European press review

The latest testimonies at the Hutton inquiry attract comment in German dailies, Paris's "running battle" with Brussels exercise French columnists, a nationalist leader's surprise attendance at a royal reception in Madrid makes headlines in major Spanish dailies and strange disappearance of Leningrad mushroom pickers puzzles a Russian daily.

Blair vindicated

Germany's Der Tagesspiegel says British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been vindicated in the row over the Iraqi weapons dossier after a BBC reporter at the centre of the dispute between the corporation and the government admitted to mistakes in reporting concerns over the dossier.

The paper says that Wednesday's testimony by Andrew Gilligan at the inquiry into the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly shows that it was an exaggeration to suggest that 10 Downing Street knowingly overstated the threat posed by Iraq.

Blair, who has always indignantly rejected the accusation, has now been rehabilitated over the main point, despite the resignation of his adviser Alastair Campbell Der Tagesspiegel

"Blair, who has always indignantly rejected the accusation, has now been rehabilitated over the main point, despite the resignation of his adviser Alastair Campbell," the paper writes.

It observes that although the reputation both of the BBC and of Tony Blair have been damaged by the row, it was Mr Gilligan rather than the prime minister who had to apologize.

"The BBC, which used to be so highly regarded and which consistently defended Gilligan, is now coming under enormous pressure," it concludes.

But its compatriot Sueddeutsche Zeitung disagrees.

Rueful sinner Andrew Gilligan by no means showed the white flag because his key accusations against the Blair government still stand Sueddeutsche Zeitung

The paper suggests that it would be wrong for the government to assume it has won "its war with the broadcaster".

"Rueful sinner Andrew Gilligan by no means showed the white flag because his key accusations against the Blair government still stand," the paper says.

The paper still believes that London's claim of Iraq's ability to deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was made against the wishes of the intelligence services.

"The fact that there was disquiet about this passage in the dossier, in particular in the defence intelligence service, has by now been documented extensively," it observes.

Raising stakes

A report in the Paris-based International Herald Tribune says that the European Union's move on Wednesday to block the French Government's rescue plan of the ailing engineering group Alstom, raised the stakes "in the running battle between Brussels and Paris".

The move has broadened "a rift between the French Government and the European Commission", it says.

Brussels is angered by France's apparent reluctance to rein in the shortfall International Herald Tribune

The commission "is battling with Paris over its budget deficit, which is expected to hit 4% of gross domestic product this year, a full percentage point more than is allowed under the single currency rules".

Brussels "is angered by France's apparent reluctance to rein in the shortfall", it adds, while Paris "maintains that cutting spending now is no way to get the economy moving again".

Still in Paris, Le Monde predicts that President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will be announcing a joint initiative to promote Europe's economic recovery when they meet in Berlin later on Thursday.

The paper predicts that "the two-fold" initiative would include a programme of major Europe-wide infrastructure projects and a plan to convene a "trilateral summit" of EU labour ministers, commission representatives and industry leaders in the two countries.

Basque conundrum

The Spanish papers take a keen interest in the presence of the head of the Basque autonomous administration, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, at a royal reception in Madrid to mark the 25th anniversary of the Spanish constitution.

According to the constitution, the Basque country is an integral part of Spain but the nationalist leader has pledged to hold a unilateral referendum on its status by the end of the year.

Madrid's La Razon is perhaps predictably sceptical.

"When something that should be perfectly natural is seen as extraordinary," the paper says "one is bound to wonder about the motivations behind it."

It must be made clear to the nationalists hat they will always have a seat at the table of democracy provided they respect the rules of the game

However, the paper points out that Mr Ibarretxe's decision to join his opposite numbers from Spain's other autonomous regions "cannot but be praised for what it has of a rectification of past mistakes".

ABC accuses the Basque premier of seeking "to take advantage of the constitutional and moral authority of the Crown to try and make his (referendum) plan acceptable to the rest of Spain".

And the Catalonian La Vanguardia, which speaks for another autonomous region, sees Mr Ibarretxe's attendance as "a positive gesture" aimed at "lowering tensions" but adds that this is no reason to revise the Spanish constitution.

An equally suspicious El Mundo says that since Mr Ibarretxe's Basque Nationalist Party, shows "such flexibility in its plans to subvert the constitutional order", then the state "must administer rewards or punishments accordingly".

"It must be made clear to the nationalists," the paper stresses, "that they will always have a seat at the table of democracy provided they respect the rules of the game."

Russia's mysterious pastime

Russia's Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports on a new craze that has seized residents of Leningrad.

A great abundance of mushrooms - apparently the biggest in half a century - has been luring into the woods countless pickers who spend whole days gathering mushrooms until they literally disappear into the woods.

A quarter of all people who disappeared in August and September have still not been found and remain classified as missing, the paper says.

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