… when EU influence at the UN has been in decline for several years, and in particular in the UN Human Rights Council, where the West used to be unassailable: in the past, the EU could count on the support of 72% of UN countries, today it can only count on about half of them. Experience has shown that targeted lobbying to forge alliances, in particular with African countries, can restore the image [of the EU], and this approach could be adopted by a special human rights representative.

Even if the proposal is approved by the foreign ministers, the post will not be officially created until June, when the EU plans to present its new policy on human rights.

...reduce debt, reinforce control mechanisms and adopt a clear, frank and reliable position with regard to the rest of the world. […] The money China wants to invest in Europe should not be viewed as development aid but must be a successful investment. And in a best case scenario this means both from an economic and a political point of view.

From Germany’s point of view, China could play a key role with its 3.2 trillion dollars of foreign currency reserves. However, Frankfurter Rundschau points out that the People’s Republic will expect a gesture from Europe in return: for example –

EU recognition of China’s status as a market economy, which would make it more difficult for European companies to take action against unfair competition or price dumping.

As a result, Handelsblatt remarks: the Chancellor, who can claim to be the leader that the Chinese believe "has taken charge of the drive to restore the euro," had no opportunity to promote bi-lateral relations as she had planned, and will now have to wait for further meetings later in the year to extract promises from the Chinese Prime Minister.

Ultimaco denies having delivered its products directly to Syrian Telecom. It confirms, however, that it did sell equipment to the Italian firm Area, which it has worked with for years, but that cooperation has now been suspended pending clarifications of the destination and legality of Area’s exports.

In late October, a member of Germany’s leftist party Die Linke questioned the German government over the export of information technology equipment to autocratic and dictatorial regimes, citing the example of Utimaco: “In many states, surveillance technology is a cornerstone of repression”, he declared, in calling for more stringent export controls.

The negotiations to free the journalists were led by the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt. But the minister, who was once on the board of directors of Lundin Oil, an oil firm with interests in Ethiopia, was highly criticised for his lack of commitment in favour of the two journalists. "Our Minister of Foreign Affairs, who talks a lot in general, is keeping a low profile," notes the Dagbladet, adding, "So what is the real meaning of all those Swedish speeches about human rights and all the tax payers' krona for aid to Ethiopia? If we are not ready to fight for freedom of the press and the life of Swedish journalists, in an open and aggressive manner, of what can we be proud?"

“When the UN sends a plane full of emergency food to Somalia is it a communications offensive or the beginning of a determined aid effort?” queries the Berlin alternative daily. “Both responses are correct, that’s one of the paradoxes of [this] famine,” the paper says, adding, “But naturally, we are dealing with hard-core spin when the WFP uses “airlift” to refer to a flight of freight landing at a normal airport, used for commercial ends”.

Without calling into question the need for emergency aid, TAZ notes that real aid consists of supporting the productive forces in a country long before the spiral of pauperisation has begun. Somalia, the paper says, “is an exporter of food. It sold over 4 million farm animals to the Arab world and even today, it supplies sugar and rice to its neighbours”.

Before then, however, Angela Merkel and Wen Jiabao will have dined “at an idyllic spot on the shores of Lake Wannsee” in the German capital. Relations between Germany and China have been strained ever since Angela Merkel received the Dalai Lama on an official visit in 2007. Berlin is now hoping to establish more cordial relations with a country that is crucial to its economy. In 2010, trade between Germany and China was worth 130 billion euros.

Furthermore, recent events such as the Arab revolutions place Europe in a strategic location which President Obama cannot afford to neglect. “The United States needs the British and the French as well as NATO, both militarily and financially,” Le Monde notes. Barack Obama is “courting the Europeans also on the Israeli-Palestinian question,” on which Washington fears isolation “when the time comes to take a stand on the recognition of the Palestinian State, in September at the UN”. This recognition is a “powerful divisive factor” for the Europeans, the paper notes.

Before he was elected, “Nicolas Sarkozy solemnly announced an end to Françafrique [special ties between France and African states], but many commentators are arguing that his direct and active involvement in the Ivorian crisis is an unwelcome interference worthy of the period when the African bureau in the Elysée decided the political future of the negro kings,” remarks the Burkina Faso daily L'Observateur Paalga quoted by Slate Afrique.

For its part, French newspaper L’Humanité quotes American diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks in 2010. “As part of a new deal put forward by Nicolas Sarkozy, Françafrique and the relationship between France and its former African colonies would be adapted to reflect a new international context resulting from globalisation.” According to the American diplomats cited by the communist daily, “France is seeking 'to involve the EU in crises’ like Chad and the Central African Republic with EUFOR. It also wants to ‘develop the role of the UN in crisis management, a process that has already been established in Ivory Coast. With this strategy, ‘the French can hide behind a European or UN screen, points out the document.”

For L’Humanité, “One thing is certain: Bolloré, Total, Bouygues and other French telecommunications companies can heave a sigh of relief; as a political analyst explained in a business daily a few days ago, ‘French investors can still look forward to a bright future in the Ivory Coast’.”

From now, Libération argues the political cards should be left in Ivorian hands: “So it goes in the Ivory Coast, formally decolonised since 7 August 1960. Alassane Ouattara, who stands accused by enemies that make poisonous use of Ivorian nationalism of being the pawn of foreign power, will have to confirm his independence as soon as possible. The first test of his autonomy will be how he handles the fate of his defeated enemy along with his supporters and partisans. (…) It’s up to the Ivorians to embark on a difficult path between memory and reconciliation, and between justice and the need to live together.”

Meanwhile, EUobserver reports that Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini has called on the EU to send a high-level "political support team" to Egypt to “calm tensions”, as well as in other North African countries hit by civil unrest. At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday 31 January, Frattini will outline plans for a European mission that takes contact with “the highest levels […] with civil society, mayors, opposition parties, to collect information, not to give orders.” The minister feels that the highly volatile situation in Egypt cannot “be dealt with by sporadic initiatives of this or that country in Europe, but only by a European initiative." But by Monday, it may well be too late.