The newspaper, reporting that Sweden said no to the euro in a 2003 referendum, fears that it will soon see –

one group of countries that travel first-class and take important decisions, and another of second-class passengers who are affected by the decisions but, in practice, have no say in them. And Sweden, accompanied by a few of these other countries, could end up on the platform, pondering its next steps.

Expressen also complains about the Prime Minister's indecision:

Fredrik Reinfeldt wants to say ‘no’ to the euro club members – but in a gentle way. Above all, he wants to ensure that Sweden does not find itself in the third division, where David Cameron has put Britain.

Expressing its alarm at the consequences that can be expected from this agreement, Aftonbladet insists Sweden should not have any part in it:

Wage cuts, reductions in pensions, more unemployment and more power transferred to Brussels – none of which will solve the euro crisis. In this crisis, the only thing that makes sense is to force the ECB to act.

According to Adevărul, Martin Schultz, the leader of the socialist group in the European parliament, has spoken of the possible emergence of "an EU divided in three parts: France and Germany, the rest of the Eurozone and other states with their national currencies". In Bucharest, the Businessmen's Association of Romania (AOAR)  has already proposed that the government take the initiative to form such a "group".

The daily remarks that the initiative would enable "countries that are not in the Eurozone to better protect their interests", but at the same time warns that ensuring "the unity of the zone" would not necessarily be easy. "The Nordic social model in Denmark and Sweden is not aligned with the neoliberal model in Eastern European countries, and London’s status as a net contributor to the EU budget is very different to the status of Eastern countries which are net beneficiaries of the EU’s cohesion policy", concludes Adevărul.

However, the experience of previous agreements hammered out after difficult negotiations should encourage us to hedge our bets. Markets move in mysterious ways, and there is a risk that this latest summit will have been for nothing. With this in mind, it is still too early to draw any conclusions as to its final outcome.

However, in a context where the response of European leaders was informed by the fact that the fate of the EU was at stake, a quick look at the European political landscape in the wake of the October 23 and 26 summits should be sufficient to tell us that the political crisis, which was obscured by the financial crisis, is only beginning.

As many commentators have noted, we are now embarked on a path towards the greater integration of the Eurozone, and this is a move which will generate a lot of uncertainty.

The highly publicised discussions between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have demonstrated that the Paris-Berlin axis is once again the main motor of Europe. But we are no longer in a Europe with just six or 12 member states, and this motor will have less horsepower in the wake of successive EU enlargements and the creation of powerful internal organisations like the European Central Bank.

The spat between Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron, and the Commons debate on a UK referendum to decide on Britain’s membership of the EU are evidence that London is also seeking to redefine its role in what is now a shifting architecture. "Merkozy" will be uneager to offer concessions to the British, who have exerted a long-standing influence on the liberal development of the European Commission, without assuming all the political responsibilities that this would imply.

However, the UK is not the only country to wonder about its role in Europe. The nine other EU members which are not in the euro, and in particular Poland and Sweden, are already grumbling about the inception of what will become a two-speed Europe. The Schengen Area and initiatives for European defence have already set a precedent for EU initiatives with a variable geometry. But they do not involve such a developed level of governance as the one implied by the control of national budgets and the appointment of a European minister of finance.

And here, we are touching on the main point about the instability to come: the economic government that Berlin and Paris are aiming to establish, with support from the Netherlands and Finland, will affect the sovereignty of states and raise the question of democratic control – an issue raised by sociologist Jürgen Habermas in a forthcoming essay from which Presseurop has published a number of extracts.

From this point of view, the EU has now embarked on a dangerous transition, in which its leaders will have to demonstrate their political effectiveness and at the same time keep an eye on the practicalities of democracy: especially when you consider that the ratification process for the 21 July agreement has already shown that national parliaments are very slow when they are required to respond to financial markets. 

Worse still, as Timothy Garton Ash pointed out this week in his analysis of the debates in the UK and German parliaments, national democracies are expressing conflicting demands that have caused the EU to stall. 

But given that no one is ready to establish a European democracy based on a parliament that is elected from transnational lists which take up a position on transnational debates, decisions will continue to be taken by political leaders who meet behind closed doors, and they will continue to be approved by parliaments that have been first and foremost elected to deal with national issues. The euro may be saved,  but the EU is still not out of the woods.

Translated from the French by Mark McGovern

The negotiations to free the journalists were led by the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt. But the minister, who was once on the board of directors of Lundin Oil, an oil firm with interests in Ethiopia, was highly criticised for his lack of commitment in favour of the two journalists. "Our Minister of Foreign Affairs, who talks a lot in general, is keeping a low profile," notes the Dagbladet, adding, "So what is the real meaning of all those Swedish speeches about human rights and all the tax payers' krona for aid to Ethiopia? If we are not ready to fight for freedom of the press and the life of Swedish journalists, in an open and aggressive manner, of what can we be proud?"

It is no coincidence, notes the newspaper, that one of his poems was read in 2003 at one the recent events that have most strongly marked the country, the funeral of the assassinated foreign minister Anna Lindh. “The Nobel Prize this year,” it continues, “is a triumph for poetry as a way of life, for its ability to shine a light into the lives of ordinary people."

But this changes nothing, writes Jyllands-Posten, which believes that the Danish government must have understood by now that it "will not succeed in deceiving European governments” by speaking of the controls in this way.

Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen finds himself confronted with a growing problem, the paper notes, and it's time “for him to choose whether it’s Europe or the People’s Party he wants to put in its place. We propose, with respect, that it be the latter."

In Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitung regrets what it describes as "European sequestration."  "It's bad enough that Denmark unscrupulously restricts one of the main freedoms the Europeans have fought for: the abolition of border controls," writes the Munich daily. "But it is worse yet that other European countries are probably going to tolerate this attack against one of the pillars of the unification of Europe. The Commission has known of the intentions of the Danes for almost two months. But since then it has merely ‘examined’ the situation." However, the SZ remarks, “one cannot put forward the excuse that political power is occupied with the debt crisis. Freedoms are just as vital for the EU as its currency."

In response to the book which announced the theory about the film director who died in 2007, his niece, Veronica Ralston, ordered the DNA tests whose results have now been disclosed. The book claimed that Karin Bergman, was ill when she had a child who may not have survived. Bergman’s father allegedly switched this child with a baby that he had with another woman. "If this information is true, it will cast a new light on Bergman’s filmography," in which his mother plays a central role, points out a Dagens Nyheter columnist, who also wonders "how writer Henning Mankell will treat the disclosure in the TV series he is writing about Bergman’s life."

Royal families, who “like to present themselves as in touch with ordinary people, still have much greater privileges than their subjects,“ points out the magazine. And taxpayers continue to pay “110 million euros per year, according to a Dutch 2009 study,” to keep them in the style to which they are accustomed. In return, Der Freitag argues that countries with royals benefit from a stronger national identity: Juan Carlos I is considered to be “the father of Spanish democracy,“ Albert II is “a symbol of Belgium’s much-threatened unity.” And lets not forget the Grimaldi family “without whom Monaco would have long been a French province.”