The European media and political leaders are reacting to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama with official welcomes, hope, puzzlement, and some hostility.
In France, the daily newspaper Le Parisien writes lyrically:
In the four corners of the world, the award of the Nobel Prize to the American President Barack Obama – astonishing to some, but little contested – is greeted as a “hope,” a reflection of expectations of “a safer world,” with the prize constituting an encouragement to “move to action.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was equally effusive, addressing his “warmest congratulations” to Obama in a message that said the prize “finally consecrates the return of America to the heart of all the world’s people.” In more prosaic vein, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “We should all support him [Obama] to make world peace more possible.”
In a first reaction, the international version of Spiegel Online places the whole of Europe in the same camp:
The sensational selection of Barack Obama as the next Nobel Peace Prize recipient surprised many leaders in Europe on Friday. The honor comes with joy and great expectations. The first reaction from the White House? A simple “wow.” The first reaction from Europe: Keep up the change, President Obama.
But 20 Minutes, a free daily published in France, Spain, and Switzerland, advises greater caution, noting that there are spreading “criticisms and reservations” concerning the award. Lech Walesa, Polish hero of the struggle against communism and winner of the award in 1983, was among the first to express doubts, saying: “Who, Obama? So fast? Too fast – he hasn’t had the time to do anything yet. For the time being Obama’s just making proposals.”
A similar line is taken by Claus Christian Malzahn, in a commentary on Spiegel Online, who writes that the prize has come too early for Obama, who “cannot point to any real diplomatic successes to date, and there are few prospects of any to come.” He continues:
Obama is just getting started. Awarding him the Nobel Prize now is like giving a medal to a marathon runner who has just managed the first few kilometers. The situation in Iraq is still fragile; in Afghanistan, it has even got worse. Despite the massive efforts by the U.S. administration, there seems little immediate prospect of reaching a compromise between the Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. The Iranian regime is still playing its nuclear games with the West at the diplomatic level, while at home one dissident after another is put on the scaffold. A nuclear-armed Pakistan looks close to collapse, while in North Korea, Dr. Strangelove is stroking his bomb.
A comment in The Times, headlined Absurd Decision on Obama Makes a Mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize, is much more openly hostile. Michael Binyon writes:
The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the president himself. Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world. Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace. . . . The spectacle of Mr Obama mounting the podium in Oslo to accept a prize that once went to Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mother Theresa would be all the more absurd if it follows a White House decision to send up to 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. However just such a war may be deemed in Western eyes, Muslims would not be the only group to complain that peace is hardly compatible with an escalation in hostilities.
Gideon Rachman, foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times, is less averse to the award, but still dubious. He writes on his blog:
I am a genuine admirer of Obama. And I am very pleased that George W. Bush is no longer president. But I doubt that I am alone in wondering whether this award is slightly premature. It is hard to point to a single place where Obama’s efforts have actually brought about peace — Gaza, Iran, Sri Lanka? While it is OK to give school children prizes for ‘effort’ — my kids get them all the time — I think international statesmen should probably be held to a higher standard.
For Gideon Rachman’s views in greater detail, see his column Obama Must Start Punching Harder in the Financial Times of October 13, in which he argues that the award “did the U.S. president no favors,” by focusing attention on right-wing criticisms that he is a weak leader who apologizes for America and is more loved abroad than at home.
