Tag: European Union
Johns Hopkins President regretfully informs
Dear Students, Faculty and Staff:
We received word today that one of our own was among those killed in the violent takeover of the Westgate Mall in Kenya.
Elif Yavuz, a 2004 graduate of our Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, was living in Africa, working for the Clinton Foundation and fighting malaria.
We know from media reports that she was eight months pregnant, and that she and her partner, Ross Langdon, were visiting Nairobi. Ross, an award-winning architect who designed an HIV/AIDS hospital pro bono and focused on environmentally and socially sustainable tourism infrastructure, also was killed.
Elif, a Dutch citizen of Turkish heritage, studied at the SAIS Bologna Center in 2002-2003 and in Washington the following year, earning a Master of Arts degree and concentrating in European studies. After SAIS, she worked for the World Bank before attending the Harvard School of Public Health. She earned a ScD there earlier this year, doing her dissertation on malaria in East Africa, and then joined the Clinton Foundation.
On behalf of the Johns Hopkins community, I will be expressing our deepest condolences to Elif’s family and loved ones.
Sincerely,
Ronald J. Daniels
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Solid kernels in a not so good idea
My SAIS colleague Ed Joseph and Aaron David Miller earlier this week put forward a proposal for a Union of Arab Democracies that merits examination despite its deep and fatal flaws. There are nuggets therein worth preserving.
The idea in their words is this:
Egypt and its fractious neighbors desperately need a unifying vision that can inculcate respect for democratic norms across glaring differences. Although Arab nations have no interest in joining the European Union or NATO, the Arab world can draw on the model of Eastern European transition, with fledgling Arab democracies devising their own supra-national organization dedicated to advancing democracy. Like the E.U. in its infancy, this Union of Arab Democracies (UAD) could start with limited objectives and evolve toward ambitious goals, including, ultimately, pan-Arab political union.
Waving their magic wand, Ed and Aaron then tell us all the good things that would happen if such an organization were to come into existence, despite the shambolic history of pan-Arab political union proposals.
If Egypt and the other Arab uprising countries were capable of creating such an organization, they wouldn’t need it. The weakness of the proposal is all too apparent when Ed and Aaron get to proposing that Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority (known to me as Palestine) would be the leading democracies, with transitioning countries (Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen) and supposedly “liberalizing” countries (Morocco, Jordan and possibly Oman) tagging along. What a democratic club! Several are more likely to find themselves joining an Islamic union than a democratic one.
Nevertheless, there is a core idea here that is important: transitions need a destination. When the Berlin wall fell, the former Soviet satellites of eastern Europe and the Baltic “captive nations” quickly set their aim on meeting European Union and NATO standards. This gave direction and impetus to countries that would otherwise have wandered as aimlessly as the North African revolutions are doing today.
The way to answer the question “transition to what?” is not to have nascent Arab democracies try to figure it out for themselves. They cannot reasonably aim for membership in NATO or the EU, but they should be able to aim at two easier targets: the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe or, as my Turkish colleague Aylin Unver Noi suggests, the Council of Europe.
OSCE comprises 57 states and plays an important role in the Balkans and the more Asian parts of Eurasia. Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia are already among its “cooperating partners.” Several OSCE members are no farther along in democratizing than their Middle Eastern partners. With 47 member states, the Council of Europe regards itself as the continent’s leading human rights organization. It has a human rights court with some real enforcement capacity that could provide minorities in the Middle East with real recourse if their mother countries were to join.
The idea of extending OSCE and the Council of Europe to the southern littoral of the Mediterranean may seem far fetched, but efforts to construct more ad hoc arrangements have not worked well. Neither the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership nor the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative gained much traction before 2011, Aylin says, and their relevance will be further reduced by the Arab uprisings.
Another of the world’s more restrictive clubs, the rich people’s Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) , has opened its doors to newly developed states like Korea and Mexico, much to their benefit and the benefit of the organization. Opening the OSCE and Council of Europe to new Middle Eastern members, who would need to meet clearly defined criteria in order to get in, would be a worthwhile experiment. It would give the Arab uprisings, if they want it, a destination as well as a tough-minded qualification process, which is really what Ed and Aaron were calling for.
So “no” to the Arab Democratic Union. “Yes” to Arab democracy that aims to meet the not too exacting standards of the OSCE and respects human rights as defined by the Council of Europe.
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Leverage without a fulcrum
The International Peace Institute published this piece today on its Global Observatory under the title “With Democracy, Security at Stake in Egypt, How Should the West Respond?”:
Diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the confrontation in Egypt have so far failed. The refusal of coup leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, now the defense minister, to go along with diplomatic de-escalation, and the excessive force used by security agencies signal that they do not aim at repressing only the Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian army is trying to frighten the general population and restore autocratic rule to an Egypt that has tasted freedom and expressed itself repeatedly at the ballot box since 2011.
The US and Europe want to get Egypt back on a more orderly democratic path. This entails restraining the Egyptian security forces, maintaining relative openness, and moving towards an inclusive polity with Islamist, and, if possible, Muslim Brotherhood, participation. It also means restoring a modicum of order and stability so that ordinary Egyptians can go about their business without fear of violence or intimidation.
The security forces are continuing their violent crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, which is pledging to continue its protests against the July 3 military takeover. Some Islamists are resisting with arms. About 1,000 people have been killed. What can the United States and the international community do to mitigate the situation?
Analysis
The civilian government the Egyptian army installed after the coup has pledged an amended constitution by the end of the year, to be approved in a referendum and elections early next year. This is a fast timeline. What can the international community do to try to ensure it is met?
