Ring of Fire
Unity with Biden is "a souvenir photo", EU security situation rapidly deteriorating, "ring of friends" from the Caucasus to the Sahara is a nightmare, frozen conflicts in Eastern neighbourhood
UPDATE: Last week the EU bloc’s two most senior figures traveled all the way to the White House to put on a show of unity with President Joe Biden and returned with little more than a souvenir photo, after squabbling between the pair diverted much of the attention.
The security situation around Europe is rapidly deteriorating and much is not right within the EU itself; something needs to be done. However, instead of solving real problems, European elites offer people illusions and ideology.
The European Union's dream of building "a ring of friends" from the Caucasus to the Sahara has turned into a nightmare as conflicts beyond its borders send refugees teeming into Europe.
There was certainly an abundance of goodwill behind the EU’s decision to launch its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2004. Aiming to construct a “ring of friends” to its east (former communist countries) and south (across the Mediterranean), the EU took enthusiastically to the task of transforming its 16 ENP partners.
The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) governs the EU's relations with 16 of the EU's closest Eastern and Southern Neighbours. To the South: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine*, Syria and Tunisia and to the East: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Russia takes part in Cross-Border Cooperation activities under the ENP and is not a part of the ENP as such.
The increasing instability in the European Union’s neighbourhood is a major concern for both national governments and European political leaders. The collapse of several countries in the Mediterranean region, refugee flows, the development of terrorist networks which threaten Europeans with deadly attacks, frozen conflicts in the Eastern neighbourhood and challenging relations with Russia have a profound impact on the entire EU.
EU rifts & rows grant US greater power
A series of flubs is laying bare the European Union’s inner tensions and casting a shadow over its geopolitical ambitions, writes Bloomberg.
Last week the EU bloc’s two most senior figures traveled all the way to the White House to put on a show of unity with President Joe Biden and returned with little more than a souvenir photo, after squabbling between the pair diverted much of the attention.
A new war in the Middle East is proving an even greater test — one EU officials initially flunked — as they issued a cascade of contradictory statements whose clearest message was of their own foreign-policy dysfunction.
All this is heightened by a rift at the top which diplomats and officials have labeled embarrassing. The froideur between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel is hampering the union’s effectiveness, these people said, leaving the bloc flailing at a time when it needs to present a credible front on a growing list of issues from conflicts in Ukraine and Israel to trade and China.
That was evidenced in the US where the two leaders held separate meetings with Biden, united only in their lack of traction. And the feud has followed them home, where this week the commission president is hosting a big international summit to which, according to a spokesperson for Charles Michel, von der Leyen’s not invited her colleague.
Under EU rules, it is member states who jointly set the course of the bloc’s foreign policy. At a time when China and US are becoming more forceful about defending their economic interests, that was an area where von der Leyen decided to seek more influence.
When a deadly incursion hit the country on Oct 7, von der Leyen was characteristically quick to act. She voiced the EU’s full backing for the country and condemned the assault by Hamas, which the EU designates a terrorist outfit. The only problem was that the EU had already hashed out a joint position, coordinated by the bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell.
Von der Leyen’s actions put her at odds with her colleagues over protocol and substance: many of the member states privately accused her of failing adequately to mention the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which the council position would attend to more carefully.
Behind the scenes, European diplomats were mostly united in disapproval against von der Leyen, and several officials had to mop up relations with Israel’s regional neighbors after she later made a visit to Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the people familiar with those discussions, who asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters of diplomacy.
After von der Leyen’s trip, member states issued a statement to clarify their position to the Arab world and the global south, and an emergency meeting of the European Council was called. That summit was convened to repair the damage done by the initial reaction of the EU as quickly as possible after the backlash it provoked in Arab countries, according to a senior EU official.
The confusion reflected genuine divisions in member states’ stances: Germany has historic reasons to back Israel and Chancellor Olaf Scholz was quick to visit, while Spain has been one of the strongest voices for the Palestinians.
EU leaders gather in Brussels to toast their flagship infrastructure drive Global Gateway, launched to much fanfare in 2021 as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, notes ‘South China Morning Post’.
A months-long investigation paints an unflattering picture of European Commission infighting, turf wars and inaction that jars with the muscular rhetoric presented by its leader, Ursula von der Leyen.
For von der Leyen, Global Gateway embodies a new, geopolitical EU that is ready to face an increasingly intensive competition with China, epitomised by Beijing’s massive belt and road infrastructure plan, which has just celebrated its first decade.
