Do right by Tunisia this time

"European Neighbourhood Policy": it sounds lucid, almost leisurely. But such felicitous phrasing coming from Brussels only shrouds the ambivalent arrangements with those difficult neighbours, formerly rooted not so prettily in Europe's "backyard", and now solicited as "partners".

In a clockwise direction, this backyard begins in the north with the Belarus of dictator Lukashenko and the Ukraine of the authoritarian president Yanukovych, the countries through which two gas pipelines to Europe transit. Extending south via the Caucasus and the unquiet lands of the Middle East, it reaches the sandy shores of northern Africa.

Translated from the German by Anton Baer

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Debate

A new era of freedom?

“Who’s next?” wonders Libération alongside a photo-spread of worried Arab leaders. In the wake of the Tunisian revolution, a number of observers are predicting “an end to the halcyon days of dictatorial politics. Arab states are likely to be disrupted by anarchy. And whereas regime change could pave the way for more democracy, it could also be to the advantage of Islamist parties who have significant popular support,” writes the Paris daily. However, “the movement in Tunisia has shown that a call for freedom does not go unheard (…) A fact that should be taken into account by Western diplomats who abandon their principles to side with those in power.”

In the British Independent, journalist and specialist writer on Arab affairs, Robert Fisk, remarks that "the brutal truth about Tunisia" is that the young revolutionaries who came together on the internet may be disappointed in their quest for freedom: “the ‘unity’ government is to be formed by Mohamed Ghannouchi, a satrap of Mr Ben Ali's for almost 20 years, a safe pair of hands who will have our interests – rather than his people's interests – at heart.”