It is time EU diplomats stepped up to the plate to prevent another migration crisis, writes Magyar Nemzet columnist László Szőcs.
Even amid the summer doldrums, the July coup in Niger, which saw the military junta overthrow President Mohamed Bazoum, did not make front-page news.
If you take American strategist Ed Luttwak’s classic, Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook, off the shelf, you will read that Nigeriens have experienced seven coup attempts between 1974 and 2010, but that more recently their country has been a rare island of stability in an unstable region. Now a game of nerves is being played: After the junta failed to leave by the deadline, restoring Bazoum’s rule, the world is watching to see whether the region’s “NATO,” ECOWAS, of which Niger is itself a member (only its membership was suspended because of the coup), will intervene.
The threat of an all-out regional war, and even a calm before the storm, has been threatened by the airspace closure in Niger and the suspension of flights to some neighboring capitals by the national airline of the former French colonialists, France being the most active European country in West Africa. Feverish negotiations are also underway within the EU, while the Russians are building on the anti-French sentiment of the West Africans.