Friday's decision to give a starting date of October 2005 for Turkey's negotiations to become a full-fledged member of the European Union ended a week of heated and sometimes shrill debate in the editorial pages of Germany's newspapers. Now that the decision has been made, some editorialists are looking beyond the internal questions that surrounded the decision -- such as whether the EU could handle more expansion -- and at the strategic implications it might also entail.

The Financial Times Deutschland plays up the strategic importance of the Turkey decision. With it, the EU has moved from being an oversized Switzerland, intent on increasing its own wealth, to playing the role of active participant in interest-based politics. "Europeans must get used to directing their view outward," the paper writes. For largely unbeknownst to its own residents, the paper opines, the EU has already become an anchor of stability and an international actor. When it comes to foreign policy, this means making stability, growth, democracy and increasing influence into the basis of their politics -- especially in its neighboring regions. "If one measures the Turkey decision this way, it's clear that it was the right one," writes FTD. "Any other alternative solution wouldn't have served Europe's interests."

Meanwhile, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung runs a short commentary on the Austrian plan to hold a referendum on Turkish membership. Just a few days ago Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel voted to set a date for the begin of membership talks with Turkey, but he's now calling for a public referendum in his country to make the final decision. Schuessel was always skeptical about Turkey's membership, but "now one knows just what he and Foreign Minister (Ursula) Plassnik mean by a (final) 'stop button'." The referendum would allow Schuessel to put the weight of the decision on the Austrian people. He just happens to know, however, that most of them agree with him on the question. "When it comes to Turkey, about three-quarters of his compatriots share the opinion of the chancellor, who, in opposition to the other heads of state, speaks openly (against Turkey)."

The leftist Die Tageszeitung also has a word or two leftover for Turkey. Despite the overuse the word "historic" has been getting recently, it still applies to the Turkey decision. It answers, finally, a question of identity that has been plaguing the country for over a hundred years: is Turkey a part of Europe? With Friday's decision to begin membership negotiations, the answer is "yes." All the same, it's not as though massive celebrations broke out in Ankara over the news. According to the paper, "the majority of people from Bosphorus to the Iranian border don't really believe that the resolution will actually have any consequences for them."

Russia is the other big topic in Monday's editorial pages, for two important reasons. First, Putin is visiting Germany for a few days. Second, the oil-producing arm of the Russian company Yukos was auctioned off on Sunday, and the winning bid came from an until-now unknown company, raising suspicions that either the Russian government or the huge oil concern Gazprom are clandestinely involved in the deal.

The left-leaning Suddeutsche Zeitung lays out three very good reasons not to be so nice to Putin: Chechnya, Ukraine and Yukos. They aren't going to be enough, however, for (German Chancellor Gerhard) Schroeder to do anything but play up to Putin, because he has always bought into the Kremlin's marketing of their increasing authoritarianism as democracy. The secret of their relationship, writes the paper, is that "the chancellor's fears fit best to the Kremlin-man's plans." Germany needs Russian energy, and thus has a vested interest in Putin maintaining a firm grip on the country. Russia needs to be truly democratized from within, and while that's the job of the Russian people, Germany can make a start. "They should receive Putin with polite restraint, not with amorous ingratiation. It would be a beginning."

The Financial Times Deutschland writes that we shouldn't be fooled by all the smoke and mirrors surrounding the auction of Yugansk, the subsidiary of Yukos responsible for most of Russia's oil production. What at first seemed like a Kremlin campaign merely against Yukos' rich and political owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, may have all along been a ploy for something else. "It's ever clearer that there's a strategy behind it: a partial re-nationalization of the strategically important oil industry." Energy is increasingly key to Russia's power, and Germany is heavily reliant on Russia for its own needs. Thus, it's important that Germany not shy away from criticizing the Kremlin's role in the auction "Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will apparently omit the case from discussions during Putin's state visit. But he'd be better not to," it concludes.