Cartoons controversy: EU Disappoints
EU Observer reports that Danish politicians are disappointed with the lack of EU support in the country’s current crisis over cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed.
With embassies and flags on fire, a Middle East boycott of Danish goods and Danish citizens on the run, there is growing disappointment with the EU for its lack of support for the country at the centre of the conflict.
At a meeting in the Danish parliament’s foreign affairs committee today (7 February) Danish opposition parties and experts are expected to criticise openly the EU’s “wait-and-see” attitude, reports Danish business daily Borsen.
“This is a wider European problem and not just a Danish problem. I think it is strange the EU has been so absent in this discussion,” said Holger K. Nielsen from the Socialist People’s Party (SF).
“They all sit on their hands and hope it will just go away. But it would be useful if the EU clearly and in a united way entered the fray,” said Lars Erslev Andersen, one of the country’s top Middle East experts.
With the violence - encouraged and condoned by some governments - now starting to claim lives and the original dispute being exploited by religious extremists, Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen is certainly right to describe this as a “global crisis.”
And with Iran imposing a trade embargo on Danish goods, now might be a good time to remind the EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson that a little over a week ago he said:
“Any boycott of Danish goods would be seen as a boycott of European goods.”
On a related note, it is worth noting that Iran is now using the controversy to promote it’s own anti-semitic agenda. According to The Guardian, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed that the cartoons - which were published last September - are part of an Israeli conspiracy motivated by Hamas’ election success two weeks ago.
If someone’s invented time travel, I want to know about it.
Tuesday 07 Feb 2006 | Paul | Denmark, EU, Iran
