European press review

Paris and Berlin's rejection of America's draft UN resolution on Iraq, has pride of place in French and German front pages and editorial columns.

Elsewhere, France's leading daily sees ulterior motives in a diplomatic appointment to the UN, the Swiss face economic recession and Germany's low-profile president decides that one term is enough.

Back to the drawing board?

The front page of Paris's Le Figaro is dominated by a photograph of Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, who met informally on Thursday to discuss Iraq and European issues, in a smiling embrace in a Dresden square.

The French and German statements seemed more a prod to the US to give the UN greater authority, than an outright rejection of the Bush administration's call for international help International Herald Tribune

They agreed, it adds, that Washington's draft UN resolution on Iraq "does not go far enough to enable a swift devolution of power to the Iraqis".

In Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warns the government that its stance might cast it into diplomatic isolation.

It remarks that while France has not ruled out sending troops to Iraq under certain conditions, Germany has so far categorically rejected any military assistance.

"The French and German statements," says a report in the Paris-based International Herald Tribune, "seemed more a prod to the US to give the UN greater authority, than an outright rejection of the Bush administration's call for international help."

Back in Germany, the Frankfurter Rundschau urges Berlin to stick to its position.

Austria's Der Standard believes that countries opposed to the war "are unlikely to accept the usual vague allusions to a 'vital UN role' while at the same time granting the US a dominant one".

In Spain, which already has troops in Iraq, El Mundo complains that the Madrid government "cannot be bothered" to discuss the US role in post-war Iraq "more than is strictly necessary".

Russia's leading daily Izvestiya says that "yesterday Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov - for the fist time since the beginning of the war - did not rule out the sending of Russian peacekeepers to Iraq."

"If the UN Security Council adopts a new resolution, a contingent of Russian peacekeepers will be sent to Iraq," it adds.

Plain speaking and Czech facts of life

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder begins a visit to the Czech Republic on Friday. Prague's Lidove Noviny is certain that he will have plenty to discuss with the Czech authorities, but favours one topic in particular.

The German chancellor and Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla, it says, "could pluck up the courage to implement tougher economic reforms to restrict the boundaries of the welfare state both in Germany and the Czech Republic".

"This would be the healthiest foundation for further strengthening of Czech-German economic relations," the paper believes.

Assurances that "we need one another" are not enough, says the daily elsewhere, bemoaning the fact that, as the paper puts it, "empty phrases" used by both sides "for fear of reviving historical resentments" still prevail over "plain speaking".

For example, the paper explains, it would be plain speaking to say that "the Czech Republic is already so tightly wound up to the German 'network', that its future well-being depends on the state of the German economy".

"This is a fact of life and Czechs should get used to it," it stresses.

French leave

One of the main domestic stories in France concerns the appointment of Charles Millon, a former defence minister, to the post of ambassador to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO.

The controversy, as Le Monde explains, is over the fact that Mr Millon, a member of the centrist UDF, in 1998 managed to retain the presidency of the Rhone-Alpes region with the help of the votes of the far-right National Front, only to lose it 10 months later.

But the harm was done, and what the paper calls Mr Millon's "alliance" with the National Front "led to a series of trials and tribulations, splits and setbacks for the Right" in the region.

With mayoral elections coming up in 2004 and Mr Millon "threatening" to run in Lyon, President Chirac, as the paper sees it, "decided to remove him" from the political scene.

Alpine blues

No doubt the Council already knew the calamitous figures published a day later Le Temps

Geneva's Le Temps wonders with more than a hint of irony if Wednesday 3 September 2003 will go down in Swiss history as a major landmark.

This was the day, it recalls, "that the Federal Council named economic growth as the top priority" for the legislature to emerge after the 19 October elections.

"No doubt," the paper says, "the Council already knew the calamitous figures published a day later."

Switzerland, it explains, "is in recession, and it is doing less well than its neighbours, themselves quite poorly".

Farewell, then....

Two German papers carry differing assessments of President Johannes Rau's time in office after his announcement that he will not be standing for a second term.

"He has fulfilled his role of president in an intelligent, good and agreeable manner," says the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The paper argues that Mr Rau kept his promise of "reconciling rather than dividing", especially by constantly warning that the division of society into Germans and foreigners had to be overcome.

But Die Welt feels the president will not leave much of a legacy.

The paper concedes that the president tried to reach out to people. "But whether he touched them or not," it adds, "remains an open question".

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