President Obama praised French President Francois Hollande on Thursday for leading Europe’s effort to better share information on terrorists, which the U.S. consistently has cited as a continental shortcoming since the Islamic State attacked Paris in November.
“We’ve made some significant strides around information-sharing,” Obama said Thursday during a joint appearance with Hollande, who is one of 50 world leaders gathered in Washington for a nuclear summit.
“President Hollande has been a leader in helping to galvanize the European community around the necessity to be more effective in transatlantic exchanges of information and rooting out foreign fighters, identifying potential attacks, cutting off financing,” Obama said.
In the aftermath of the Islamic State’s attacks on Brussels, Belgian authorities are under scrutiny for still not collaborating enough with their European and U.S. counterparts. The White House said the terrorists’ success in eluding capture and striking again demonstrates that Europe as a whole still comes up short on that front.
“And so, this has been a very useful exchange in terms of examining the progress that had been made by our teams and where we still have to push a little bit harder,” Obama said, striking a less critical tone than his spokesmen have recently.
Hollande reiterated France’s dedication to fighting terrorism and the Islamic State, efforts he renewed after the Paris attack, but said it’s not enough. Europe must help resolve the root cause of such terrorism and help its Middle Eastern victims.
Addressing Libya’s turmoil can both remove a safe haven for the Islamic State and prevent a new wave of immigrants from forming, he said.
Supporting Tripoli’s new national government “is also about preventing Europe from having to deal with tens of thousands of people, even though Europe has a duty to make sure that the refugees can claim asylum,” Hollande said.
“So we have to do everything so that stability can be now a priority for Libya.”
In a recently published lengthy discussion of foreign policy, Obama largely blamed European allies for Libya’s political vacuum. After supporting the U.S.-led military effort to help anti-government forces route dictator Muammar Gaddafi, European leaders got “distracted” and showed no appetite for helping rebels pick up the pieces and peacefully transition into governing, Obama told The Atlantic last month.
