European press review

European press review

US Secretary of State Colin Powell's meeting with EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday is seen by several papers as a flicker of light at the end of the present tunnel of transatlantic relations.

An American in Brussels

"Colin Powell's visit to Brussels", says Switzerland's Le Temps, "has paradoxically helped Europe to close ranks".

"The Europeans," it says, "want a central role for the United Nations" in post-conflict Iraq, but the US secretary of state "gently reminded them" - as the paper puts it - that the course ahead "will be determined by Britain and the US".

American and European officials proclaimed themselves extremely pleased with the relatively harmonious atmosphere they had managed to establish.

International Herald Tribune

However the paper is encouraged by what it sees as the "good will" shown by London, and notes "Britain's attempts in the past few days to smooth European differences".

In Spain, Barcelona's El Periodico takes a similar view.

Still in Barcelona, La Vanguardia says that "if anything must prevail after the war it is a good transatlantic relationship".

The Paris-based International Herald Tribune says that "American and European officials proclaimed themselves extremely pleased with the relatively harmonious atmosphere they had managed to establish."

In Germany, however, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says that relations between Berlin and Washington, "appeared to remain tense" after Colin Powell's talks with the EU foreign ministers.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung believes that "Powell's trip to Turkey and Brussels should be seen as an opportunity, not as a stage in the transatlantic freedom fight."

Germany and the world

In Germany, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is in two minds about Thursday's foreign policy statement to the Bundestag by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

The paper praises what it sees as the "ambitious political will" expressed by the chancellor, to see Germany play an active role in shaping the world rather than just Europe.

On the other hand the paper warns that Mr Schroeder avoided what it regards as the "crucial issue" of the role the US should play on the international scene.

Die Welt, for its part, is glad that Mr Schroeder subscribed to what it sees as the American aim in the Iraq war: "Toppling Saddam Hussein".

And Die Tageszeitung welcomes what it sees as the chancellor's promise to support Britain over the UN's role in post-war Iraq.

If Tony Blair "is to have any chance of realising his plans for post-war Iraq against his war ally", the paper argues, "he will need the support of the EU and of the other members of the UN Security Council."

"This is why Schroeder has stretched out his hand to his 'friend Tony' and wants to give Blair all the support he needs for his plans," it says.

France's revolting public servants

The French Le Figaro reports Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's TV interview on Thursday evening at the end of what the paper calls "a day marked by the impact of public sector workers' protests and strikes" against the planned reform of the pensions system.

Mr Raffarin, it says, "endeavoured to convince his audience that the government is keeping to its original course despite a very marked economic slowdown".

He maintained that the pensions reform was "based on the principle of equality" and "pledged to see it through".

Everybody knows that there are too many state employees in France.

Berliner Zeitung

Germany's Berliner Zeitung says the strikes in France highlighted what it calls the country's "serious domestic problems" and takes the French prime minister's side.

It sees the protesters as "a state within the state" seeking to "torpedo urgently needed reforms, above all a new pension system".

"Everybody knows that there are too many state employees in France," it points out.

Hungary's choice

"Do we need the EU?" ponders Hungary's Magyar Hirlap with a week to go to the country's referendum on EU membership.

The paper says that "Hungary has always stood on the boundary line between Eastern and Western Europe" and this "made bonding with either region more difficult".

A problem of bonding Westwards, it adds, is that "there is still a stigma attached to being an 'East European' in Western Europe today".

Nevertheless, the paper believes, Hungary must not pass up the chance of becoming "a member of the club", for this will mean what it calls "the true completion of the change of regime" and "the path of Western development".

The eagle and the cockerel

"The only country of central and eastern Europe renowned for its attachment to France," says Paris's Le Monde, "has swapped the Gallic cockerel for the American eagle."

The paper explains that the country in question is Romania, where, it adds, "the pro-Americanism relentlessly fostered by the authorities seems to go hand-in-hand with a growing anti-French mood".

"Bucharest's alignment with the US on the Iraqi question," the paper notes, "is a telling sign of the differences marking French-Romanian relations."

"Romania takes the view that it has been kept knocking at the EU's door for much too long," the paper believes.

But from Brussels's standpoint, it notes, "the problem of corruption is doing harm to Romania's image".

"But the American administration," the paper adds, "unlike Brussels, is not proving to be too fussy in the area of corruption".

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