European press review

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's past attracts a lot of attention in the European papers, as do mad cow disease and the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War.

Joschka Fischer's turbulent youth

"German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer is walking a tightrope," writes Austria's Der Standard in connection with his appearance as a character witness in the murder trial of his former pal Hans Joachim Klein. Klein is accused of involvement in a triple murder at an OPEC oil ministers' meeting in Vienna in 1975.

The paper points out that although being Germany's most popular minister has thrust Fischer into the limelight, it should not be overlooked that he appeared before the Frankfurt court as a mere witness.

"The prosecutor clearly forgot that Minister Fischer was not the man on trial when he tried to force a confession from him in front of dozens of foreign journalists," it writes.

The daily says it is highly unlikely that the trial will lead to Fischer's dismissal or resignation. "Fischer's explanation that he could not recall certain events from 30 years ago sounded quite convincing; the opposition would find it very difficult to ask for Fischer's resignation and justify its demand," it says.

It adds that the German vice-chancellor is safe "as long as no new, more compromising documents come to light".

Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung says Fischer's political opponents should beware of casting him in the same mould as a hardened criminal just because be took part in violent street demonstrations in Frankfurt in the 1970s.

It is "quite absurd", the paper says, that his conservative enemies should now be making such political capital out of his appearance in court.

"Those who compare the sometimes violent demonstrations in Frankfurt's Westend with the neo-Nazis' targeted murders and attempted murders, and those who portray the former activist Fischer as a rehabilitated criminal are committing more than slander, they are distorting history."

Even worse, the paper says, "They are making light of the dangerous threat of right-wing extremism in Germany, which has claimed around 100 victims in the last 10 years alone."

Mad cow 'overkill'

Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau questions the EU's "ruthless" measures introduced in a bid to stop the spread of so-called mad cow disease.

"Up to two million cattle will be slaughtered and burnt in the forthcoming months," the paper points out, adding that these mass killings of cows cannot be either medically or morally justified.

"The BSE danger will not disappear in the smoke, nor will the confidence of consumers in beef be restored in response to the mass slaughter," it writes.

"Yet, this seemingly-mad butchery cannot be avoided," says the paper, "because laws are merciless". It condemns regulations requiring an entire herd to be slaughtered if just one animal tests positive for BSE.

The paper adds that a lack of alternative solutions to the BSE crisis is making Renate Kuenast, the country's Minister of Consumer Protection, Nutrition and Agriculture, desperate and is forcing her to "ignore the serious ethical concerns hanging over the issue".

'Don't eat the shells'

The Hungarian daily Magyar Hirlap looks at how the depleted uranium affair has been handled by the government and concludes that it is "pathetic beyond hope".

Pointing out that the public's distrust in the "entire political elite" is virtually complete, one of the paper's columnists tells how the defence ministry first reacted by ordering a news blockade and then called the reports linking depleted uranium munitions to leukaemia the "spreading of hysteria" - until it was revealed that a Hungarian Kfor serviceman had died of the disease.

"If we do not keep licking the tanks and do not eat the shards of uranium-depleted shells, then there is nothing to worry about," is how the paper caricatures the defence minister's response.

Ten more years of Saddam

Ten years after the Gulf War, the Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein is still in power and, like a cat, seems to have nine lives, Germany's Die Welt writes. "He must be the only politician in the world whose period of office can be directly measured in American presidencies," the paper says.

It seems we will have to live with the "dictator of Baghdad" for a long time - but not because of Western helplessness, the paper writes.

"On the contrary. In spite of all the warlike sabre-rattling, Washington was never really interested in getting rid of Saddam Hussein."

The aim was to "weaken Iraq in order to restore the balance of power in the region"; in other words, to let Iraq come back as a counterweight to Iran which could "keep the Mullahs in check without posing a threat to Israel or the oil-rich Sultanates".

Saddam Hussein "still reigns supreme in Baghdad", says the Swiss Le Temps.

"Baghdad's strong man is still in power and, what's more, he's having fun annoying his enemies, the Americans most of all," the paper adds.

"With the embargo weighing heavily on the Iraqi population, Saddam Hussein has announced he is allocating one million euros to help the underprivileged in the United States.

"More seriously, his cat-and-mouse game has managed to destabilise the world's oil market, with his threats to turn off Iraq's oil taps or his demand to be paid in euros, not dollars.

"Craftily, Saddam Hussein has also succeeded in breaking up the global united front opposing him since the invasion of Kuwait.

"By signing preliminary oil contracts with France, he has got himself a western ally, and a substantial one at that. The consequences have been immediate and the embargo is crumbling."

Kuwaiti women wait in vain

The Berliner Zeitung says that 10 years after the expulsion of the Iraqi invaders, Kuwaiti women are still waiting in vain for democratic changes.

After all, the paper says, the Western alliance came to Kuwait's defence in order to help the democratization of the "feudal-absolutist" sheikhdoms and not just to protect their cheap oil.

Noting that the Kuwaiti constitutional court has upheld a law that forbids women from voting and standing in elections, the paper says it is odd that the West has not protested against the disenfranchisement of 50% of the population.

"The explanation of the Arab feminists may sound simplistic but it hits the nub of the matter: democracy, they say, brings unrest. Not a despot but parliamentary representatives would decide, for example, that the West should pay a realistic, i.e. higher price, for the oil reserves in their countries."

Democracy evidently comes at a cost, the paper concludes.

Iran crackdown

The leading French daily Le Monde urges the European Union to send a "strong signal" of protest to Iran over the jailing last Saturday of a group of reform activists.

"There were reasons for hoping that this great country...was experiencing an easing of domestic tensions", the paper says, "that it felt sufficiently self-confident to open up to the outside world and rid itself of the increasingly irksome rule of the mullahs".

But "the very heavy jail sentences" passed against 11 of the country's most prominent reformist intellectuals "dealt a heavy blow to the reformists".

"These were rigged trials for the crime of freedom of thought", the paper says. "They mark yet another in an uninterrupted series of 'victories' by the ultras of the regime, and might deter President Khatami from seeking a second mandate in six months' time."

"For several years now, Europe has rightly pursued a policy of establishing closer ties with Iran", the paper notes. "But the European Union must not remain indifferent to what has happened in Tehran: if it wishes to continue its attitude of openness towards Iran, it must first issue a strong, loud and clear condemnation."

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