Barroso warns that IS is biggest threat to civilisation

The outgoing President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, has said that the “Islamic State” represents today the biggest threat to “civilisation and our model of society”. Europe needs to be part of the international efforts to defeat and uproot it.” Barroso wrote this in a book about his experiences as the head of the EU’s executive body for the last ten years. The 616-page work titled “European Commission 2004 – 2014 A Testimony by the President,” was published Tuesday.

Barroso whose term ends in November writes that “The ‘Arab awakening’ represented one of the most impressive changes in recent history. No one predicted it. The toppling of authoritarian regimes was a consequence of people’s wish for more democracy and a more dignified life.” “But as we all know from our experience in Europe, building mature and stable democracies is more difficult than overthrowing dictatorships. This is a long-term process.

We need to remain engaged to avoid that extremist forces with different agendas hijack these processes. Political instability and a security vacuum are feeding radical groups and religious fundamentalists in some of these countries,” he writes.
Barroso stresses that “for the EU, there is no more important partner than the United States.”