Europe lacks a proper ‘Plan B’ in the Middle East [THE NATIONAL]
March 12, 2015
Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, addressed the European parliament earlier this week in a special session. As was to be expected, the Arab world was on the agenda. Unfortunately, the EU currently has little bandwidth to address this region’s challenges.
In 2011, when the Arab uprisings began, the EU took a marked interest in the unfolding drama. The full outcomes of those events have yet to be fully assessed. History is still being written. But what is clear, is that the EU is no longer as engaged as it once was in supporting the ideals of those uprisings.
The fourth anniversary of the Syrian revolution is almost upon us and it is not a day of celebration, due in large part to the reaction of Arab and European states. Rather, it is a reminder of how brutal Bashar Al Assad’s regime is and how the Syrian revolution was taken advantage of by ISIL, among others.
The EU’s focus on Syria and Iraq is less than it once was, even since the rise of ISIL. Tunisia receives less attention than it warrants for being a relative success story. When it comes to Egypt, fairly sharp divisions exist within the EU on how to engage with the new political situation, with the inevitable consequence that a common foreign policy direction is rather weak. The key part of Ms Mogherini’s parliamentary address related to Libya.
Here, the limitations of Brussels are best exemplified. Libya’s Mediterranean coastline lies incredibly close to Europe’s southern border. The chaos of its political situation is so dire it ought to be treated with incredible urgency by the EU. Likewise, the fast-developing presence of ISIL in Libya ought to put the country on top of the agenda. But that isn’t happening – and Europeans may yet pay the price for this sluggishness.
There is recognition that Libya is a problem. But the preferred plan to address that problem is via the “Leon Process”.
Bernardino Leon, a former EU official who is now with the UN, has been engaged in a dialogue to create a unity government in Libya so that a united front can bring order to the country and tackle ISIL.
There are no answers from the EU about how long Mr Leon’s process should be given. But if it is open-ended, what does that say about the spread of ISIL in the meantime? If Leon’s process fails there is no Plan B.
There are reasons for that. The first is that while southern Mediterranean countries such as Malta and Italy take the issue of ISIL in Libya seriously, the further north you go, the less urgency is felt. Northern, eastern and central European countries, for example, are far more concerned about Ukraine and Russia than they are about the ramifications of the Libyan quagmire.
The fact of the matter is, coming up with a Plan B in Libya, or anywhere in the Arab region where there is a difficult situation, is not something Europeans can stall on.
There are certainly other topics of importance facing the continent, but the Arab world is right on the EU’s doorstep.
For better or worse, these two regions are intertwined by history. If the European Union is overly concerned with Ukraine and Russia at the moment, it does not mean that Europeans will somehow be shielded from the effect of any changes in the Arab world.
It is not that no Plan Bs exist – they do. But they don’t come from the European Union – and they’re not always particularly well thought out. And, unfortunately, a bad plan will always take precedence over no plan at all.
Before the next flashpoint – whether in Libya, Syria or anywhere else in this region – the EU ought to come up with a much better alternative. Whether they want to or not, Europeans will partially pay the price of any bad plan.
Dr HA Hellyer is an associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute in London, and the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC
On Twitter: @hahellyer
Source: The National
Photo Credit: "European flag in Karlskrona 2011" by MPD01605