http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/not_in_website/syndication/monitoring/media_reports/2988397.stm
Euro press picks over defence summit
Europe's defenders?
The results of Tuesday's defence mini-summit in Brussels received a mixed reception in European newspaper.
The leaders of France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg announced plans for joint military planning and their intention to set up a rapid reaction force.
The east German Maerkische Allgemeine from Potsdam concedes that any effort "to give Europeans more weight in the trans-Atlantic alliance is... legitimate and urgent".
But the paper criticises the way the four prime movers have distanced themselves from Washington, saying it has "destroyed the slight chances of any common defence efforts".
'Wrecking ball'
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung views with scepticism the declaration by the four leaders that they were trying to strengthen the European pillar of Nato.
"It is an open question," it says, "whether the four achieved anything in this regard, or whether they were swinging a wrecking ball."
The Suedkurier from Konstanz has little time for the meeting.
"Europe is not suffering from a shortage of declarations of intent, it is suffering from a lack of resolve. This mess found its visible expression in the Brussels mini-summit."
The Rhein-Zeitung is more positive. "Europe does not need 25 armies", its says.
'Sensible and logical'
The centre-left Frankfurter Rundschau also puts a positive gloss on the summit.
"Much of what they agreed is not new ... and it opens the door to a European army and the abolition of national armed forces."
Munich's Sueddeutsche Zeitung also sees little reason to be surprised at the results, calling them "relatively sensible and logical".
"The text is nothing more than a consistent development of what EU governments have been saying at their summits for years."
'Daring initiative'
France's Le Figaro calls the plan to set up a military planning "nucleus" near Brussels next year, "the most daring of the initiatives".
The paper says Jacques Chirac's statement that "whether you like it or not, a multipolar world is emerging naturally" is a snub to Tony Blair, who had "warned that his country and the rest of the EU would refuse to accept anything that might undermine Nato".
Le Monde emphasises a similar point, reporting that the four leaders "decided to go ahead and announce a number of decisions without waiting for their EU partners".
"Do we, the Fifteen - soon to be the Twenty-five - really want to build a European defence together?" asks the widely-read daily Ouest-France.
"The least one can say is that the building site is in a total mess," the paper goes on.
"The Europeans will have to clarify their relations with America and... Washington will have to agree to allow Europe 'the right to exist'."
The Belgian daily Le Soir questions the results of the summit.
"Among the concrete proposals put forward ... that of creating a 'military staff' independent of Nato in 2004 threatens to arouse an outcry from the most Atlanticist Europeans", it says.
La Libre Belgique, another Belgian daily, praises what it calls the "noble and ambitious" idea that Europe should end its "almost puerile military dependence on the United States".
But it adds that the four participants set "no costed targets" for their projects.
Unity or division?
The Spanish daily ABC thinks money will be the plan's downfall.
"France and Germany's inability to control their galloping public deficits turns the proposal into a mere expression of desires that will be impossible to put into practice," it says.
La Razon argues for giving the proposals a chance.
"We can but hope that the project will manage to unite the other members of the EU under the necessary flag of unity, instead of deepening a division that would only benefit the enemies of a strong Europe," the paper says.
BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.