European Press Review

The Spanish press considers options for the fate of Gibraltar, while German papers look ahead to protests planned for visiting US President George W Bush and mull over the continuing row with the Czech Government over post-World War Two expellees. In Russia, President Bush's visit to Moscow is the main topic of discussion.

Rock and a hard place

Spain's El Pais feels that both Spain and the United Kingdom will have to concede something if a "reasonable solution" is to be found on the issue of Gibraltar and that the problem deserves the attention of the European Union.

"The solution to the dispute over Gibraltar is starting to drift away, although without the feeling of there being a crisis...

"The British and Spanish demands clash," the paper says - both governments have laid down positions that cannot be crossed.

"The central question is how to reconcile the British commitment to consult with the Gibraltarians with the Spanish commitment not to renounce the recovery of its territorial integrity for ever."

El Pais says that any agreement on shared sovereignty will have repercussions for the Moroccans' claims on the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and the autonomous governments in the Spanish regions.

Protests target German leaders

Berlin's Die Tageszeitung writes that Germans will not be protesting against George W Bush on Tuesday, ahead of his visit on Wednesday, but rather against the inability of the country's politicians to deal with sensitive issues, such as the legitimacy of Germany's involvement in foreign war zones.

The real target of today's demonstrations is not Mr Bush

Die Tageszeitung

"The real target of today's demonstrations is not Mr Bush" says the paper "but Berlin's Messrs [German Chancellor Gerhard] Schroeder and [Foreign Minister Joschka] Fischer, and all those MPs who have hitherto lent their unreserved support to military involvement."

The paper says that Germans are increasingly doubtful about the adopted course after 11 September, and thanks the US president for making politicians confront these doubts.

Derisory remarks

The already delicate relations between the Czech Republic and Germany have reached a new low, says Berlin's Die Welt, after outgoing Prime Minister Milos Zeman and his deputy's derisive remarks regarding the Sudeten Germans, who were expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War Two.

"That cynicism should replace addressing the expulsion of the Sudeten," the paper writes, "is the last thing fragile Czech-German relations needed".

Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla's derisory remarks during a speech held in the former Theresienstadt concentration camp have shown that the impending Czech elections are not going to improve the situation, the paper concludes.

Mr Zeman "exceeded the limits of taste" by criticising Czech Archbishop Jan Graubner for having celebrated a mass for Sudeten Germans, Martin Komarek writes in the daily Mlada Front Dnes.

"If we analyse his statement, we must be astonished by the narrow-mindedness it contains... Is it possible 60 years after the war to spit on somebody who comes to the former enemies with a message of peace and forgiveness?" Mr Komarek writes.

Boundless hostility

The leading Russian daily Izvestiya publishes the results of two opinion polls on attitudes to the visit of President Bush this Thursday and, according to the paper, "the results are extremely unpleasant news for both the Russian authorities and for the American visitors".

Two-thirds of Russians still regard the USA as the principal enemy.

Izvestiya

According to the finding of the Public Opinion Foundation, over half of all Russians feel that America is behaving in an unfriendly way towards Russia, while almost two-thirds still regard the US as Russia's "principal enemy".

George Bush, personally, does not do well. The poll says 57% of Russians with higher education regard him as "aggressive, primitive, duplicitous and arrogant".

That being the case, it is hardly surprising that 66% of those sampled in an All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion reckoned Mr Bush would adopt "an extremely aggressive position in upholding US interests" and President Vladimir Putin "would not succeed in outplaying him".

Get me Pootie-Poot!

Commenting on a report in Time magazine, the mass-circulation Komsomolskaya Pravda reveals to Russian readers that Mr Bush has a nickname for his Russian colleague - "Pootie-Poot" - which he uses in conversations with his assistants.

"The nickname is obviously an affectionate one, modelled on the favourite hero of American cartoons, Scooby-Doo." Apparently "Pootie-Poot" is not the first nickname Bush has invented for the Russian president.

Mr Putin was extremely taken aback a year ago when, during a telephone conversation, Bush addressed him as "Ostrich Leg" - possibly a reference to the Russian president's diminutive stature. In the interests of symmetry, the paper invites readers to devise nicknames for George Bush and to send in their suggestions by e-mail. "Only don't forget that the US president is our guest!"

Under the heading "Notes for the White House", Kommersant Weekly reveals that George Bush has been preparing for his trip to Moscow by reading Dostoyevsky. Komsomolskaya Pravda identifies the work in question as "Crime and Punishment", which was recommended to him by his national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, an expert on all things Russian. Mr Bush now takes the book to bed with him each night.

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