European press review

A joint French-Spanish operation against the Basque separatist movement Eta is the focus of Spanish press comment on Monday, while in France, commentators denounce a botched attempt to free the two French journalists in Iraq.

German papers continue to debate Turkey's bid for EU membership and a Russian paper casts a sceptical eye over "Putin tours" for curious tourists.

End of Eta?

Spanish papers are quick to sound the death knell of the armed Basque separatist movement Eta, after the arrest of two suspected leaders and at least 16 other members of the organisation.

El Pais believes that Eta has been so weakened, and its recruitment potential so reduced in recent times that, as the paper puts it, "for the first time in years there is a theoretical possibility of Eta soon seeing the end of its days".

However the paper doubts that the group will ever announce their own disbandment. "There will always be a hard core," it warns, "prepared to continue or revive its activities".

El Mundo agrees that Eta may be on its way out. Police successes, the paper says, "have created the conditions for Eta's disappearance from a scene in which it no longer has a role to play."

The important thing is to continue the combat La Razon

The paper urges Eta supporters to "face the brutal reality", to defend their ideas through the democratic process and "desist once and for all from a violence that has led the organization up a dead-end street".

La Razon's advice is for the authorities rather than the Basque separatists.

As a result of the blow it was dealt on Sunday, the paper believes, Eta will "play for time in order to rebuild its chain of command".

"This is why," the paper urges the security bodies, "the important thing is to continue the combat without giving [Eta] the briefest respite in which to regroup and rearm".

Dangerous liaison

In France, Le Figaro leads its front page with a report on the anger aroused on all sides by the "dangerous fiasco" of a bungled attempt by a politician to secure the release of the two French journalists, Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, being held hostage in Iraq.

The paper notes that, in addition to the opposition Socialists, the French president, prime minister and foreign minister have all condemned the "parallel initiative" taken by deputy Didier Julia, a member of Mr Chirac's UMP party.

It quotes a Foreign Ministry statement as describing Mr Julia's "totally personal" initiative as "deeply deplorable" and "in no way connected" with the steps being undertaken by French diplomacy which, in fact, it has "brought to a halt".

Liberation is equally critical of the affair. Didier Julia's "cloak-and-dagger capers", the paper says, "have done nothing for the reputation of French diplomacy".

Where does Europe end?

German papers comment on Turkey's bid to join the European Union after EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen said a report due out on Wednesday would be "exceedingly critical" of the country's reform effort.

The Berliner Zeitung says Verheugen has to tread carefully so as not to divide the EU over the issue.

The paper points to unease in the heart of Europe over the membership bid. "Ten or fifteen years," it warns, "are not a long time to dispel century-old mistrust."

But Die Welt believes Turkey need not be unduly concerned about the commissioner's remarks, which the paper says are in the context of a "game with fixed rules" and no real surprises.

"Turkey must expect tighter border controls," it says, "but it will get the ticket."

Putin tours

For those visitors to St Petersburg looking for something a bit different, Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports, curious tourists are now being offered "Putin tours".

"Usually," the paper says, "they are taken to between three and five places in the city connected with the name of the current president."

In the block of flats where Mr Putin lived as a child, the article continues, prices shot up as soon as he became president, and many residents sold up and cashed in on their good fortune.

Now, the paper says, despite the fact that the room where the president grew up does not exist any more, "every new owner believes he is the one that lives in the flat where the Russian head of state used to live".

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