Documents seen by the South China Morning Post, however, shed light on conflicting European attitudes over how best to deal with the implications of Beijing’s growing influence in the developing world.
One document in particular, dated October 2020, shows the commission spurning a concrete proposal to compete with China – in part out of fear of “sending the wrong signal” to Beijing.
The document – written in the depths of the pandemic – looks prescient in light of the West’s subsequent clamour to wean itself off its dependencies on China. Yet, it was torpedoed by the European Commission, the union’s powerful civil service.
The proposal wanted to use connectivity to bolster “EU economic security and resilience”, to “increase EU influence over global norms and standards setting”, and to “shorten and diversify value chains and reduce dependencies”.
When Von der Leyen eventually announced Global Gateway during her State of the Union speech in September 2021, she took a veiled swipe at China: “We want to create links and not dependencies!”
But in the early days of her commission presidency, which began in late 2019, her team appeared disinterested in the Asian connectivity strategy it had inherited, which was sitting with the diplomats in EEAS.
“There was no money, they do foreign policy, they have no real influence. So an attempt to emulate [belt and road] failed dismally,” said an EU diplomat.
Two years after von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels that Global Gateway could be a “true alternative” to China’s belt and road plan, few believe that to be the case. In Brussels’ circles, the strategy continues to suffer from an identity crisis.
Many remain confused as to what Global Gateway is supposed to be. There is little clarity on how much of the promised 300 billion euros is new money, while many early projects are “rebadged” existing ones.
“It became a marketing exercise,” said another EU diplomat. “Briefings we had seemed to be more about branding than anything else.”
Ex-Italian prime minister and European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi rejected an approach to act as special envoy for the initiative, while calls for the appointment of a specialist commissioner were also to
Noah Barkin, an analyst of EU-China relations at research house Rhodium Group has tracked the saga since 2018. He described Global Gateway as “a poster child for Brussels dysfunction”.
“There has been a huge amount of institutional resistance. It’s remarkable that you can have the biggest member states on board, the head of the commission behind it, and yet it is still struggling to launch,” Barkin said.
Read more here.
USA epicentre of EU “ring of fire”
Geopolitika.news Croatia (amended)
The security situation around Europe is rapidly deteriorating and much is not right within the EU itself; something needs to be done. However, instead of solving real problems, European elites offer people illusions and ideology.
This is indicated by the rapid deterioration of the security situation around and in Europe itself. Terrorist acts are being committed in the European Union. Recently this happened in Brussels, where an Islamic extremist originally from Tunisia killed two Swedish citizens. There is a high probability of new similar terrorist attacks, as well as the probability of new waves of migrants that have been covering Europe for years, rolling in from the Middle East and Africa.
All this clearly shows that there is a lot wrong in Europe itself, and that something needs to be done. Especially against the backdrop of a dangerous armed conflict on the eastern borders of the European Union – Ukrainian. This conflict could bring even more trouble if it escalates and spreads beyond Ukraine.
On top of all a dangerous war is breaking out in Israel, which threatens to engulf the entire Middle East. There is no need to say separately what the consequences may be for the whole world, especially for the European Union, which itself made much of the bad things that are happening now possible due to its own ill-considered decisions.
The best confirmation that this is a mess and that the situation is getting very dangerous is the decision to restore border controls between some members of the European Union, including Germany and Poland, Italy and Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary.
After all, everyone knows that the Brussels EU leadership was most proud of the achievement in the form of free movement of people and capital within the Schengen zone and the European Union. There has never been a case before when they compromised this achievement by again building border barriers. However, it is clear that praise will now have to be postponed, and further measures must be taken that would ensure the safety of citizens in reality, and not just in words.
Politicians are accustomed to assuring that the authorities are able to cope with problems, that they are actively working on certain mechanisms that will help. For example, there was a lot of talk about coordinated control over the flow of migrants from Arab and African countries in exchange for generous monetary allocations to these countries (Turkey, Tunisia, and so on). But the cart, as they say, is still there.
Citizens of the European Union see all this very well and feel unprotected. Accordingly, protest against the ruling politicians is growing among them. This happens in Germany, and in the Netherlands, and in France, and in Poland, and in Hungary, and in Italy, and in Spain, and in Greece, and in Croatia.
It's hard to believe that border controls are a temporary measure. This is indicated by the rapid deterioration of the security situation around and in Europe itself, and everything is not happening spontaneously, not on its own, but in a completely controlled and coordinated manner, like, by the way, all large-scale regional or global processes in history.
