Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi got a double boost this week after surviving confidence votes in both Italy's Senate and parliament. Prodi had taken a political drubbing after members of the left-wing faction of his center-left government coalition threatened snap elections because of their opposition to the country's deployment in Afghanistan. Intially, Prodi resigned, but Italian President Giorgio Napolitano urged him to stay on to see how he fared in the confidence votes.

The votes threatened a humiliating defeat for Prodi, whose government has been plagued by ideological in-fighting and a razor-thin majority. Clearly relieved -- at least for the moment, Prodi on Friday called the confidence vote a "good" one. He added that the "great margin, but also the debate showed the center-left is much more united than the center right and that means the government's work will go ahead strongly."

German editorialists on Friday, though, share little of Prodi's optimism -- painting him as a Pollyanna and predicting a short-lived victory.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"The prime minister may have survived the confidence vote by a narrow margin in Senate, but the situation is still going to get more difficult for Prodi. The government crisis has made one thing obvious: There is very little holding this left-wing coalition together. Whether it be the Afghanistan mission, relations with the United States, reducing national debt, reforming pensions, high-speed trains or non-marital domestic partnerships, the alliance is speaking different languages. A common vision is lacking and the Leftist government doesn't know where to lead Italy with the power it has."

"What remains is a government that is in a perpetual state of crisis. Prodi will have to continue governing with a grenade in his hand to threaten his coalition. But the next time there's an internal rebellion, it could blow his government to bits. At the same time, he will also be forced to rely on help from the opposition on a case-by-case basis on issues like the country's mission in Afghanistan, which is opposed by some leftist senators. That, of course, brings pleasure to opposition leaders like Silvio Berlusconi, who are aware of just how blackmail-able Prodi has become."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Prodi may be breathing a little easier after narrowly escaping a vote of no confidence for his government. But ... the prime minister and his center-left government are by no means out of the woods."

"An ideologically charged foreign policy issue will arise again, and when it does, the communist left-wing faction will likely once more test the stability of the government. The opposition of Silvio Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini will then be standing by to try to prevent Prodi and his foreign minister, Massimo D'Alema, from allowing Italy to become a foreign policy laughing stock or to allow it to become an unreliable alliance partner in Afghanistan. It's not surprising that most Italians don't think the government will survive the coming months."

Merkel's hot air

German op-ed writers also have their necks craned towards Brussels, where EU heads of government and states will meet next Thursday and Friday at a summit that will be the first organized during the German EU presidency. It will be the first public opportunity for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will be at the helm of the meeting, to show whether she walks the walk on tough topics like climate change or her ambitious plan to raise the EU constitution from the dead. On Thursday, Merkel previewed the summit in a speech to parliament. The two papers that bothered to comment on her declaration did little to disguise their lack of enthusiasm about the chancellor's talk, which one paper described as "passion-less."

The left-wing Die Tageszeitung writes:

"In her address to the government on Thursday, Chancellor Merkel reiterated 'Europe's role at the vanguard of climate protection' and called for more ambitious goals to be set in the reduction of damaging greenhouse gases. But at the same time, a central instrument of Europe's climate policy is on the verge of collapsing: The system of trade in CO2 certificates isn't working. The problem is that the cost of certificates on the market permitting the emission of a ton of carbon dioxide has fallen to less than €1 and companies no longer have the incentive to reduce climate-damaging gas emissions."

"The fact that the Chancellor is now claiming that we 'can't just sit back and watch' as climate change happens and declaring that it's 'time to act,' is absolutely correct. And it would be great if we could take her at her word. But the first-third of Germany's presidency of the EU hasn't provided much reason for optimism. So far, Merkel has done little more than put the brakes on efforts to curb emissions. She forced the European Commission to water down its ambitious targets for automobile emissions, she fought against a mandatory speed limit and she persisted in her efforts to obtain greater pollution rights for German industry."

The Financial Times Deutschland also takes the chancellor to task for her government address on the EU. But rather than criticizing Merkel over her climate change record, the paper attacks Merkel for not talking more about her plan to get the European constitution back on track:

"The German government made public its plans to create a road map during its EU presidency for getting the constitution back on track more than six months ago. But it would be great if Merkel would share some of the content of this plan. Is she planning to revisit the failed constitution or does she want to start a completely new process? Merkel is keeping silent. Instead she stuck to vague platitudes like 'We want to push the EU project forward.'"