European press review

The Franco-German alliance has come under fresh scrutiny in light of a joint plan to revive European growth through investment in major infrastructure projects.

And Spanish commentators have mixed feelings about Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's landmark visit to Libya.

Joined-up government?

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac on Thursday unveiled a joint plan to boost growth through large-scale infrastructure projects.

But the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung dismisses the plan as economically unsound.

The programme's aim "does not just sound like a fairy tale," the daily says. "It is a fairy tale."

The paper is convinced that expenditure financed by debt cannot be used to manipulate the economic cycle.

"Why should something which Schroeder and Chirac tried to no avail in their national economic policies succeed on a much larger scale?" it asks.

The paper concedes that the initiative contains "some good proposals", but it warns of a "definitive violation" of the European stability pact and of a burden of debt for future generations.

Both countries are expected to breach the pact - which limits annual government borrowing to 3% of gross domestic product - for the second year running in 2003.

The Paris-based International Herald Tribune notes that the joint plan comes amid continuing worries over Europe's and especially Germany's economy and "criticism aimed at France and Germany for violating the rules they themselves created when Europe's single-currency zone was set up".

Both countries have rejected austerity methods "on the grounds that to do so would end virtually all chance of economic recovery".

Show of unity

Germany's Der Tagesspiegel also notes the "particular irony of history that the two EU states which launched the stability pact should now, once again jointly, violate it".

Paris and Berlin find it hard to please their European partners Le Monde

It says Paris and Berlin need the unity demonstrated on Thursday to increase their clout when arguing for a flexible interpretation of the stability pact in Brussels.

"The times are changing, (but) the German-French couple stands firm," the paper says.

But Die Tageszeitung wonders whether the unity demonstrated in Berlin is good or bad for the European Union.

"According to an old EU adage," the paper says, "when the German-French engine is running well, the EU really picks up speed".

The paper, however, warns that an important element is missing in the alliance - namely that the club "is not open to all who would like to join in".

"Exclusive circles are... hard to reconcile with the EU philosophy of joint decision-making," it warns.

Paris's Le Monde is concerned that the Franco-German cordiality will strain relations with other European members.

Paris and Berlin "find it hard to please their European partners", it says.

"When they are at loggerheads," it says, "the others become rightly concerned over the risk of a blockage" in Europe. "But when they're in agreement they're suspected of trying to impose their diktat."

Some of their European neighbours also "feel sidelined and confronted with the 'fait accompli' of a bilateral anti-American stance which they find all the more inadmissible for being presented as the true 'European' position", the paper says.

In Switzerland, Geneva's Le Temps says France and Germany "have proved in difficult circumstances that they make up a political force capable of adopting common positions and strategies in the discord of the international arena".

"It's not yet joint sovereignty, but it is more than an alliance", it says.

Tripoli handshake

A photo of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar shaking hands with the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in Tripoli on Thursday draws mixed reactions in the Spanish press.

Mr Aznar is the first Western leader to visit the North African state in more than a decade.

Under the heading "The photo opportunity that Aznar should never have accepted", Madrid's El Mundo agrees with Socialist opposition leader Rodriguez Zapatero, who said that if he himself had visited Gaddafi, "there would have been a huge outcry" from Mr Aznar's ruling Popular Party.

"A political leader's actions must be consistent with his convictions and with what he stands for, which is why Aznar was wrong to lend legitimacy with his presence to such a sinister character as the Libyan leader", the paper says.

Barcelona's La Vanguardia, however, takes a more pragmatic line.

Muammar Gaddafi, it says, wants to strengthen his ties with the European Union and boost foreign investment in his country. "Shaking his hand," the paper believes, "was therefore a positive gesture".

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