It seems that this fear of European citizens is disclosed by Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg who said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg that the EU is in a “ring of fire” of conflicts that are increasingly flaring up near its borders. “A circle of fire has formed around Europe, which, according to our feelings, is constantly shrinking and flaring up more and more. This is not only about Ukraine.”
From the point of view of official Vienna, the Western Balkans are also unstable. “They also need to be monitored,” said the Austrian head of the Foreign Ministry, adding that Brussels “no longer has the luxury of focusing on just one crisis.” Even if the European Union focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "we must not lose sight of other crises," Schallenberg said.
It is necessary to analyze correctly the situation and draw conclusions, which will then form the basis of the right decisions, but the EU has long had trouble with this. Its leaders have been “pushing problems under the carpet” for too long, and instead of solving them, they feed people with illusions, empty ideology, including concern for some “values.”
Although most often they themselves do not understand what values we are talking about and simply “cram” them into the concept of democracy. Moreover, they present issues of sexual orientation as ‘literally vital’, as if these are the issues that most citizens are primarily concerned about today.
And people want bread, but without circuses. Instead, people demand that those elected take care of the state security and physical safety of each of them, the safety of their children, property, their traditional values and the way of life to which they have become accustomed for many decades.
The time for experimentation will come when the strong foundation of any society is restored: security, peace, stability and a healthy economy, which will provide citizens with humane working conditions and a decent income for a normal life, stresses Croatian site.
Read more here.
EU 'ring of friends' turns into “ring of fire”
By Paul Taylor 2015
BRUSSELS, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The European Union's dream of building "a ring of friends" from the Caucasus to the Sahara has turned into a nightmare as conflicts beyond its borders send refugees teeming into Europe.
In contrast to the success of its eastward enlargement drive that transformed former communist countries into thriving market democracies, the European Neighbourhood Policy launched in 2003 has been a spectacular flop.
It offered money, technical assistance and market access, but not membership, to 16 countries to the east and south in return for adopting EU democratic, administrative and economic norms.
"As we look at the situation now, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we are surrounded not by a 'ring of friends' - but by a 'ring of fire'," former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt said earlier this year.
The failure to stabilise or democratise the EU's surroundings was partly due to forces beyond Brussels' control: Russian resentment over the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as political and sectarian strife in the Middle East.
Five of the six Eastern Partnership countries - Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan - are weakened by unresolved "frozen conflicts" in which Moscow has a hand. The sixth, Belarus, is so authoritarian that it is subject to EU sanctions and has eschewed the offer of a free trade deal.
EU officials now acknowledge that the framework designed to engage and transform the bloc's neighbours was flawed from the outset due to a mixture of arrogance and naivety.
"The idea was to have a ring of friends who would integrate with us but not become EU members. That was rather patronising, with the European Union telling everyone what to do because we believed they wanted to be like us," said Christian Danielsson, head of the European Commission department for neighbourhood policy and enlargement.
WRONG ASSUMPTIONS
The EU approach offered too little reward tied to too many conditions, with intrusive monitoring that authoritarian rulers and local oligarchs from Minsk and Baku to Cairo and Algiers instinctively resisted as a threat to their interests.
It set out a one-size-fits-all relationship for states with widely diverse levels of economic development and governance, most of which are ill-equipped to apply swathes of EU market, environmental or health and safety legislation.
And it assumed that groups of countries in North Africa or the south Caucasus would cooperate and trade with each other, when in reality they had little or no desire to work together.
Now the EU neighbourhood policy is undergoing a fundamental rethink, with a more modest, flexible and differentiated approach due to be unveiled on Nov. 17.
Whether it will prove more effective remains to be seen.
Ian Bond, a former British ambassador now at the Centre for European Reform, called the current policy a "mess of inconsistency and wishful thinking".
The last review in 2010-11 had urged a focus on promoting "deep and sustainable democracy", he noted. Yet since then two countries - Libya and Syria - had fallen into near anarchy, one - Egypt - had had a military coup, and repression of civil society and the media had worsened in several, including Azerbaijan, Bond said.
Among the few relative success stories, Tunisia, Ukraine and Georgia remain vulnerable to internal and external threats, while privileged economic ties have not made Israel receptive to EU efforts to promote a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
NEW REALISM
EU officials talk of the need for a new realism, putting the pursuit of common interests with partners ahead of lecturing them on human rights and democracy.
