European press review

Europe's newspapers comment on governmental gridlock in Sweden, a tough party conference for the UK's Tony Blair, and preparations for the Nato summit in the Czech republic.

As the Swedish parliament opens two weeks after the election, the major Swedish newspapers all address the continued failure to form a new government.

The largest party, the Social Democrats, has failed to reach agreement with the Environment Party and the Party of the Left, who supported it in the previous parliament.

It would be a disaster for the country if the Social Democrats submitted

Svenska Dagbladet

The Environment Party has demanded three ministerial portfolios in a coalition government and a confidence vote in the nascent government could follow.

"Stop the green circus" is the headline of the leader column in Svenska Dagbladet, which is tiring of the environmentalists' "attempted blackmail".

"It would be a disaster for the country if the Social Democrats submitted", the paper says.

"There are no long-term conditions for sustainable policies for a coalition government which includes the Environment Party."

The Malmo-based daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet agrees, seeing "no credible alternative prime minister" to Goran Persson.

The fact that the Environment Party can "force its way to unreasonable power shows a constitutional weakness," it says.

Ignoring the voters

It would be best for our democracy if matters were brought to a head and resulted in a vote of no confidence

Expressen

The tabloid Expressen, on the other hand, says Prime Minister Persson should resign.

"He obviously cannot understand that he was never given the mandate for a purely Social Democrat government, which he sought before the election," it declares.

"It would be best for our democracy if matters were brought to a head and resulted in a vote of no confidence."

Another tabloid, Aftonbladet, hopes that with the opening of parliament the focus can now shift from image to policy details.

Listing a number of issues which need to be tackled, from Sweden's high levels of sick leave to a referendum on adopting the euro, the paper says it is "time to set aside political games and get on with the job."

Blair is charting a domestic and foreign policy course that can hardly be conveyed to the party anymore

Sueddeutsche Zeitung

Britain's Tony Blair could be another prime minister wishing for a return to business as usual in parliament.

He faces the annual Labour Party conference this week, and Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung thinks that it could be his toughest since taking over the party eight years ago.

"Blair is charting a domestic and foreign policy course that can hardly be conveyed to the party anymore," it notes.

The government's privatization plans and Mr Blair's policy on Iraq, the paper explains, are tearing at Labour's traditional roots.

Furthermore the party is in a sorry state: "It is deep in debt," the paper says, "suffering from a dwindling membership and in dispute with its paymasters, the unions."

A normal country?

Czech daily Mlada fronta Dnes mocks the country's defence minister's frantic efforts to make sure that security reigns during Nato's November summit in Prague.

The growing number of arms thefts from military installations has prompted Defence Minister Jaroslav Tvrdik to introduce special measures to stamp out this phenomenon.

Security standards were somewhat lower than is normal in a civilized country

Mlada fronta Dnes

"Why the drama?" the paper asks, "and why now?"

The daily speculates that the minister must have known about it for some time and could have sorted it out already, but concludes:

"Before the Nato summit the allies most likely found out that our security standards were somewhat lower than is normal in a civilized country."

Not everyone is as critical of post-communist progress in the Czech Republic, where the final Radio Free Europe broadcast in Czech was heard at the end of September.

A commentator in the daily Pravo calls the silence a big honour.

Pavel Verner says it is "a waste of money" to fund a radio station to defend democracy in the Czech Republic - and is flattered that the US Congress agrees.

He notes that audiences have fallen but applauds the radio for its "significant" contribution to the fall of the communist regime and warns that "this should not be forgotten".

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