European press review

German newspapers welcome the sacking of the country's special forces head over his apparent praise for an MP accused of anti-Semitism.

As President Vladimir Putin embarks on a visit to Rome, Europe's papers are not slow to renew their criticism of the arrest of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

And Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze too comes under attack over the conduct of Sunday's parliamentary elections.

German general sacked

No general has ever been thrown out of office as quickly as Brigadier General Reinhard Guenzel, says the daily Berliner Zeitung.

A commentary in Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung focuses on what it describes as Mr Guenzel's "stupid" behaviour.

It says Defence Minister Peter Struck was right to sack him quickly for damaging the Bundeswehr's reputation.

The article also criticises the Christian Democrat leader, Angela Merkel, for not getting rid of party deputy Martin Hohmann over his controversial comments comparing the actions of Jews in the 1917 Russian revolution with those of the Nazis.

The CDU must part company with Hohmann and his ilk. Frankfurter Rundschau

"Everything that applies to Mr Guenzel applies equally to deputy Hohmann... He should be expelled from the party caucus. Unlike Struck, however, CDU chief Merkel has not yet summoned up the courage to do this."

Frankfurter Rundschau agrees that the CDU "must part company with Hohmann and his ilk".

It also argues, however, that the issue is wider than just that of anti-Semitism or confrontation between Jews and Germans.

It says it is "a renewed attempt to treat the guilt of Germans for Nazi crimes as relative".

Putin and Khodorkovsky

Berlin's Tagesspiegel turns to Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Italy.

It laments the fact that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and European Commission President Romano Prodi will "warmly welcome Vladimir Putin in Rome today", despite him "locking up a businessman to prevent him becoming a political rival".

"And if Chancellor Schroeder were there, he would embrace his friend as always," Tagesspiegel says. "What is this? A scandal? Or the constraints of international affairs?"

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung views the affair as a power struggle between forces hankering after an authoritarian state and advocates of a liberal market economy.

If there is an intention to lock up Mr Khodorkovsky, then this task will be fulfilled regardless of the circumstances. Izvestiya

Those who "applaud the old forces... run the risk of damaging their own interests in the long term", it warns.

"It would benefit the federal government and also the economy if a critical tone were to be adopted toward developments in Russia, in order to limit the damage and strengthen those who want further reform and democracy."

France's Le Monde is also suspicious of Mr Putin's involvement in the affair.

Mr Putin's time with the KGB "has left its mark", the paper says, seeing the "attack on the oligarchs" as part of his attempts to, as the paper puts it, dominate the Russian political scene.

"Not only does this strategy involve removing potential rivals," it says, it also "guarantees the resurgence" of an attitude that "displays a greater amount of hostility to the nouveaux riches than it does regard for respect for the law".

Meanwhile, one Russian commentator says that Khodorkovsky's resignation from Yukos "does not resolve the problem".

Izvestiya quotes Higher School of Economics science head, Yevgeniy Yasin, as saying that Mr Khodorkovsky is probably trying to separate his personal problems from those of the company.

But he is unlikely to succeed, he says. "If there is an intention to lock up Mr Khodorkovsky, then this task will be fulfilled regardless of the circumstances."

Georgian elections

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze is also a focus of the media criticism.

Austria's Die Presse speaks of a "turbulent election campaign, chaos on election day and a tense vote count" in Georgia.

According to Hamburg's Die Welt, the president emerges with little credit from the country's parliamentary election, having allowed it to become "a farce".

The paper quotes observers who say the election "fell far below international standards" and interprets this as meaning that they "were completely and utterly rigged".

The 75-year-old former Soviet foreign minister is painted as a man clinging "tooth and nail" to power, in order to pave the way for a successor who suits the "Shevardnadze clan".

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.