European press review

Monday's topics include the theft of one of the world's most instantly recognisable paintings, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's welfare reforms and some advice from Madrid to Western entrepreneurs seeking to do business in Russia.

Stolen Scream

"The stealing of The Scream has left Norway speechless," says Switzerland's Le Temps.

Edvard Munch's iconic painting was stolen by armed robbers on Sunday from an Oslo museum packed with tourists.

The paper blames the absence of a security system commensurate with the importance of the painting on what it calls "the Norwegians' somewhat naive confidence in society at large".

The stealing of The Scream has left Norway speechless Le Temps

It recalls that when another version of the same painting was also stolen from an Oslo museum in 1994 - though it was recovered three months later - the thieves left a note saying, "Thanks for the poor security!"

Austria's Die Presse agrees. It argues that such rapid robberies are only possible if paintings are not properly protected.

"If they are kept behind bullet-proof glass, a criminal act becomes immediately less attractive," it points out.

Paris's Liberation argues that The Scream shares with only a handful of other paintings what the paper calls "the honour, or perhaps the curse" of being "instantly recognisable almost anywhere on the planet".

Germany's troubled reforms

In Germany, Berliner Zeitung notes that a record number of protesters are expected to take to the streets on Monday to protest against new unemployment benefit rules.

It argues that Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has not done enough to convince the public of the need for the controversial welfare reforms.

The paper also accuses Mr Schroeder of "pushing through" his Agenda 2010 reform package as a purely party political operation.

"A Social Democratic... chancellor who fails to travel the country to promote the Agenda 2010 and each of its points, will learn that the streets will go to those who don't go to public squares," it warns.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, for its part, accuses of opportunism the members of the conservative CDU opposition who have criticised the reforms.

It notes that the most vociferous Christian Democrats criticising the government come from states where regional elections are due to take place, urging them to reconsider.

What they do now, the paper says, will determine whether the CDU "will be able to look back and say that it marched at the head of the renewal movement", or whether it will be seen instead as "having gone along in a cowardly manner in the slipstream of the SPD".

Spain and the liberation of Paris

Looking ahead to Wednesday's celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Paris, Madrid's El Pais recalls that most of the 150 soldiers of the first allied detachment to enter the French capital were Spanish republicans who had joined the Free French Leclerc Division.

The presence of an official Spanish delegation at the coming ceremonies, the paper says, "is an act of recognition" by the French authorities but also "an act of rectification" by their Spanish counterparts.

Spain's representation, it explains, "will rectify the error" of its absence from the ceremonies in Normandy marking the anniversary of the 6 June D-Day landings.

Fuelling controversy

Spain's El Pais urges European leaders to learn threes lessons from what it calls President Vladimir Putin's "aim to strangle" the Russian oil giant Yukos because he sees the tycoon Mikhail Khodorovskiy as posing a political "threat".

Mr Khodorovskiy is currently in jail facing massive fraud and tax evasion charges.

The first lesson, the paper says, "is that the separation of powers" between the government and the courts "is not yet an effective reality in Russia".

The second, it adds, is that there is currently "a tendency towards (state) monopolisation" in both Russia's politics and its economy.

And the third, the paper points out, is that Western entrepreneurs must realise that they will have no business success in Russia if they "fail to reckon... first and foremost with the interests of (its) leaders".

Combustion engine goes organic

An editorial in France's Liberation notes that the rise in oil prices has resulted in what the paper calls the "unexpected benefit" of a revival of interest in biological fuels.

Such fuels, it says, are "an excellent idea that has remained dormant for at least 30 years".

This only goes to show what a good president we have and what a bad country we are Liberation

"Suddenly, however" the paper says, "a possible next American president, (John) Kerry, has turned them into his favourite campaign topic."

"And as great minds sometimes think alike," it adds, President Jacques Chirac "has just remembered how often he has told his pals" in the farmers' federation "how keen he is on biological fuels".

The paper concedes that France is "substantially lagging behind" in this field. "But this only goes to show," it says with tongue firmly in cheek, "what a good president we have and what a bad country we are."

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