Who will get the top jobs?
The new European Commission will include skilful but rather bland politicians with José Manuel Barroso nevertheless remaining the brightest star in a lacklustre firmament, predicts Warsaw based weekly Wprost. France’s Michael Barnier is seen as a sure candidate for the position of Agriculture Commissioner. Germany will be represented by Günther Oettinger, arch-conservative and current Minister-President of the state of Baden-Württemberg. The German press sees this as symptomatic of Chancellor Merkel’s disparaging attitude to the EU. Oettinger, not a close associate, has been effectively “demoted” to Brussels. Following David Milliband’s withdrawal from the race, the post of High Representative is still up for grabs. “So far it’s only reading tea leaves,” muses Polish MEP Rafał Trzaskowski.
In a time of crisis with high unemployment, young Lithuanians are following in the footsteps of their emigrant ancestors. Tens of thousands have left the country in search of a better life, mainly in the British Isles and Scandinavia. The weekly Veidas reports: 
The new Eurogroup meeting on February 9 is not enough to banish the spectre of a Greek bankruptcy. While Athens may largely be responsible for the crisis, the EU and its partners are not blameless themselves. La Stampa argues that their confused messages and the absence of any strategy have transformed a resolvable problem into an explosive chaos. 
Two camps, two theories, and two visions of France: 18 years after the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis, the precise role played by Paris is still the subject of heated debate, fueled by the findings of successive criminal investigations.