[news] European press review

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European press review

 

Tensions between Spain and Britain over a nuclear submarine's visit to Gibraltar, the South Ossetia conflict, racism in France and Russia's Yukos affair are the main topics in today's European papers.

 

'Tensions'

 

Newspapers in Spain see relations with Britain at rock bottom after the country's foreign minister on Wednesday described the planned stopover by a British nuclear submarine in Gibraltar a "provocation".
The submarine's visit is raising tensions to unnecessary levels
El Pais  

 

The HMS Tireless, due in Gibraltar on Friday, was at the centre of a row between the two countries in 2000, when it underwent repairs in the British colony for nearly a year.

 

El Pais says relations are already strained by the failure of a shared sovereignty plan for Gibraltar in 2002, what it calls the "lukewarm chemistry" between British Prime Minister Tony and his Spanish counterpart Jose Rodriguez Zapatero and a series of diplomatic spats.

 

"The submarine's visit is raising tensions to unnecessary levels," the paper says, and urges both countries to patch things up.

 

"The time has come for the two governments to get their act together and tone down the stridency, in the knowledge that for the moment, the chance of a definitive solution to the sovereignty issue has vanished from the horizon."

 

Madrid's ABC agrees, saying that the Gibraltar issue is adding to friction caused by it calls Spain's "hasty" withdrawal of its troops from Iraq.

 

"HMS Tireless's visit is the latest bill Spain's interests and image are being made to pay in the international arena," it laments.

 

'Powder keg'

 

The Russian press continue to focus on tensions with Georgia over the South Ossetia after the region's authorities detained some 40 Georgian soldiers.

 

The Moscow daily Novyye Izvestia says the conflict has put Russia, which the Georgians accuse of backing South Ossetian separatist ambitions, in a difficult position.
The latest events have shown that Tbilisi is banking on force
Krasnaya Zvezda  

 

"This could cause a lot of bother for Russia, which will be criticised whatever it does - for failing to intervene if it keeps its distance, or for throwing its weight about if it tries to put either of the sides in its place," the newspaper muses.

 

The Russian defence ministry paper Krasnaya Zvezda is disinclined to trust the Georgian authorities' assurances that they want to resolve the dispute peacefully.

 

"The latest events have shown that Tbilisi is banking on force," the paper believes.

 

In response to remarks by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili describing South Ossetia as a "powder keg", the article says: "It is of course dangerous to sit on a powder keg, but playing with matches whilst you're sitting on it verges on madness."

 

The popular daily Trud uses a similar metaphor to blame both sides.

 

"Georgia's leaders seem to have forgotten the tale about the match that burnt down the whole forest," it says, but also criticises the South Ossetian leadership for misinterpreting Georgia's dispute with the Russian peacekeepers as an attack on itself.

 

"They have their share of hot-heads there, too."

 

Lessons of history

 

In France, reports that suburbs are becoming ghettoes for the Muslim minority, continuing tension over the ban on headscarves and a rise in the number of anti-Semitic attacks have pushed concern over the state of community relations to the top of the agenda.

 

On Thursday, President Jacques Chirac used a visit to a southern French village famous for sheltering Jews during World War II to urge the French to fight all forms of racism - a move praised by the daily Liberation .

 

"At a time when racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic violence is rising sharply in France," the paper says in an editorial, "the president was right to stress that the state will respond with unswerving resolve against acts of hatred".

 

But while welcoming Mr Chirac's warning that the lessons of the past should not be forgotten, the paper warns that the feelings of marginalisation it says many young Muslims are experiencing in today's France are the real danger.

 

"History has its virtues, but it is not enough when the handing down of democratic values is jeopardised by social exclusion," it concludes.

 

Similarly, an analyst in Le Nouvel Observateur regrets the fact that no Muslim figures were invited to the ceremony attended by representatives of the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish faiths.

 

"This was a mistake which is bound to give rise to inter-communal tensions," he says.

 

'Russian scenario'

 

Newspaper across Europe continue to take an interest in Russia's Yukos affair.

 

In Germany, the Berliner Zeitung finds it odd that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder did not discuss the possible bankruptcy of Russia's biggest oil exporter in his talks with President Putin in Moscow on Thursday.

 

The paper believes the reason may lie in the fact that Eon, Germany's largest energy concern, and its subsidiary Ruhrgas, have a stake in the Russian energy giant Gazprom, which may benefit from Yukos bankruptcy.

 

"The German economy has bet on the right horse," it argues, adding that this explains the German government's "blatant complacency" on the Yukos issue.

 

France's leading daily Le Monde targets its ire at Vladimir Putin, whom it accuses of waging a "judicial, fiscal and police guerrilla war" against the Yukos group and its main shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

 

"You cannot both stand for democracy," it says, "and at the same time flout it by using methods inherited from communism."

 

Meanwhile, in Russia itself, the vice-president of the body representing the country's business community carefully ventures to criticise the handling of the affair.

 

In an article in Rossiskaya Gazeta , Igor Yurgens says his foreign colleagues are "most surprised" to see a "wholly successful company" suddenly on the verge of bankruptcy.

 

"It's all a rather Russian scenario," he remarks. "In theory this should not happen."

 

The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/3878989.stm

 

Published: 2004/07/09 04:40:34 GMT

 

© BBC MMIV

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/0.91/public/-/2/hi/europe/3878989.stm

Europe's papers debate tensions over Gibraltar, South Ossetia, racism in France and Russia's Yukos affair

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