European press review

Eight European leaders write about the "transatlantic relationship".

France's leading daily believes the prospect of the UK joining the euro is receding.

A German daily welcomes the failure of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's attempt to have his trial moved away from Milan.

And the Austrian president is growing tired of waiting for a new government while the Czech president closes a circle.

State of mind

Under the headline "Europe and America must stand united," the London Times carries a declaration signed by eight European leaders - the prime ministers of Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Hungary and Poland, and by the Czech Republic's outgoing-President Vaclav Havel.

"We in Europe have a relationship with the United States which has stood the test of time," the declaration says. Through this bond, it adds, "we have managed to guarantee peace and freedom on our continent".

"The transatlantic relationship," the eight leaders stress, "must not become a casualty of the current Iraqi regime's persistent attempts to threaten world security."

We in Europe have a relationship with the United States which has stood the test of time

Eight European leaders in The Times

"We are confident that the (United Nations) Security Council will face up to its responsibilities."

The euro or the war?

France's Le Monde believes London has realised it can have war or it can have the euro, but not both at the same time.

The paper notes that the UK minister, Gordon Brown, is supposed to announce by 7 June the result of the five "tests" he set in 1997 to decide if and when conditions were favourable for Prime Minister Tony Blair to call a referendum on joining the euro.

However, the daily says, "most experts, observers and politicians expect" Mr Brown to "give either a negative verdict or a sufficiently ambiguous one" so as to delay what it calls "a politically very dangerous" referendum beyond 2004.

The "profession of faith" in the euro made by Mr Blair in his New Year address, the paper says, "was not enough to conceal" the fact that "the preparations for war in Iraq had replaced the euro at the top of his agenda".

Painting the country red

"Italian justice not yet on the leash," is the headline with which Germany's Die Tageszeitung welcomes the Italian Supreme Court's rejection of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's application to have his corruption trial transferred away from Milan.

The city's judges, Mr Berlusconi argues, have a left-wing bias against him.

The ruling, the paper says, is "a real setback for Berlusconi". The prime minister, it adds, "has been proclaiming for years to all and sundry how nice all judges and public prosecutors are - apart from the ones in Milan".

Mr Berlusconi, the daily notes, "has already levelled the 'communist' label, not just at the Milan judges, but at half the world".

Waiting for Godot?

Vienna's Die Presse is unimpressed by the warning from Austrian President Thomas Klestil to Prime Minister Wolfgang Schuessel to get on with the task of forming a new coalition government, as he was asked to do more than two months ago, after the 24 November elections.

The paper quotes Mr Klestil as saying that "the Austrian people - and the president himself - are awaiting with growing impatience".

"All right," it says, "so Schuessel has been slapped down."

Other than that, it adds, the president's intervention only served to show "that his actual authority in the formation of a government is somewhere near zero".

But Der Standard, also in Vienna, argues that the president could reassert his authority "with a bang", as the paper puts it, by sacking the government. "Then he would be in charge of events again," it points out.

Havel's full circle

Czech President Vaclav Havel has made his final foreign trip - visiting Slovakia to honour the countries' shared history.

Mlada Fronta Dnes recalls that 10 years ago, Slovakia shouted "Enough of Havel" when he arrived in Bratislava and was pelted with eggs.

Lidove Noviny reports that this time, however, he received the highest Slovak state honour.

When the presidential flag is brought down on Sunday night at Prague Castle, Vaclav Havel will become a pensioner without a pension

Hospodarske Noviny

It credits Mr Havel with the invitations extended to Slovakia to join Nato and the EU.

Slovakia was invited to join Nato "at Havel's triumphant Nato summit in Prague and even into the EU," it concludes.

Where is my pension?

As Mr Havel steps down on Sunday after 13 years in office, parliament is yet to pass a bill that would give him his pension.

The daily Hospodarske Noviny says that "when the presidential flag is brought down on Sunday night at Prague Castle, Vaclav Havel will become a pensioner without a pension."

The daily believes "the Communists (Kscm) ... do not want Havel to receive his pension."

"And for a president stepping down, that is a sort of honour," concludes the paper.

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