European press review

Wednesday's papers discuss the adoption of a Russian girl by Germany's chancellor and a proposal in Sweden to cut taxes on alcohol to protect domestic sales from cheap imports.

In France, one newspaper rues what it sees as the decline of French influence in the European Commission while another regrets the increased competition faced by the country's farmers from their counterparts abroad.

And a Vienna daily calls for unions between men and women to be given priority so that Austrians continue to procreate.

Private life of a politician

Germany's Berliner Zeitung conveys its best wishes to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder after it emerged that he and his wife had adopted a three-year old Russian girl.

The paper argues that this news is not a private matter because it is of legitimate public interest to know what kind of person governs the country.

The adoption shows the chancellor in a positive light, it says, and expects him to derive political benefits from it.

It should be enough to know that there are children. Their looks are of no concern to anyone outside the family because they do not hold public office Der Tagesspiegel

"This other chancellor gives the lie to the image of a heartless Social Democrat who begrudges people their unemployment benefit, who no longer understands the poor and who betrays the ideal of Social Democracy," the newspaper says.

Der Tagesspiegel agrees that the question of whether or not Mr Schroeder has children, how many, and with whom, is a matter of public interest.

But, the paper adds, this interest does not extend to publishing their photos.

"It should be enough to know that there are children," it argues. "Their looks are of no concern to anyone outside the family because they do not hold public office."

Slovakia's Pravda calls little Viktoria "undoubtedly the best known Russian in Germany" and draws attention to the timing of her adoption.

"It would be cynical to suggest," the paper says, that "[Schroeder] deliberately took this action precisely at a time when hundreds of thousands of Germans are angrily opposing changes in the social welfare system and his party's ratings are pretty low."

Highlighting Viktoria's origin, the paper also wonders if "this good deed" might "lead to an invitation to Moscow for next year's 60th anniversary celebrations of the end of World War II".

French gloom

In Paris, the leading daily Le Monde sees the fact that the only portfolio to be held by France in the new European Commission is that of transport, as a sign of "the decline of France's influence in Brussels".

The fact that Berlin is in a similar situation, it adds, shows that "the French-German couple are losing ground to Britain and the smaller member countries".

In the paper's opinion, Paris and Berlin "are paying the price for their poor economic performance and an attitude deemed too defensive".

Also in Paris, Liberation is more concerned with the state of France's fruit and vegetable growers, to whom it devotes its entire front page, two inside pages and an editorial.

French city dwellers often react with indifference to what they perceive as the perpetual 'peasants' revolt' of small farmers Liberation

The paper blames globalisation for the increasing difficulty faced by French farmers in selling their increasingly expensive produce.

"How can we compete with Poland," it quotes a farmers' spokesman as saying, "when strawberry pickers there are paid one euro per hour while we have to pay eight euros?"

"Even if, officially, the French love their country folk," the paper says in its editorial, "city dwellers often react with indifference or hostility to what they perceive as the perpetual 'peasants' revolt' of small farmers who complain a lot without much reason to do so".

But the farmers' themselves "know that they have only a few weeks every year" to "either sell their harvest or dump it outside the prefect's office", in which case this is "often followed by handing in the keys to their farm to the local estate agent".

Europe's alcohol-induced headache

A proposal that Sweden cut duty on spirits by 40% to protect its state monopoly on alcohol sales and safeguard public health dominates leader columns in the country and neighbouring Finland.

The move comes after both Finland and Denmark cut duty to discourage people from travelling to Estonia and Germany for bulk-buying purposes. That action resulted in much greater volumes being imported into Sweden for private consumption.

We can only create a sustainable alcohol policy at the EU level Dagens Nyheter

Finland's Swedish-language daily Vasabladet points out that since Finland cut duty on spirits in March, drink-driving and grievous bodily harm offences rose by 22.5% and 16.6% respectively.

"In the new EU constitution," the paper notes, "alcohol consumption is described for the first time as a public-health issue rather than a market one".

"The only sensible course would be to have a uniform alcohol-duty policy throughout the EU," it argues, calling on Nordic countries to unite in bringing pressure to bear on the Union for "a public health-oriented policy".

Stockholm's Dagens Nyheter says "Sweden's restrictive alcohol policy is in the process of collapsing", which, it stresses, "is no cause for celebration".

The rapidly increasing rate of consumption "brings alcohol-related illness, drunkenness and violent crime". And more children will be "forced to grow up in homes where alcohol rules".

The prospect of persuading EU states to tear up existing agreements out of consideration for public health does not look particularly good Sydsvenska Dagbladet

The paper says that the failure of a policy which proved effective for so long "has a lot to do with EU membership".

"We must realise that the time for a separate national alcohol policy is over. We can only create a sustainable alcohol policy at the EU level."

Another Swedish daily, Malmoe's Sydsvenska Dagbladet, is not optimistic about a European solution to the issue of alcohol taxation.

"As usual," the paper says, "the threat comes from outside, from the EU and other European countries whose governments do not appreciate the finer points of Sweden's policy on alcohol."

"But the prospect of persuading other EU states to tear up existing agreements out of consideration for public health does not look particularly good."

To make Austrians procreate

In Austria, Die Presse questions the need for same-sex civil unions after President Heinz Fischer called for "barriers" standing in the way of such unions to be removed.

According to the paper, no such barriers exist anyway.

"In Austria nobody is discriminated against on the grounds of their sexual orientation," it says.

The paper adds that it is essential for the state to ensure that Austrians procreate.

"This is why the promotion of unions between men and women must be given priority."

But it concedes that proposals from the opposition Greens and Social Democrats for the introduction of civil unions should not be dismissed out of hand.

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