Hypocrisy, but in which wreck?

Turkish commentators continue to interpret the political posing of EU leaders. One writing in the daily paper Zaman notes Enlargement Commission Olli Rehn’s recent likening of the Turkish accession process to a train journey (or possibly a train wreck waiting to happen).

"The point we have arrived at is no surprise, in fact, it was already being anticipated," the author writes. "If we are to dwell on the train-wreck metaphor, the train has not gone off the rails, but it has slowed down and eight of the wagons have been shelved."

As for Rehn himself, the commissioner is quoted in the International Herald Tribune calling on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Jacques Chirac to resist demanding a deadline for Turkish accession and "to look for a balanced solution which, on the one hand, shows the consequences of noncompliance by a candidate state but, at the same time, keeps the accession process with Turkey alive, because of its strategic importance for both Europe and Turkey".

He should stick with the choo-choo train.

Meanwhile, French politics gets juicier every day. Several publications weigh in on the backing-and-forthing between presidential hopefuls Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal.

"The obvious feverishness of Nicolas Sarkozy, his response to the millimetre by millimetre drip feed of Ségolène Royal’s media activity, is a sign of weakness," writes a columnist in Les Dernieres Nouvelles D’Alsace. "The warning sign of a worrying lack of strength and power at the moment of take-off."

And in La Charente Libre, a commentator argues that in "the media battle rather than the political fight that is currently being played out, each of the two rivals is seeking to make their mark at the other’s expense. It remains to be seen whether in this battle of images, this one-upmanship of appearance…they will finally wear themselves out. Or us."

An American living in Paris, Nidra Poller, writes in the Wall Street Journal Europe on Royal, who is running "on a platform of a radiant smile, an attentive ear and a wardrobe of short close-fitting jackets…last week the freshly elected presidential candidate flew out of the comradely embrace of her party and landed, awkwardly, in the Middle East."

"Ségolène Royal made so many faux pas that the French media were jolted into a rare moment of unfettered reporting," adds Poller.

Le Figaro reports on a new German Marshall Fund survey that finds a disturbing issue on which Americans and French agree: they are among the most sceptical people in the world when it comes to market liberalisation. "The French," the paper notes, "are the only country in the world in which a majority of the population is hostile to liberalisation."

On the subject of global warming and aviation, the Wall Street Journal Europe lambasts what it sees as European hypocrisy. "Governments that are happy to blame air travel for the world’s environmental problems are bankrolling new planes," its editors write. "Just imagine if Europe were to subsidise domestic agriculture and then give aid to poor countries whose farmers lose out as a result. Oh, wait - they do that, too."

• Craig Winneker is a freelance writer based in Brussels.

Turkish commentators continue to interpret the political posing of EU leaders. One writing in the daily paper Zaman notes Enlargement Commission Olli Rehn’s recent likening of the Turkish accession process to a train journey (or possibly a train wreck waiting to happen).

• Primary Source