Chirac's clash with both the French judiciary and the left-wing government on Wednesday after he flatly rejected a judge's summons to testify in an investigation into a financial scandal dating back to his time as mayor of Paris.

"Chirac pits the constitution against the judge," says the conservative daily Le Figaro in a banner headline, while the left-leaning Liberation's front page is largely taken up by the president's profile and the caption: "Contempt for the law". The paper goes on: "Entrenched behind the constitution, [Chirac] is conducting a political defence which is legally questionable."

Meanwhile, France-Soir points out that most French people fail to understand why the president should be "untouchable", given that "a certain 14th July made all citizens equal before the law".

"This logical but audacious summons," says the Swiss Le Temps, "takes on the significance of an earthquake or a crime of lese-majeste, depending on where you stand."

But one thing is "blindingly obvious", it adds. "This is the president's near-impunity, as of an untouchable monarch."

However the paper sees the president's "institutional armour" as a double-edged weapon because "it prevents him from truly explaining himself", and therefore "reinforces suspicions".

A frank exchange of views...

Berlin's Die Welt says German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder should refrain from criticizing the United States's antimissile defence project when he meets President Bush in Washington on Thursday.

The paper believes Mr Schroeder has been right to avoid any hint of fundamental opposition to the project ahead of his visit.

It argues that the American government is already aware that the Germans do not like the prospect of an arms race or a conflict with Russia.

"But refraining from getting all hot under the collar before the feasibility has even been remotely established of a star wars system," the paper adds, "will be noted as good behaviour among friends."

But the Frankfurter Rundschau disagrees.

The paper argues that there is a growing clash of interests between Europe and the USA over issues such as the national missile defence project and the implementation of the Kyoto protocol on the environment.

It points out that if the European Union wishes to look after its own security, it should develop what the paper calls "a transatlantic culture of open debate".

"It would be a beginning," it says, "if Schroeder were to tell his American friend... clearly, directly and publicly that many people in Europe have different ideas about potential military threats and missile defence."

"A little more than a decade ago," The Paris-based International Herald Tribune recalls, "George W. Bush's father played a decisive role in the unification of Germany."

"On Thursday, the president will come face to face with the results of that act as he meets a buoyant German chancellor carrying firm, sometimes confrontational, messages from Europe."

Making a molehill out of a summit

An editorial in London's The Times describes the Arab summit which ended in Amman on Wednesday as "extremely dispiriting" and "a chorus of hate".

"Since Iraq last destroyed the myth of Arab unity in 1990 by invading its neighbour, Kuwait, the Arab League has been a broken reed," the paper says. The summit in Amman "was intended to revive the League as a political force", but it has "served instead as a showcase for all the Middle East's most retrograde and self-destructive instincts".

The only issue on which the Arab countries "remain capable of uniting", the paper believes, is "in the vilification of Israel".

"An unreal summit", is how Madrid's El Pais describes it.

"The Arab League left things as they were, precisely because they were frankly bad and no ammount of summitry could mend them," it says.

Putin's reshuffle

Vienna's Der Standard is sceptical about Russian claims that public life has become less militaristic after President Vladimir Putin's government reshuffle.

The paper points out that the same Russian president also reintroduced military education in schools.

It adds that, just like Vladimir Putin, the new defence minister is part of a secret service group that believes a strong Russia depends above all on strong leadership.

"Demilitarization only comes into all this," it concludes, "if you equate militarism with uniforms."

With patriots like those...

What with nationalist graffiti appearing of late in Hungary and Slovakia, and Budapest's unhappiness at France's recent decision to grant political asylum to a group of Hungarian Romanies, the issues of nationalism and patriotism are very much to the fore in Hungarian politics and, consequently, in the press.

A commentary in Nepszava recalls the recent argument in Germany over the right to declare oneself proud to be German.

"It is an old - and not exclusively German - experience that those who are the loudest about it, harm their nation the most," the paper says.

"Six decades ago, this brand of politician dragged Hungary into a war which could only be lost, and tarnished the nation's reputation with anti-Jewish laws and by assisting the machinery of the Holocaust," it adds.

"They and only they can discourage us when we wish say that we are proud of being Hungarians," the paper concludes.

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