European press review

German dailies continue to ponder the pros and the cons of the European Commission's decision to go to court to rescue the EU's Stability and Growth Pact. The French prime minister pens an article reiterating his country's commitment to the double majority rule which so raised Spanish and Polish hackles at the last EU summit.

Meanwhile the German interior minister is taken to task for deciding to move the federal police headquarters. And why the reading habits of Russian children are causing concern.

Euro row

Germany's Berliner Zeitung says the European Commission is wrong to take legal action against EU members in an attempt to enforce the euro zone's Stability Pact, breached last year by France and Germany and then suspended with the help of their fellow-members.

This power struggle is damaging the European Union's cohesion as well as its credibility Berliner Zeitung

In the paper's opinion, the Commission showed it lacked a sense of proportion when it decided to go to court.

"Whatever the judges in Luxembourg may decide," it says, "this power struggle is damaging the European Union's cohesion as well as its credibility."

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung also doubts the appropriateness of legal action.

While acknowledging that the finance ministers' behaviour has strained relations between big and small EU states and contributed to the failure of the constitutional summit in Brussels last month, the paper argues that the damage can only be repaired by political means.

"Germany and France must return to compliance with the law and restore lost trust," it urges.

Spreading the word

Ten leading newspapers in as many European countries, flanked to the West by Portugal's Publico and to the East by Poland's Rzeczpospolita, today carry an article signed by French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

In it Mr Raffarin reiterates France's "attachment", as he puts it, to the double majority rule whose rejection by Spain and Poland wrecked any chances of agreement on a European constitution at last month's EU summit.

It is hard to gauge how much there is of Jean-Pierre Raffarin in France's decisions on Europe Le Monde

In Mr Raffarin's view, the double majority rule is good because any measure or policy receiving the support of 50% of the member states and 60% of the EU's population, would have what he calls "indisputable European legitimacy".

He points out that if no agreement is reached, France has already called for the setting up of so-called "pioneer groups" of like-minded member states who will forge on ahead.

"The French-German relationship", Mr Raffarin says, "could serve as a rallying focus for such pioneer groups."

The French prime minister was in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss what Paris's Le Monde calls "some of the contentious issues" pending between France and the European Union.

"When Mr Raffarin was appointed prime minister in May 2002," the paper notes, "he was reputed to be a good European".

But his general policy statement in July, it adds, was "a disappointment" as far as Europe is concerned.

With President Jacques Chirac very much in charge, "it is hard to gauge how much there is of Jean-Pierre Raffarin in France's decisions on Europe", the paper asserts.

Moving police story

The German Der Tagesspiegel criticizes Interior Minister Otto Schily's decision that the federal police department, currently based in Wiesbaden, should be moved to Berlin.

Schily is too idle to consult, to admit criticism and to wrestle with arguments Der Tagesspiegel

The paper says resistance to the proposal is growing in the minister's own party because "Schily failed to ask anybody".

It dismisses the minister's case that the move is necessary on the grounds of national security, a term the paper accuses the minister of wearing out.

"In reality," it says, "the overblown rhetoric shows only too clearly that Schily is too idle to consult, to admit criticism and to wrestle with arguments."

"Schily must make amends," the paper concludes.

Die Welt concedes that the minister has what the paper calls "a tendency to act in an authoritarian manner", but nevertheless it supports the decision.

Minister Schily "is right to defend the move on the grounds that the pooling of information and preventive crisis management in the fight against terrorism and organized crime can be organized more easily in a single place, the capital".

Not happy with Harry

In an article headlined "Death to Harry Potter!", Russian newspaper Izvestiya reports that the country's education ministry wants to wean children off reading Harry Potter books and onto reading Russian books.

It seems, the paper says, that Russia's children "read the imported Harry Potter, or don't read at all."

In an effort to magic a way out of Hogwarts' school for wizards and charm some life into the local book market, Education Minister Vladimir Filippov plans to meet Russian children's writers for talks.

But according to Dmitriy Palestin, commercial director of a book chain store, the British-based boy wizard has to be given credit for at least getting the quidditch ball flying.

"Our children started to read after the appearance of Harry Potter. From this moment it was possible to talk about a children's book market. Children left the computer screens, turned the televisions and videos off and opened books," he tells the paper.

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