European press review

As Europe swelters in the summer heat, the French press worries about global warming. A German paper comments on the latest twist in the war of words between Germany and Italy.

A Belgian paper puts the case for intervention in the country's war-torn former colony Burundi.

And in Russia the press considers the impact on big business of widening tax and fraud investigations.

"Water!" screams the main front-page headline in France's Liberation.

The paper warns that for five months France and Europe have been going through "a worrying drought".

"Everybody is asking the same question: is this going to continue for much longer?" it says in an editorial.

The paper believes that the current heatwave and drought are linked to global warming - still a controversial view in some quarters.

"Even though their professional code of conduct forces scientists to make understatements, they must admit that their statistics abundantly back the prophets of doom," it says.

Italy's Corriere Della Sera reports that prices for fruit and vegetables are rising steeply in Italy, but wonders whether the hikes are all down to the drought. It quotes comments by Agriculture Minister Giovanni Alemanno, who on Tuesday warned of speculation by some unscrupulous suppliers and retailers.

German-Italian spat

Germany's Die Welt takes German MEP Martin Schulz - whom Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recently compared to a Nazi concentration camp guard - to task over his renewed stoking of the row.

What more does Schulz want? Die Welt

Just as relations between Berlin and Rome appeared to be easing, Mr Shulz hit out again on Tuesday, accusing the government in Rome of being "racist".

"What more does Schulz want?", the paper wonders.

It describes the MEP as "an unknown from the unfathomable depths of the European Parliament" who "has suddenly been pushed into the limelight" and has become "a model MEP for his party".

It suggests that he should have stopped there instead of, as the paper puts it, "pouring more oil on the fire".

Belgium and Burundi

Belgium's De Standaard says the country can make a difference in the civil war in the central African state of Burundi.

"Belgium cannot close its eyes to this terrible war," it says of events in Belgium's former colony.

The paper points out that in 10 years, between 200,000 and 300,000 people are believed to have died in a conflict which it describes as "one of the cruellest civil wars in the world".

The paper argues that the country has a special responsibility for Burundi as a result of its historical knowledge and its diplomatic and economic contacts in the region.

Never before has a European head of state launched such a head-on attack on the euro framework as Chirac Sueddeutsche Zeitung

"Especially in Central Africa our country can make a difference, whether with or without European or American leverage," it concludes.

EU Stability Pact

Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung says that French President Jacques Chirac's Bastille Day appeal to relax the rules governing the European Stability Pact is ill-advised and would result in a return to ruinous debts.

"Never before has a European head of state launched such a head-on attack on the euro framework as Chirac," the paper says.

It says that his timing is impeccable since a number of countries are, as the paper puts it, "groaning under the prescribed budget targets".

But the paper warns that what it calls permanent spending programmes "mostly leave only debts behind, and debts are the tax increases of the future."

Switzerland's Tages-Anzeiger is also concerned about Jacques Chirac's suggestion, as well as about German and Italian proposals designed to boost Europe's economy.

"What all these ideas have in common is that they put the stability of the euro at risk and create uncertainty among investors and consumers without breaking up the euro zone's real basic evil of structural obstacles," the paper says.

Taxing affairs

Russia's papers mull the impact of a prosecutors' probe into the Yukos oil group on the confidence of Russian and foreign investors.

The probe is the latest in a spate of fraud and tax evasion investigations, which have sparked fears among big business leaders in Russia of a widening political campaign against them. The moves are seen in some quarters as an attempt by the Kremlin to intimidate business leaders who support opposition political parties.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta hopes for a "favourable outcome" to the situation and worries that the authorities have no intention allowing the stock market or the economy "a quiet life and stable development."

And the business broadsheet Vedomosti voices similar concerns about the actions which, it says, "are making Russian business and foreign investors anxious".

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