[Press Review] 20 February 2006
EUOBSERVER.COM
20.02.2006 @ 09:38 CET
Contents
1. Top stories
2. International
3. Legal and Social
4. Financial
Top stories
Bird flu arrives in France
France and Austria have joined Germany, Italy, Slovenia and Greece in detecting the H5N1 flu strain in dead wild birds, European media writes.
French farmers fear poultry consumption could nosedive following the news, with Paris already earmarking €5 million of aid to the sector, French media say.
The country’s agriculture minister Dominique Bussereau also announced a vaccination scheme for 900,000 chickens and geese.
Austrian health minister Maria Rauch-Kallat has called for a Vienna meeting of all European bird flu-struck countries and the World Health Organisation.
In Germany, the virus has spread to the mainland with cases found in Eastern and Northern Vorpommern, German media write.
The German army is helping slaughter all poultry on the island of Ruegen where 59 birds have already tested positive for H5N1 and where "hundreds" more have been found dead.
"The situation is serious," chancellor Angela Merkel said.
Il Giornale reports that Italian agriculture minister Gianni Alemmano will again ask for EU funds for chicken farmers, saying that Italy is ready to "risk legal procedures against the EU".
Il Giornale
El Pais
FT Europe
Guardian Europe
Times
Telegraph
Sueddeutsche
Spiegel Online
Handelsblatt
Die Welt
EUobserver
FAZ
FT Deutschland
Liberation
Le Figaro
Le Monde
Gazeta Wyborcza
Rzeczpospolita
Indian bounty placed on Danish cartoonist
An Indian local government minister in Uttar Pradesh, Jacob Kureshi, has offered a bounty of over $10 million for the head of Dutch cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who drew some of the Danish Mohammed cartoons, Rzeczpospolita reports.
The move follows an earlier reward offered by an imam in Pakistan.
Twenty-seven people died in cartoon clashes over the weekend, with 11 killed in Libya and 16 in Nigeria, where 15 christian churches were also burned, European media say.
Over 200,000 chanted anti-European slogans on the streets of Istanbul, Spanish papers report.
Roberto Calderoli, the Italian reforms minister, resigned on Saturday after wearing a Mohammed cartoon t-shirt said to have sparked the Libyan violence, Italian papers write.
But prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's pressure on Calderoli could see him lose the support of his Lega Nord party in upcoming elections.
Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in an interview with FT Europe, that the cartoon row, last year's French riots and the London underground bombings, show Europe has failed to integrate its muslim minorities.
"Better education and more jobs for immigrants – these are the main elements of better social cohesion all over Europe," he said.
And a UK survey among British Muslims show that 40 percent would like to see Sharia introduced in areas predominantly inhabited by muslims in the UK, Spanish papers report.
Il Corriere della Sera
La Repubblica
Il Giornale
IlSole24Ore
La Vanguardia
Dagens Nyheter
ABC
FT Europe
Sueddeutsche
Liberation
Le Figaro
Le Monde
Rzeczpospolita
Gazeta Wyborcza
EU founders to create energy club
France, Germany and the Benelux countries have started talks on creating a mini-single market in energy with the support of energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs, El Pais writes.
All energy produced in the five founding countries of the EU will be at the disposal of the others in the club, which came about because a 25 country-wide agreement is considered too hard for now.
Meanwhile, a draft green paper by the European Commission says the EU will have to put energy security at the heart of its foreign relations, using its aid and trade policy to avoid greater dependence on Russia, FT Europe writes.
And a major attack on Shell Oil's facilities in Nigeria could impact European fuel prices, writes Dagens Nyheter.
FT Europe
Dagens Nyheter
El Pais
Verheugen predicts political union in 20 years
Gunther Verheugen, the EU industry commissioner, in an interview with Die Welt unveiled his vision on the future European Union.
Asked by the paper how the EU would look like in 20 years, he answered "I believe…we will have a political union, but maybe not with all states that now form part of the EU."
"In 20 years all European states will be member of the EU, except the post-Soviet states that do not yet form part of the EU now," he added.
