As Europe watches Arab unrest, fears over oil, migration shade its response

Europe's proximity to North Africa makes revolution in the Arab world of obvious and enormous significance. The speed of change in Tunisia and Egypt caught Europe unprepared and slow to respond – though European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton quickly responded to violence in Libya, calling it “unacceptable.”

For the most part, however, the euphoria and ingenuity of the young, tech-savvy revolutionaries and their calls for dignity, jobs, and the end of police states initially filtered to Europe through a layer of caution and worry. The first EU ministers' meeting on the subject took place Feb. 20, and a “new partnership” with Egypt and Tunisia was promised. Prior to this, a divided EU mostly watched as Western response got shaped by the US.

Europe's oil comes through the Middle East, and Arab immigrants populate its cities. There's concern about instability and tides of new immigrants.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is reportedly miffed that President Obama abandoned Hosni Mubarak so soon, and Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi defended the ousted leader a week after he fell. Mr. Berlusconi is also the closest EU leader to Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi.

Much of the fear in Europe involves sudden changes to a status quo the Continent has been comfortable with for years. Arab autocrats policed borders and coasts to stop migrants heading north, and won Western support by presenting themselves as bulwarks against Islamic extremism. Human rights issues were rarely raised.

"The Obama people played this well," says Antoine Sfeir, director of the Middle East Journal in Paris. "Obama understands the Facebook generation. But in the European popular mind there's been a tendency to view this through an Islamic lens. In fact, we are arriving back to the fundamental 14 points of President Wilson in 1917, and self-determination. The EU needs to rethink its checkbook diplomacy to the Middle East and engage in things like funding schools."

Europe’s overall reaction has largely been divided, with Germany, the United Kingdom, and Nordic nations hailing change much earlier than France and Italy, where popular concern about the Arab world, Islam, and immigrants is higher.

British leader David Cameron was the first EU head of government to visit Cairo two days ago, en route to a long-planned trip to Gulf states for a controversial sale of British arms.

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