To protest a bill aimed at curtailing press freedoms, three major Estonian dailies published blank front pages in their March 18 editions, reports Postimees, which took part in the action. Three other publications joined the protest by printing a blank page inside their papers. Unanimously approved by the Estonian government, the bill will — among other measures —require journalists to reveal their sources when asked by authorities, with penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment. In addition, publishers who print defamatory information could be sanctioned, as in the UK. In 2009, Estonia still ranked sixth highest in terms of press freedom, Postimees notes. Its peer Eesti Päevaleht reports that press freedom has been increasingly rolled back by recently approved laws aimed ostensibly at protecting private individual data, archives and bills or laws before the Parliament, such as the very measures granting the authority to classify public documents as confidential.

“The Greek crisis is turning into a perilous trial for the eurozone and the European Union,” reports La Tribune, headlining with the widening “Greek rift” between Paris and Berlin. The latest knockback: Angela Merkel’s reaction to the ultimatum laid down by Greek prime minister Georges Papandreou. If Europeans haven’t come up with a solution to the Greek problem by 2 April, Athens will turn to the IMF for deliverance. But “the idea is alluring to Angela Merkel because it would obviate the need for European aid, the bulk of which would be shouldered by Germany”, explains the daily. So that would satisfy her electorate. Furthermore, “by refusing to untie the purse strings, Angela Merkel is forcing Sarkozy to be more receptive to the German vision of economic and monetary union”.

Last week French finance minister Christine Lagarde had brushed aside the idea of a “European Monetary Fund”, a tougher version of the Stability Pact, put forward by her German opposite number, Wolfgang Schäuble. “The IMF option that Berlin is keeping on the table is raising the stakes of economic governance…and mounting the pressure on Paris, which has been conspicuously silent on the subject these past few days,” concludes La Tribune.

Climate change science has had bad press recently, acknowledges The Economist. Revelations that the IPCC had overstated certain global warming outcomes, “have provided heavy ammunition to those who doubt the seriousness of the problem.” Climate science, however, is subject to ambiguity. “The wide range of the outcomes it predicts—from a mildly warming global temperature increase of 1.1°C by the end of the century to a hellish 6.4°C—illustrate the uncertainties”. Which “sit uncomfortably with the demands of politics.” The slogan “Six months to save the planet” garners more support than measured statements about possible climate change impacts. While the range of outcomes may be large, The Economist argues that for governments “the costs of averting climate change are comparatively small. Just as a householder pays a small premium to protect himself against disaster, the world should do the same.”

Several European countries, including the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Hungary, and Germany, have sold "tools of torture" to third party countries in violation of EU law, according to joint report released March 17 by Amnesty International and the Omega Research Foundation, writes euobserver.com. Thumb cuffs, electric shock cuffs, spiked batons and other torture instruments were exported despite a EU law enacted in 2006 forbidding such trade. The EUobserver notes the countries cited in the report apparently used loopholes in the law to make the sales, for example exporting instrument components separately or giving them names designed to fool customs agents. "Those who wish to practice torture always find the means," comments Zbyněk Petráček in Lidové noviny, pointing out that the equipment cited is also regularly used by security forces in the exporting nations. A human rights sub-committee will be making a progress report on the application of the law on 18 March.

"This killing changes everything", El Correo comments, two days after a French police officer was gunned down near Paris by members of ETA, the Basque terrorist group. The Basque-region daily points out that the operation, the first of its kind in France, "poses a real problem for ETA" because the fight against the separatist movement has now become "a priority for the French state." El Correo notes that when two gendarmes were killed by a French-based Basque nationalist group in 1988, French authorities "completely dismantled the group (known as Iparetarrrak) in the space of a few months". The paper expects the French to show "more determination" in the fight against ETA and demands "effective action" from the government.

In the wake of child sexual abuse allegations that have rocked the Irish Catholic church to its foundations, the primate of all Ireland is “ashamed”, reports the Irish Times. In his St Patrick’s Day address to the faithful at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, Cardinal Sean Brady spoke of his role in inquiries into allegations of child sex abuse in 1975, in which the two child victims were made to sign an oath of silence to the Catholic church. Cardinal Brady apologised “for failing to remove the (accused) priest permanently from exercising his ministry” and for not “reporting the allegations to civil authorities”. Faced with widespread calls to resign his office, the Cardinal, the Dublin daily reports, plans over the coming weeks “to reflect on what he had heard from those who had been abused and discern the will of the Holy Spirit.”

Wanted for over 20 years by the Italian police, Sicilian Mafioso Giuseppe Scuderi (44) was finally apprehended on 16 March – in Bucharest. Scuderi, whom an Italian court had sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for torturing and killing a fellow Cosa Nostra member in 1989, has been living under an assumed identity in Romania for three years with his wife, recounts Adevarul. The circumstances of his arrest, the Bucharest daily explains, point up a new modus operandi for the mob. While the Sicilian Mafia has branches all over Europe (in Germany, France, Switzerland, Russia, Great Britain), Eastern European countries are the preferred retreats for Mafioso fugitives wanted by Italian courts. Especially Romania, which turns out to be a hospitable haven for “retired” mobsters and is not known for its over-zealous law enforcement, even if several Italian clan members have been arrested there since the country joined the EU.

The crisis has landed on German workers’ lunches. According to the German Hotel and Restaurant Association, reports the Süddeutsche Zeitung, staff canteens are the eating establishments that have been hardest hit by belt-tightening in the labour force. Traditionally considered the best off in the catering sector, their turnover dropped 6.2% in 2009 on the year before, coming to €5.2 billion. The reason is that many companies have decided to stop subsidising staff meals as part of their cost-cutting efforts amid the current recession, and their employees are changing their eating habits. As a result, the more expensive “organic” and “international cuisine” sections in company cafeterias are no longer all the rage. Already reputed the most penny-pinching nation in Europe when it comes to food, “Germans are now foregoing hot meals in favour of a throwback to a less affluent age: the home-made sandwich,” observes the Munich daily.

Even as Belgium and its former colony seek to resume long-severed relations, a scathing UN report on atrocities committed by DR Congo armed forces has put a spanner in the works, notes De Morgen. The report, to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on 18 March, confirms that members of the armed forces, the police and intelligence forces are responsible for “summary executions, sexual violence, torture and ill-treatment” and that the Congolese authorities are doing nothing about the situation, which is getting worse every year. The report comes shortly after King Albert II announced plans to fly down to attend the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the DR Congo’s independence (on 20 June) and the Belgian defence minister suggested inviting Congolese army brass to attend the Belgian national holiday festivities on 21 July.

"The EU must stop the Muhammad affair," headlines the Berlingske Tidende, after conservative Danish justice minister Lars Barfoed’s asked Brussels to amend the EU regulation on the mutual recognition of judgments. In the name of freedom of speech, the Danish government is flying to the rescue of the Danish papers that ran the infamous Muhammad cartoons on their websites. A number of them have been taken to court or threatened with lawsuits by the Prophet’s devotees in the UK, where the libel laws are notoriously favourable to even pettifogging plaintiffs.