Over the weekend, German sports-car maker Porsche said it would increase its stake in Volkswagen to 31 percent from 27.3 percent. Porsche says it is increasing its shares in Volkswagen in order to prevent a hostile foreign takeover of the Wolfsburg company, which has taken a bashing lately, with job cuts and losses.

Germany's so-called "VW Law" prevents any shareholder in the company from holding more than 20 percent of its voting rights and has long served as an effective poison pill for foreign investors. But a European Union court is expected to rule against the anti-hostile takeover law, which would make Volkswagen more vulnerable.

"If a hedge fund divided the VW concern into individual parts and floated them on the market, we could lose our most important partner," Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking told the mass-circulation newspaper Bild over the weekend. "We cannot allow that kind of asset stripping to happen, and that's why we acted."

Under German law, Porsche is required to make an offer for the entire company once it acquires more than 30 percent of its shares. But the company said it had little interest in an outright acquisition at the moment and would offer the lowest legal bid for the company -- about €100.92 per share, well below VW's current stock price of €117.70.

Still, by increasing its shares in VW, Stuttgart-based Porsche certainly paves the way to make a move down that road. Of course, it wouldn't be an easy road, given that VW is 15 times bigger than its little cousin in Stuttgart.

Ties between Volkswagen and Porsche go back to the Third Reich, when Hitler asked Ferdinand Porsche to design the VW Beetle which would later become an emblem of Germany and car-maker Volkswagen. VW supervisory board chairman Ferdinand Piëch, who until recently also served as CEO, is also a member of the Porsche family.

Editorialists at Germany's two leading national dailies are skeptical of the company's motives. Porsche is painting itself as a company heroically rescuing VW from the threat of hedge funds – which are disparagingly referred to as " locusts " by many in Germany. But some see Piëch as seeking to pull Volkswagen into the Porsche family's empire in a way that cannot be good for VW.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"It sounds nice when the little guy saves the big guy. It draws attention. Porsche and its powerful shareholder Ferdinand Piëch are presenting themselves as VW's rescuers. With the investment, they argue, Porsche is preventing evil hedge funds from taking control of Europe's largest car-maker, devouring the company and running it into the ground like locusts.

"But Piëch's motives are of a strongly personal nature. The ambition of the grandson of Beetle inventor Ferdinand Porsche is to integrate VW into the Porsche-Piëch family. By doing so, the 69-year-old Austrian, who VW executives once accused of having 'pathological tendencies,' has reawakened the principles of the old and feared 'Deutschland AG' (Germany, Inc.) again -- a system in which executives, unions and politicians worked together in order to protect a company from unholy alliances (i.e. hostile takeovers). That may enable him to sleep a little easier, but eventually shareholders will be forced to pay for his decision and jobs will be lost.

"Together with the state of Lower-Saxony, which holds about a 20 percent stake in VW, the Porsche patriarch can finally do what he wants. He has already won the support of workers' representatives on the supervisory board with his concessions. At the New Year, he fired the man in charge of turning the company around, Wolfgang Bernhard, who was unpopular with the union, as well as VW CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder. Now there is nobody left in the company to oppose him. Industry experts report that Piëch has reversed numerous planned cuts in recent years. And under his leadership, VW's cars have become more complex to produce. He's well on his way to endangering the company's latest restructuring success."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Porsche has increased its holdings in VW and their influence in Wolfsburg so much that (Lower Saxony governor Christian) Wulff can't win an open fight against the Piëch-Porsche family ... . Because of the state elections (at the beginning of 2008), Wulff is formally fighting for the preservation of the VW law.

"Wulff has fought against the old insider relationships, and now he's lost. He has less influence now than ever. That would matter only if Wulff would finally sell the state interests in VW, especially since the share prices are higher now. But he won't -- especially not before the elections."

History in the making in Ireland

Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, leaders of Northern Ireland's main Protestant and Catholic parties and long-time figures in the rancorous struggle for Northern Ireland's sovereignty, came to an historic agreement  on Tuesday. Paisley, who represents the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which wants the province to remain British, and Adams, who represents Irish nationalists Sinn Fein, plan to form a power-sharing government by May 8.

German dailies responded to the agreement optimistically, impressed with Ireland's progress and hopeful for the future.

The Berliner Zeitung writes:

"This time the chances are better than ever. Two parties who once embodied the political extremes of the province have closed a deal ... . The protestant DUP and the Catholic Sinn Fein have been on a long journey into the mainstream in the last few years. This March, their electorate gave them a clear-cut mandate for cooperation. What next?

"It's ironic, in light of the horrors of a 30-year civil war, that the first cooperative political act from the DUP and Sinn Fein will be asking Northern Ireland Minister Peter Hain to suspend planned water fees. This pedestrian theme unites every Northern Irishman. It also shows what political advancements can mean -- after the fighting, dealing with the troubles in the ranks."

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Naturally, one can speculate as to what the leadership of both parties, some of whom represent radical variants in certain camps, weighed up before coming to this concession -- the prospect of broad pressure from London, the allure of government benefits, the weariness of both denominations with the political stalemate, or the late wish for a respectable entry in the history books?

"In light of the many, many victims that the conflict on Europe's periphery created, the meeting in Belfast is a hopeful sign. Perhaps this heralds a new era for Northern Irish politics. The governments in Dublin and London should give themselves credit for their untiring dedication. ...