European press review

A range of domestic issues feature in today's European press. Germany's dailies discuss tax cuts and a failed strike. The French papers also debate the impact of strikes on the festival season.

In Hungary, health and education reforms attract media comment. And Austrian papers reflect on a leadership row in the far-right Freedom Party.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung welcomes a government move to bring forward tax cuts worth 18bn euros from 2005 to next year.

"Instead of painful debates about the type of tax which should go up and the amount by which non-wage labour costs might increase", the paper says, "finally there is something positive."

And it appeals to the governing coalition and the opposition who, it says, "owe it to the country to boost growth" by backing the tax cuts.

But the Sueddeutsche Zeitung describes the decision as economic "folly" and suspects it is motivated by tactical considerations to divert attention from a raft of other measures.

"Taking financial decisions on the basis of psychology and tactics is not really convincing for a government which is committed to long-termism," the paper warns.

According to Die Welt, the planned tax cuts are a step in the right direction, but the paper warns that they can only work in what it calls "the very best case scenario".

Turning to the strikes in the east of the country, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung says the failed industrial action launched by the IG Metall union will be a "very bitter lesson" for its members.

A strike which took tens of thousands of workers in western Germany hostage was "bound to lead to a catastrophe", the paper says.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung welcomes what it calls a "historic defeat of one of the most powerful trade unions in Europe", which will contribute more to economic recovery than any decisions on tax taken by the German government.

Festival fiasco?

France's Le Figaro worries about the impact of strikes by temporary workers in the entertainment sector over unemployment benefit reform.

"Are this summer's festivals going to take place?" it asks, adding that it would be "catastrophic" if they did not.

"The economic life of the regions depends on it, not just the survival of an occupation," it warns.

An editorial in France's Liberation sympathizes with the striking workers who also face cuts in government funding for culture.

The paper calls on Culture Minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon to prevent the festival season turning into a "fiasco" and listen to the concerns of entertainment industry workers.

"For artists who have been working relentlessly all year long to come to give up their own show and to expose themselves to the anger of frustrated spectators," it says, "they must be in the grip of a deep feeling of helplessness."

Hungarian reforms

Hungary's Nepszabadsag hopes the government's education and health care reforms succeed despite protests by the opposition and public sector workers.

The paper explains that the new education law opens the sector to external control, while the health care law offers opportunities to private capital.

Critics of reform, according to the paper, are worried that "aliens are approaching the islands of education and health care".

But the paper supports the proposed changes and hopes they do not fail as a result of an "explosive mixture" of emotions attached to education and health.

Freedom Party row

Austria's Die Presse warns that a dispute over the leadership of the far-right Freedom Party is paralysing the government.

Party leader Herbert Haupt used a speech to attack Carinthian Governor Joerg Haider in "unusually strong terms", the paper says.

"Never before has a Freedom Party official put the troublemaker from Carinthia in his place so bluntly or so courageously," it observes.

But the paper calls the inner-party dispute "intolerable" and prevents the government from working.

"This country's government is remote-controlled by daily changes in the state of the junior coalition partner, at whose mercy it is."

Another Austrian daily, Der Standard, says Mr Haupt and Mr Haider are forcing their supporters into two opposing camps when they should be working to regain electoral support.

"Something which seemed barely possible has been achieved in recent days: the Freedom Party's fall is picking up speed again," it concludes.

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.