Scrappage stops, car sales pop
A huge increase in German car sales (+28 %) has now exhausted the €5 billion budget the German government planned to spend on its scrappage scheme. Handelsblatt reports that two million consumers have taken advantage of the scheme to buy new vehicles, but warns that the car industry will likely face fresh difficulties. The market may plunge now that "the scheme has come to a sudden halt." The business daily further argues "that Germany's scheme should have been phased out gradually (…) like its equivalent in France." 2010 will likely be a very poor year for car sales, because the buyers of 2009 will certainly be absent from the market. "The car makers are forecasting sales of 2.8 million cars as opposed to the 3.5 million sold this year," writes the daily. Meanwhile, French daily Libération notes that France's decision to prolong support to carmakers by extending its scrappage programme until 2011 "is tangible proof of a complete lack of coordination in European industrial policy."
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.