Die Welt
Albania takes EU membership step
The EU has taken the first legal step toward Albanian accession with the signing of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement in Tirana over the weekend, Polish media say.
"This is a huge step for Albania on the road to EU membership," European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said.
Gazeta Wyborcza
Rzeczpospolita
International
Turkish film triggers German censorship campaign
A Turkish war film called "Iraq: Valley of Wolves" has opened up a new front in the western-muslim row over free speech, European media say, with Bavarian leader Edmund Stoiber saying it should be censored in Germany.
I call upon German cinemas to stop this racist and anti-western film," he said, echoing the calls of other conservative politicians and the country’s jewish community.
The movie shows US soldiers butchering innocent Iraqis for transplant organs and Turkish "Rambos" grinding daggers into the hearts of US officials.
Spiegel Online
Die Welt
Handelsblatt
Gazeta Wyborcza
Rzeczpospolita
Sensitive Kosovo talks begin
UN-sponsored talks between Belgrade and Pristina on the future status of UN-administered Kosovo start in Vienna today, N write.
But high-ranking UK diplomat John Soyers recently let slip that the UN's so-called Kosovo Contact Group (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the US) "has decided" Kosovo will be an independent country, Rzeczpospolita writes.
Liberation reports that Serbs are bitterly opposed to what they see as the international community's partition of their country.
Liberation
Rzeczpospolita
EU dithers over Congo
The EU is taking a long time in convincing member states to send military forces to the Democratic Republic of Congo to help manage elections, Le Monde writes.
The UN has asked for European troops but nobody wants to oversee the operation.
Le Monde
Moscow and Tehran to discuss nuclear compromise
An Iranian delegation is going to Moscow today in order to discuss the Russian offer of enriching Iranian uranium on Russian soil, Le Figaro writes.
Dagens Nyheter
Le Figaro
Spiegel Online
Die Welt
Legal and Social
Blair welcomes services vote
UK prime minister Tony Blair in an interview with FAZ welcomed last week’s compromise hammered out by the European Parliament on the services directive.
"It corresponds to 60 to 70 percent of the original proposal of the European Commission. That is of course not the 100 percent that we would have liked. But there is now agreement on an issue which many people thought could not be solved under the present conditions," he stated.
FAZ
New member states lag on road safety
The European Commission will publish a road safety report this week which highlights the problems of roads in the "new" EU member states, the Independent writes.
Speeding, drink-driving, old cars and a failure to use seatbelts and child seats are being blamed for the huge human toll in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Independent
European youth binge drink more than ever
A study ordered by the European Commission has showed that more and more young Europeans drink themselves unconscious, Svenska Dagbladet reports.
Binge drinking among teenagers is growing in all member states, with a dramatic increase in Estonia, Sweden and Ireland.
Svenska Dagbladet
Financial
EU to launch shoe tariffs
The EU is planning to introduce anti-dumping duties of almost 20 percent on shoe imports from China and Vietnam, affecting about 8 percent of shoes sold in the EU, writes FT Europe.
FT Europe
Guardian Europe
Chirac calls on French companies to capture Indian market
French president Jacques Chirac yesterday called on French companies to be more "united" in capturing the Indian market on the first day of his visit in India.
The trip could be overshadowed by Paris opposition' to Indian owned Mittal Steel's expansion in Europe, French media say.
Le Figaro
Le Monde
Liberation
ECB urges financial integration
Europe's tax collectors and other public administrators need to step up efforts to adopt eurozone-wide non-cash payment systems, the European Central Bank says, according to FT Europe.
The European Commission has previously threatened to legislate on the subject unless financial institutions take the move voluntarily.
FT Europe
Brussels on UK finances
The European Commission is to issue a new economic overview of the UK’s budgetary policy, claiming the country’s finance minister Gordon Brown may be using over-optimistic growth assumptions, a situation which could in reality lead to higher budget deficit than predicted by the British government, the Independent writes.
Independent
Germany to slash budget deficit
The German government has planned to borrow €22 billion in 2007, dropping to €20 billion in 2009, according to German media, compared to current borrowing which stands at € 38.3 billion.
Spiegel Online
FAZ
Die Welt