European press review

It's January 1, the start of a New Year, and this last week the press around Europe has been focused on 2011. It was a year marked by economic crisis, natural disasters, and social upheaval.

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In Switzerland, Neue Zürcher Zeitung finds a reason to be hopeful in 2012, in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings. When people took to the streets, organising through social media, dictators fell in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The conservative daily says that the future of despots in northern Africa and the Middle East remains to be seen. For the time being they have beaten a tactical retreat, but cannot be written off totally.

Yet the communication revolution that helped lead to their downful shows that people are no longer prepared to be intimidated by their leaders. The message from this last year is that no dictator is safe from his citizens now that they have seen the benefits of civil disobedience.

One country on a knife edge at the turn of the year is Syria. As Arab League monitors inspect the country, the Guardian reports that violence has been on the rise, with suicide car bombings, possibly the work of Al Qaeda.

December was the bloodiest month in Syria so far, with most of the bloodshed caused by government security forces, the left-leaning daily says. Economic sanctions are taking a toll too, while supplies of oil for heating and cooking are disappearing. Yet, the paper says, the arrival of the observers offers hope for a political solution.

Meanwhile the Syrian opposition wants to be recognised as the legitimate representative of the people, just like the opposition in Libya did. It wants safe havens and humanitarian corridors set up, which could be protected by Nato war planes.

The paper says President Assad would be wise to open talks with the opposition, and impress many Syrians who support neither the regime nor the uprising.

In Europe, the debt crisis has taken its toll on governments and economies over the last year. Portugal was one of the main victims.

Writing in the daily Diario de Noticias, former president Mario Soares recalls how financial markets wanted to turn Portugal's economic standing into junk status in 2011. But it was also a bad year for the European Union, in economic terms, the former head of state says in the centrist newspaper.

The crisis was bad enough, and the lack of an EU solution only fanned the flames. But while the immediate future does not look calm, Europe will not be plunged in to the abyss as the prophets of doom predict, he says.

This is because the crisis is a global one and hits everyone in the same way. This is why is Europe under pressure to save the world, because it has become a benchmark for the international community.

Another victim was Ireland. The crisis claimed a government, and more.

2011 was a year of political upheaval in Ireland, the Irish Times says. Fianna Fail's dominance of political life was shattered, with the collapse of the banking and building sectors, a drop in living standards, rising unemployment and a failure to hold those responsible to account.

The new government of Enda Kenny has enjoyed a honeymoon period so far, with the visit of the British Queen and the US president. But the publication of a major report on sexual abuse in the church resulted in a confrontation with the Vatican.

The future is unclear, as economic and fiscal uncertainty means that Ireland may have to accept long-term austerity, the liberal Dublin daily says. Estimates for growth have been revised downwards, and exports have slowed.

In the end, winning the general election may have been the easy part for the government. Reparing the economy will be the real test in 2012, as will the reform of the electoral system.

And we end this week's European press review, with just a hint of optimism.

Danish paper Berlingske recalls that 2010 was already a pretty rough one, as years go.

But just when we thought the worst was over, the global economy slipped again, unemployment rose and the whole idea of the euro single currency was called into question.

Things were no better across the Atlantic. There was also a terrible massacre in Norway, a devastating natural and nuclear disaster in Japan, and dozens of political scandals.

But economies are slowly beginning to recover, and in Europe there now appears to be some political will to solve the debt problems and commit to a responsible, common policy that should help strengthen the euro, the conservative newspaper predicts.

Things can only get better in 2012.