But the European Parliament and member states such as Germany and the Nordic countries will be loath to soft-pedal promoting such values.
Bildt, for example, argued that "our concern for the stability of the day must not block our urge to respect the human rights that in the long run are an essential precondition for the stability that we are seeking".
Some experts say the EU's offer of so-called "Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements" was unrealistic and is destabilising for neighbours' economies, because it requires them to open up their markets to EU competition before they have much to sell to Europe.
Yet EU officials say Ukraine and Georgia, which sealed such deals with Brussels in defiance of Russian opposition, should press ahead with them to anchor economic development.
Michael Leigh, a senior adviser at the German Marshall Fund think-tank and former head of the EU's enlargement department, said Brussels had responded to the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings by offering a "top-heavy, long, cumbersome, demanding" DCFTA process rather than swift but limited market access.
It would be better to offer countries like Morocco and Tunisia an immediate end to restrictions on agricultural produce such as oranges and tomatoes, he said, but farm interests in EU countries such as France, Spain and Italy got in the way.
The reality is that the EU's urgent need to contain and manage the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East, Asia and Africa is likely to take precedence over all other priorities in dealing with the neighbourhood.
That means Brussels will divert money earmarked for economic development and administrative reform to fund facilities to keep refugees in place and discourage them from pouring into Europe.
The ring of friends will have to wait for better times. For now, what the EU wants are flood defences.
Read more here.
Europe’s “ring of Fire”
The European Union’s neighbourhood is more troubled than ever
The Economist 2014 (amended)
There was certainly an abundance of goodwill behind the EU’s decision to launch its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2004. Aiming to construct a “ring of friends” to its east (former communist countries) and south (across the Mediterranean), the EU took enthusiastically to the task of transforming its 16 ENP partners with its powerful instruments of trade, aid and political reform. Fresh from an enlargement that took in eight central and east European countries, the club believed itself influential enough to bring about change in its neighbours without the carrot of eventual membership.
How to stabilise the “ring of fire”
Institute Jacques Delors 2017
The increasing instability in the European Union’s neighbourhood is a major concern for both national governments and European political leaders. The collapse of several countries in the Mediterranean region, refugee flows, the development of terrorist networks which threaten Europeans with deadly attacks, frozen conflicts in the Eastern neighbourhood and challenging relations with Russia have a profound impact on the entire EU.
European Neighbourhood Policy
EU Commission 4 April 2022
The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) governs the EU's relations with 16 of the EU's closest Eastern and Southern Neighbours. To the South: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine*, Syria and Tunisia and to the East: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Russia takes part in Cross-Border Cooperation activities under the ENP and is not a part of the ENP as such.
The ENP was launched in 2003 and developed throughout 2004, with the objective of avoiding the emergence of new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and its neighbours and instead strengthening the prosperity, stability and security of all. It is based on the values of democracy, rule of law and respect of human rights.
The ENP was reviewed in 2011, following the 'Arab Spring' uprisings, and again in 2015. However, given the significant developments in the Neighbourhood since 2011, it became essential to undertake a further review of the ENP. In this regard, a Joint Communication setting out the main lines of the review of the ENP has been published on 18 November 2015 following a public consultation, involving partner countries, international organisations, social partners, civil society and academia.
Under the revised ENP, stabilisation of the region, in political, economic, and security related terms, is at the heart of the new policy. Moreover, the revised ENP puts a strong emphasis on two principles: a differentiated approach, to respect the different aspirations of our partners and to better answer EU interests and the interests of our partners; and an increased ownership by partner countries and Member States.
The Joint Communication on the “Eastern Partnership policy beyond 2020- Reinforcing Resilience- an Eastern Partnership that delivers for all”, adopted on 18 March 2020, outlines the long-term policy objectives for future cooperation with Eastern Neighbourhood partners. It underlines how to address common challenges and sets out how the EU will work together with the partner countries in different policy areas in the future, with the aim to strengthen resilience, foster sustainable development and deliver concrete benefits to people.
On 9 February 2021, 25 years after the Barcelona Declaration, the European Commission published a Joint Communication with the HRVP “Renewed partnership with Southern Neighbourhood – A new Agenda for the Mediterranean”. Spurring sustainable long-term socio-economic recovery and job creation in the Southern Neighbourhood is a key shared priority and the innovative cornerstone of the new Agenda for the Mediterranean. The new Agenda will guide the future EU cooperation with South Neighbourhood partners.
Read more here.