Europe wields its soft power like an axe

WHILE all is far from quiet on the Middle Eastern front, the cease fire in Lebanon gives European papers a chance to assess the EU’s role in sending a peacekeeping force to the volatile region.

The Financial Times Deutschland says the EU’s decision to deploy more than 7,000 ground troops shows Europe has made progress since its Balkan Wars-era helplessness. "It demonstrates that the EU is now more capable of playing a role in the world," the paper writes, though the internal bickering over troop numbers shows the decision-making process is far from perfect. "France cut the most embarrassing figure of all," the paper complains.

Le Monde believes Europe should lead efforts to rebuild Lebanon in an effort to make up for its diplomatic failure during the crisis. "The EU should take the initiative over the country’s reconstruction and become a top contributor," it says, adding that it will be important to help the government in Beirut so that Hizbullah does not get the "monopoly on the country’s reconstruction". Kneel before our soft power!

Der Spiegel argues that the difficulty in assembling the force "shows just how far Europe still has to go before it can claim to have a common foreign policy". It adds: "The idea remains fiction today that the EU could secure a position at the forefront of world order with a collective foreign policy and a self-contained defence. Even the idea of being a second-tier player - behind the US but close or alongside Russia and rising powers like China and India - seems remote today."

Back on the home front, some news about how hard Europeans are willing to work.

The Financial Times asked 10,000 people over the age of 16 in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain for their views on working hours. The result? "A clear majority of people calling for greater freedom to work longer hours. Some 65% of Germans and 52% of French oppose government controls on working hours."

Romanian papers react to a frenzy of coverage in the British press on the expected migration of workers from future EU member countries to the UK.

According to the BBC translation service, Curierul National says that "while the British government is thinking of restricting the free movement of Romanian workers, businessmen in the UK are lobbying labour to be imported from our country". It adds, in the under- statement of the week, that any move to restrict the free movement of workers from Romania or Bulgaria when the countries join the EU next year "could prove controversial".

Evenimentul Zilei urges calm. "The fact that the United Kingdom will not open its doors completely to Romanian workers for perhaps two or three years need not be taken as a drama," the paper assures. "On the basis of a selective policy, those with a qualification which is in demand can already find jobs in the UK now."

The paper also points out that migration is a two-way street: "Statistics show that many British people emigrate. They have done so several times in history. In 2004 more than 200,000 people left Britain." True, but most of them came to Brussels.

• Craig Winneker is editor of TCSDaily.com

WHILE all is far from quiet on the Middle Eastern front, the cease fire in Lebanon gives European papers a chance to assess the EU’s role in sending a peacekeeping force to the volatile region.