European press review

An immunity law relieves Italy's prime minister, the path is cleared for a possible European Bank chief, and no-one is blamed for France's HIV-tainted blood scandal, report the European newspapers.

Berlusconi's immunity

With Italy preparing to take over the presidency of the European Union in July, the Paris-based International Herald Tribune, like all the other dailies, reports the adoption by the lower house of the Italian parliament of an immunity bill which, the paper says, "will suspend Premier Silvio Berlusconi's bribery trial just as it was nearing a verdict".

The prime minister, the paper explains, was being tried on charges of "bribing judges to sway a ruling in the sale of a state-held food conglomerate Sme in the 1980s, a decade before he went into politics". "He has denied the charges and says he is the victim of left-leaning prosecutors in Milan," it adds.

The bill passed on Wednesday, the paper says, applies to Italy's five highest-ranking public officials. None of the other four is being prosecuted, it notes.

[Berlusconi can expect] a difficult six months at the helm of the EU

Le Monde

France's Le Monde notes the providential timing of a bill which, the paper says, "spares Silvio Berlusconi the humiliation of being a defendant in a court case during his presidency of the European Union".

But the immunity accorded by the bill is limited to the tenure of office, the paper points out. "Mr Berlusconi's mandate ends in 2006," it notes, "and unless he is re-elected he will be as liable for prosecution as anybody else".

The paper expects a "difficult" six months for the Italian prime minister at the helm of the EU, if his latest spat with France is anything to go by.

After what it calls "critical remarks" by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin over the Italian leader's refusal to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during a visit to Israel, Le Monde says Mr Berlusconi's response was to comment that France had "lost a good opportunity to shut up".

The Czech Hospodarske Noviny also has concerns about Italy's presidency of the European Union. It refers, without going into specifics, to "several reasons why there are question marks over Berlusconi's activities" adding that they amount to "political dynamite".

Nor has the Italian premier yet made good his promise to resolve potential conflicts of interest between his business affairs and his constitutional role, the paper says.

In its opinion, Mr Berlusconi's has an "authoritarian" attitude rooted in "the business sector with its rules of subordination".

On the other hand, it points out, "a system of patiently negotiated compromises prevails in the European Union". In these circumstances, the paper wonders if he is up to the task.

Should the other EU leaders "overlook any possible abuses of power by Berlusconi" during the presidency, the paper warns, "then to his declining trustworthiness will be added their own".

Tainted blood

France's highest appeal court on Wednesday ended a long-running legal battle over a scandal involving HIV-contaminated blood by throwing out charges against 30 officials and health workers.

This was "the worst possible outcome", says Paris' Liberation. "It would be an illusion to think that yesterday's ruling... marks the end of the scandal," it says.

Even if there are all manner of good legal reasons for the ruling, this does not cancel the fact that the highest appeal court in the land has done society a disservice

Liberation

On the contrary, the paper believes the court's decision "will forever remain an obstacle to drawing a line under the affair".

By "stopping half-way", it adds, the court "gave the impression that it was trying to let certain parties off".

The affair of the contaminated blood, the paper says, "stands at the forefront" of what it calls "the long list of causes for the profound crisis of confidence afflicting our [French] democracy".

It adds: "Even if there are all manner of good legal reasons for the ruling, this does not cancel the fact that the highest appeal court in the land has done society a disservice."

A close-run thing

After a court in Paris on Wednesday found Jean-Claude Trichet, the present governor of the Bank of France, not guilty of helping the former state-run Credit Lyonnais bank falsify its accounts 10 years ago, Paris' Le Figaro says that Mr Trichet "has every chance of being appointed president of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the coming weeks".

It's not just that most investors expected Trichet to be acquitted, but they also see the 60-year-old Frenchman as the ideal person for the top post in Frankfurt's Eurotower

Die Welt

President Jacques Chirac, it adds, "will be bound to put forward" Mr Trichet's candidacy at the European Union summit which opens in Greece this evening.

The losses of the since-privatised Credit Lyonnais cost the French taxpayer between eight and 15 billion euros, Le Figaro recalls.

In Germany, Berlin's Die Welt says the acquittal is good news for financial markets and the euro-zone economy.

"It's not just that most investors expected Trichet to be acquitted," it says, "but they also see the 60-year-old Frenchman as the ideal person for the top post in Frankfurt's Eurotower."

The paper expects Mr Trichet's tenure to be marked by continuity, which it believes to be just what the ECB will need over the next few years.

But most important of all, it stresses, the acquittal means that Europe will be spared what it calls "another embarrassing appointments debate".

"It is easy to picture the mudslinging that would have followed" a different outcome, the paper says.

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