Putting green Eldorado on ice
The Czech Republic has neither sunshine nor wind, and yet its solar and wind energy businesses are booming. The sector is spreading so fast, opines Hospodářské noviny, that it’s beginning to look like a “cancerous growth”. Faced with a soaring number of requests from households and companies – along with speculators lured by “pathologically outsized” subsidies (the fattest in the EU) – ČEZ (the country’s main power utility) has decided for the time being to stop issuing permits for wind and solar energy stations to connect to its grid. At the current rate – 700 new stations hooked up to the grid in January – the subsidies are going to cost the state €800 billion from now to 2030. What is more, "the boom in subsidised power has caused electricity rates to skyrocket”, explains the Prague daily, the reason being that ČEZ buys the electricity at twice the price it charges its customers.
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: 
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. 
Agree to new austerity measures or risk being kicked out of the eurozone: that’s the alternative presented to Athens on the day the euro group is meeting. It’s a situation Greek politicians have failed to avoid, regrets To Vima.