EU favours Russia over Ukraine
Russia is now closer to becoming an EU member state than the Ukraine, part of the Union’s Eastern Partnership programme. So runs a clearly exasperated front page article in Polska this morning. In a recent reply to a question tabled by Polish MEPs concerning visa requirements for Ukrainian citizens, the European Commission ruled out “full liberalization…in the near future.” This when visas for Russians travelling to the Schengen Area for short periods are to be waived – one of the outcomes of the 18 November EU-Russia summit. Indignant Polish experts are asking why the EU lifts visas for Serbs, but not for Ukrainians, given that one of the Eastern Partnership programme’s stated aims is a relaxation on travel requirements. Polska goes on to explain that the “continuing political mess in Ukraine,” is making Brussels jittery. “In the Brussels-Moscow-Kiev triangle, there’s been a definite shift in the Kremlin’s favour,” the Warsaw daily concludes.
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.