EU summit occupies European press

EU summit occupies European press

Many European papers ponder the significance of the signing of the EU enlargement treaty in Athens.

Some note that the vexed issue of Iraq forced its way onto the agenda to complicate what many were hoping would be a celebratory occasion.

"Dream come true"

Hungary's Nepszabadsag hails the signing of the EU accession treaty as "a dream come true".

The newcomers entered not on tiptoe but with a confident stride

La Repubblica (Italy)

"After half a millennium, our country is at last in the mainstream of progress," the paper enthuses.

But it warns against the emergence of any "permanent axis or bloc" from the admission of the 10 new members.

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says the signing of the treaty marks the definitive end of Europe's east-west divide.

"This is an act whose significance for a policy of peace has rightly been praised and whose promise of shared welfare is worth every effort," the paper declares.

Although the prospect of 450m Europeans getting on well together is "truly rosy" by the standards of European history, it warns the Europe of the 25 "will be even more diverse, and partly marked by interests which are even more at odds than in yesterday's EU."

Forceful entry

Italy's La Repubblica notes that the newcomers "entered not on tiptoe, as the Spanish, the Scandinavians and even the British did in their time, but with a confident stride, without an inferiority complex".

Enlargement lost its lustre.

De Standaard (Belgium)

The daily is concerned that their speeches in Athens indicated they felt "entitled to demand compensation from history" after being "victims of a repressive regime" and experiencing the fall of Communism.

France's Le Figaro says that the show of unity at the summit was overshadowed by the issue of Iraq, which according to the paper "continues to test European cohesion".

Another French daily, Liberation feels the EU summit afforded President Chirac an opportunity to adopt a more pragmatic position on the role of the United Nations in postwar Iraq.

"He made considerable efforts to convince the other Europeans that France won't seek to mobilize the international organization to engage in a campaign against US hegemony," it says in an editorial.

'Lost lustre'

Belgium's De Standaard believes that enlargement has "lost its lustre" after the eastern European newcomers, by siding with Washington over Iraq, "bit the hand of old Europe - France and Germany - which had shown so much generosity in taking them in".

Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung echoes this theme, warning it will be increasingly difficult to provide an enlarged EU with a sense of direction after the current EU failed to back France and Germany in what the daily calls "their alliance against George Bush".

Enlargement poses a particular challenge for Spanish society.

El Pais (Spain)

Der Tagesspiegel agrees. "France and Germany might increasingly find that in the EU of the 25 they will be in the minority if they want to oppose Europe to America."

Switzerland's Tribune De Geneve believes that the reluctance of the Swiss to join the EU seems wise in a world which demands "a strategy of everybody for themselves with God and America".

"Switzerland continues to brandish its model of internal integration, but only to be better able to keep its distance from European integration."

The Spanish daily El Pais urges Spaniards to "overcome their worrying ignorance" about the new members.

"Enlargement poses a particular challenge for Spanish society, given the lack of knowledge about the new members. Overcoming this worrying ignorance, which also exists in the business world, should be a national priority."

However, the growth of the new EU out of two world wars and the cold war "should fill all Europeans with pride and inspire us to keep pushing forward."

El Mundo focuses on what it sees as "serious political problems, highlighted by the still unfinished Iraq war".

"You only have to hear the slights between Jacques Chirac and some of the leaders of the new members, former vassals of the Ussr, to see that the split is still very much in existence behind the official unity".

Lithuania's business daily Verslo Zinios hails this "historic and symbolic day of Lithuania's integration", while an editorial in Kauno Diena proclaims that "for more than five decades we were torn from the West and now we are coming back."

'Tainted'

However, Lithuania's largest newspaper, Lietuvos Rytas, attacks the country's president and prime minister for "tainting the people's joy by turning the signing of the EU accession treaty into an exercise in self-promotion".

The Czech Republic's Lidove Noviny welcomes the accession as "offering better prospects for future generations of Czechs, Moravians and Silesians" and another Czech daily, Mlada Fronta Dnes sees it as an "enormous step" for mankind, Europe and small European nations who have been wrestling with wars and other problems.

A great day, an historic event.

Trybuna (Poland)

In neighbouring Slovakia, Pravda takes a more cynical view. "What do we need EU for?", it queries. Today's EU "differs from the club to which Slovakia submitted its application".

But the Slovak financial daily Hospodarske Noviny is more positive, advocating the country's "active approach" to membership to "bring success".

In Slovenia, the daily Dnevnik feels the EU will become "something new", "something unimaginable" with the enlargement.

Although it largely agrees, Slovenia's Delo cautions that the difference in the level of economic development between old and new members could be problematic.

For Poland's Trybuna, it was "A great day, an historic event". "Europe has written another important page at the footh of the Acropolis. We were there, we crossed a border which until recently we didn't think it possible to cross."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.