EU hands Palestinians a legal victory
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that products originating from the Israeli-occupied territories may no longer benefit from custom duties exemptions granted to Israel under its association agreement with the EU. "Thursday, 25 February will no doubt mark an important victory for pro-Palestinian militants," writes Le Soir. "The ruling sets the stage for jurisprudence over an issue (the origination rule) that has poisoned trade relations between Europe and Israel for a long time."
The Belgian daily notes that on 8 December 2009 "the 27-member EU government again restated its recognition of the 1949 cease-fire lines as the Jewish state's borders," which excludes the territories occupied by Israel since 1967. Some 276 Israeli companies, "from SMEs to multinationals" are located in the occupied territories, Le Soir reports.
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.