(Reuters) - Germany expects the dilemma of boosting growth and employment while cutting debt to dominate a summit of EU leaders in June, a government spokesman said, in a sign Berlin is relaxing its focus on austerity as the way out of the bloc's crisis. Francois Hollande, the Socialist favoured to win a French presidential runoff on May 6, promises to shift the debate in Europe towards promoting growth if he is elected, criticising Chancellor Angela Merkel's emphasis on economic reform and budget cuts. ...

Spain's King Juan Carlos left hospital Friday, the palace said, after a second hip operation in two weeks following an African elephant hunting expedition that went horribly wrong.

KIEV (Reuters) - Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, sentenced to seven years in prison last year in a case condemned by the West, has asked a local court to adjourn a fresh trial against her on health grounds, her political party said on Friday. The conviction in October of Tymoshenko, President Viktor Yanukovich's key political opponent, drew criticism from the European Union which saw the abuse-of-office charge as politically motivated and urged her release. ...

At least 27 people were injured Friday in a possible terrorist attack in eastern Ukraine, posing a major security challenge in the run-up to the Euro-2012 football tournament.

DNIPROPETROVSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - Four bombs exploded in a city in eastern Ukraine on Friday, wounding 27 people, including nine children, in what authorities described as an "act of terrorism". President Viktor Yanukovich said the blasts in Dnipropetrovsk, six weeks before Ukraine plays host to the European soccer championship, represented "a challenge ... to the whole country." Bomb attacks are a rare occurrence in the former Soviet republic and the blasts one after the other traumatised people in the city, one of Ukraine's main industrial centres with a population of around 1.3 million. ...

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Dutch parliament may approve some of the last-minute cuts agreed on to save its budget from breaching EU rules ahead of a September 12 election, the finance minister said on Friday, protecting the country's credentials as a champion of fiscal discipline. The minority government collapsed at the weekend in a row over the budget cuts, which are required if the Netherlands, one of the last triple-A rated euro zone members, is to meet strict European Union limits on budget deficits. ...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia pressed its case against new sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme on Friday, saying an European Union ban on purchasing Iranian oil would end up hurting the bloc's member countries. "The European Union is rejecting purchases of Iranian oil, even though very many EU countries depend on this oil," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview on state-run Rossiya 24 television. "One can say, of course, that the deficit will be covered, but (some) refineries are geared specifically to Iranian oil ... ...

Former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Friday accused his political enemies linked to French President Nicolas Sarkozy of destroying his bid for the presidency.