European press review

The after-effects of Tuesday's ruling by euro zone finance ministers effectively to suspend the 1997 Stability and Growth Pact continue to reverberate in today's European press.

Spanish papers dwell on the decision to chose France over Spain to be the EU candidate country to host an ambitious international nuclear project.

A Paris daily welcomes the French parliament's ratification of EU enlargement.

And a Slovak paper argues that tough measures are the only answer to corrupt officials.

Double standards

The decision not to penalise France and Germany for breaching the rules of the European Union Stability and Growth Pact continues to attract comment in the European press.

Under the headline "European chaos", the leading French daily Le Monde says the EU finance ministers "have attacked one of the cornerstones of European integration".

Rarely has it been so obvious that this Europe applies double standards Die Presse

The Union's small countries, it adds, "have every reason to denounce the arrogance of the 'big' ones".

Some of them, it notes, "have made substantial sacrifices to abide by the notorious criteria of the Maastricht Treaty and prove worthy of joining the single currency".

In Vienna Die Presse contrasts the treatment accorded France and Germany with an EU ruling denying Austria the right to impose strict limits on the number of lorries in transit on its roads.

This decision on "a matter of the highest national interest", it says, has caused a mood of "frustration, anger, and hatred" among Austrians.

"Rarely has it been so obvious that this Europe applies double standards," it adds.

Failed bid

The Spanish press concentrates on Wednesday's decision by EU science ministers to make Cadarache in Provence rather than Vandellos in Catalonia the EU candidate site for the four-billion-dollar International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) nuclear fusion project.

We cannot go round the world putting ourselves forward for important scientific projects if first we fail to have continuous encouragement of science in our own country El Pais

The ministers decided that the southern French town was best placed to compete with candidate sites in Japan and Canada to host the project, which aims to develop a clean source of energy by replicating the nuclear fusion that powers the sun.

In the Catalonian capital of Barcelona, El Periodico sees the Spanish bid's failure as "a symptom of weakness and isolation" and blames Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's policies for "reducing Spain's influence in Europe".

Avui, for its part, notes that Madrid has now suffered two defeats in the European Union: "It has lost the Stability Pact, and it has lost Vandellos' candidacy for ITER."

But the Madrid newspapers take a softer line.

El Mundo believes that although France "has greater political clout", the EU "also took other factors into account, such as our neighbour's technological superiority in the nuclear field".

Under the heading "No science, no ITER", El Pais is of the same view.

"This is a lesson for the future," the paper says.

"We cannot go round the world putting ourselves forward for important scientific projects if first we fail to have continuous encouragement of science in our own country."

European enlargement

A commentary in Paris's Nouvel Observateur welcomes Wednesday's approval by the French parliament of France's ratification of European Union enlargement.

Fifteen years have passed since the euphoria that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the dominant feeling among many French is one of suspicion towards the newcomers Nouvel Observateur

"This is a historic vote", the paper says, "because we are about to draw a line under the Yalta accords that split our continent in two and sentenced the 'other' Europe to 40 years of a Stalinist ice age."

But the paper acknowledges that not all support the enlargement from 15 to 25 members.

"Fifteen years have passed since the euphoria that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall," the paper recalls, "and the dominant feeling among many French is one of suspicion towards the newcomers."

One of the reasons for such wariness, the paper believes, is the fact that "our political leaders have a tendency for claiming the credit for all the good things, and to blame Brussels for all the bad ones."

Corruption in Slovakia

In Slovakia the Bratislava daily Sme covers the story of a Slovak opposition MP arrested on Wednesday with a suitcase full of cash and accused of taking a bribe from a building contractor under the headline "Arrest warrant as teaching tool".

The paper hopes the arrest will signal a turning point in the fight against corruption.

"Fear," it says, "is the most effective medicine against corruption" and "an arrest warrant is a much better pedagogic tool than empty talk in parliament".

Doing a Georgia

And in the former Soviet Union the press continues to debate the implications of Georgia's "velvet revolution".

Ahead of a planned protest by Ukrainian opposition parties in Kiev, the Russian broadsheet Nezavisimaya Gazeta argues that the Ukrainian opposition "has been given wings by the success of its Georgian colleagues".

"The leaders of the opposition parties," it notes, "are saying openly that this action will be a first rehearsal for overturning the 'Kuchma regime' a la Georgia."

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