Presseurop

De Volkskrant, Amsterdam – Cartoon. See more.

After months of discussions, eurozone finance ministers eventually found a successor as Eurogroup chairman to Luxemburg’s prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker. During the January 21 meeting in Brussels, they are expected to appoint Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem (labour party PvdA), reports De Volkskrant. The newspaper adds that the only critic of the Dutch candidate, French finance minister Pierre Moscovici, announced on French TV channel TV5 that he has dropped his opposition to the appointment.

De Volkskrant columnist Martin Sommer, is pleased to report that Dijsselbloem will prove more eurosceptic than his predecessor, saying –

Juncker […] thought the European leaders knew exactly what to do, and that it’s just a pity that the electorate is hard to convince. This has been the heart of the European way of thinking for ages, and if my feeling about Dijsselbloem is correct, his attitude is completely different.

Sommer thinks Dijsselbloem will be a welcome counterbalance to the other three presidents of the EU –

Dijsselbloem is […] an advocate of evidence based policy, which seems to me to be a good guiding principle in Europe. It’s also close to the views of [prime minister] Mark Rutte, who doesn’t want any long term visions [of the EU]. This is exactly what we need in the company of [EU Commission president] Barroso, [ECB president] Draghi and [EU Council] Van Rompuy. All three of them are heading full speed towards a ‘total Union’. Besides, all three all three catholics from the south.

Público has a radically different opinion. The Lisbon daily states that “the departure of Jean-Claude Juncker from the Eurogroup marks the end of a cycle and it is negative for Portugal.”

This is not a good news for Portugal, for the single currency and European integration. He has always been an ally of Portugal and never stopped warning about the excesses of a „punitive“ culture that rich countries of the north, impose on a south beset by crisis.

Público also finds Dijsselbloem’s capacity for negotiation matches that of his predecessor –

Jean-Claude Juncker was always able to create a bridge between the two extremes of the Paris-Berlin axis. This capacity for dialogue is also recognised in his successor. But Jeroen Dijsselbloem will assume this role as representative of the wealthy and without the political weight of his predecessor. He is a man of another Europe, where EU institutions have lost power and where integration is done not in the name of federalism, but as part of a power struggle in which the EU’s centre shifts from Brussels to Berlin.

The Guardian, London – Cartoon. See more.

Lidové noviny , Prague – Košice this year shares with Marseille the title of European Capital of Culture (ECOC). An acronym that Slovaks shorten to "Ehmk" and which sounds more like a sigh than a top class cultural event, notes a Slovak music critic. See more.

La Tribune, Paris – A week after launching operations against the Islamists who are in control of the north of Mali, the French are still the only Western forces with boots on the ground. But the bloc, which has renounced a joint military capability, is there on other fronts – just more discreetly. See more.

Editorial

What was bound to happen has happened. Now that the Malian conflict has spread to Algeria, the French military operation launched last week to block the advance of Islamic militias who control the north of Mali looks increasingly like the start of a long and difficult war. And it is a war that France cannot hope to win alone, without help from its European partners, if not from NATO.

The military, humanitarian, and diplomatic involvement of the EU’s 27 member states is all the more appropriate when you consider that the current crisis has resulted from a situation of which they were well aware, but one which they sought to ignore. In its strategy for development in the Sahel (March 2011), the EU clearly mentioned the direct and indirect control exerted by Al-Qaeda on that part of the region, but it continued to prioritise development aid and regional cooperation rather than the fight against Islamic militias.

This was not in itself surprising, because these are areas in which the EU has a well recognised expertise. But it was a policy which overlooked one of the main — if not the principal — obstacles to the economic development of a region that is reporting enviable growth.

And it is an obstacle that Europeans appear unwilling to tackle with anything more than good intentions, a few transport planes, and the dispatch of instructors to assist local armies, which are largely unable to confront the hardened and highly motivated jihadis. This was once again evident at the extraordinary meeting of EU foreign ministers on Thursday.

All the indications are that these measures will not be enough to rid the region of the threat these militias represent for the countries directly involved and also for Europe. Their neutralisation — (Can we negotiate with them?) — is an essential condition for the stabilisation of the region and its economic development. Europeans can still benefit from a certain amount of goodwill on the part of the populations concerned, which have been confronted with the reality or the prospect of the dictatorial rule of Islamist gangs.

Whether we like it or not, in view of its implications, this is a war with a direct impact on Europe. And European states would do well to take their heads out of the sand and assume their responsibilities — either individually or within the framework of the EU — while they still benefit from a positive image in the region.