The United States has already postponed delivery of F16s to Egypt and canceled joint military exercises scheduled for the fall to protest General Sisi’s crackdown. Inevitably the question of America’s $1.5 billion in aid to Egypt will now arise in Washington. It would make sense to refocus the civilian assistance of about $250 million tightly on democratic objectives. Those most concerned with getting Egypt back on a democratic path are recommending suspension of the military portion ($1.2 billion).
This will be opposed by those more concerned with security issues, including maintenance of the peace treaty with Israel. A proposal in the US Senate to redirect all Egyptian aid to domestic American priorities was defeated last month by a wide margin (86-13), but that was before the worst of the crackdown. The margin would likely be much closer next month.
Even if the US Congress or the Administration acts to suspend military aid to Egypt, the financial impact will not be immediate. This year’s tranche has already been transferred. It will be the better part of another year before money can be blocked. More weapons scheduled for delivery can be delayed, but American industry will spend the year lobbying hard against a funding cut-off, as much of the money is actually spent on US contractors who supply the Egyptian military with materiel and services.
Europe provides much more assistance to Egypt than the United States. Its 5 billion euro (more than $6 billion) mainly economic package is now under review. This was intended to support the transition to democracy, which is now in doubt. Europeans concerned with their own economic problems may well see suspension of aid to Egypt as an opportunity.
The international financial institutions are another important part of the picture. Egypt has been negotiating for many months a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. The US and Europe can block or delay that loan.
But both Europe and the United States need to consider the broader international context in deciding what to do about bilateral and IMF assistance. They are not the only players on the world stage. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait have already pledged $12 billion, dwarfing both the American and European assistance packages. Russia will likely try to take advantage of any opening and provide military aid if the Americans suspend theirs.
Egypt clearly has alternatives to Western assistance, even if the Gulf states are notoriously slow and unreliable, and the Russians significantly less attractive to a military that has been getting advanced American weapons. If they want to see a democratic outcome in Egypt, the Americans and Europeans will need to convince the Gulf states—no paragons of democracy—to back the timeline for a return to democratic governance.
Widening the aperture farther, the Arab and Muslim worlds are watching what the international community does about Egypt. Will it insist on a return to a democratic path and an inclusive polity that allows Islamist participation on the timeline that Egypt itself has defined? Or will it settle for delay or a security solution that allows the army to remain the arbiter of Egypt’s fate? A lot depends on the skillful use of diplomatic and assistance leverage in a context where there are many players with diverse and even conflicting objectives.
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I wouldn’t want to start from here
Senators McCain and Graham are packing their bags for Cairo, reportedly having been asked to go by President Obama. EU High Representative Catherine Ashton has visited already, including a meeting at an undisclosed location with former President Morsi. The question is this: what should all these luminaries be telling the military-backed government and its Muslim Brotherhood opponents?
Abdul Rahman al Rashed, editor-in-chief of Asharq Al- Awsat, suggests:
Everything can be negotiated, except Mursi’s return to the presidency—a demand that the Brotherhood knows will be impossible to fulfil. Thus, the solution can be as follows: a consensual cabinet, a short-term interim government and internationally supervised elections in which the Brotherhood participates. Then, everyone can return home claiming that they have got what they wanted.
My guess is that the senators will be taking a line close to this, insisting on a timetable for elections and as broad a government as possible to prepare for it. In his less than articulate way, Lindsay Graham has suggested as much: Read more
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Kosovo: aspirations and prospects
Someone asked me to talk today about Kosovo’s aspirations and prospects as well as interethnic relations. Here are the notes I used to respond:
1. Kosovo has achieved its greatest aspiration: it is independent and more or less sovereign.
- More or less because NATO still ensures a safe and secure environment, especially in the north, EULEX still provides prosecutors and judges, OSCE still monitors elections.
- Most Kosovo Albanians don’t mind: essential that the Serb police, paramilitaries and army are not coming back and they get to choose their own municipal and national governments.
- The exception is Vetevendosje and its maybe 20% of the population, which insists Kosovo should be able to choose whether to unite with Albania, contradicting its constitution.
2. For most Kosovars today, earning a living is the immediate priority, but joining the EU remains the long-term objective.
- Legislation is already vetted for consistency with EU requirements. The problem is weak implementation, as it is in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans.
- There is still a long way to go, even for the visa waiver, because the state is weak.
- The business environment is open to foreign investment but still far from meeting European standards, especially for corruption, the informal sector and electricity reliability.
- Economic growth has been relatively strong, but not fast enough to absorb a rapidly increasing labor force.
- The result is continuing frustration within Kosovo and migration out when the opportunity arises.
- Today that is often to Albania and Macedonia, creating a much wider and distinctly Albanian cultural space.
3. Ethnic tensions and the underlying political issues are a low priority for most Kosovars, as they are for most Serbs in Serbia.
- Albanians and Serbs are more or less content with separate self-governance for the Serb municipalities south of the Ibar.
- The only really strong ethnic tensions are in the north.
4. Those should not be ignored, because they have the potential to unravel the Balkans.
- Partition of northern Kosovo could lead to partition of southern Serbia, northwestern Macedonia, Bosnia and even Cyprus.
- The April agreement shows the way forward through implementation of the Ahtisaari plan, which was already an integral part of Kosovo’s constitution.
- Implementation is spotty, both of the political agreements and the more technical ones.
- Amnesty was only the first step. The key will be municipal elections in the fall.
- A lot depends on whether Belgrade uses all the leverage it has.
- If Serbs not hostile to Pristina win the municipal elections, which is likely if the pro-Belgrade Serbs boycott, there will still be a good deal to be done but it will happen. If not, there could still be trouble.
5. What remains to be done?
- Lots of things, but I will focus on three disparate ones that bear on inter-ethnic relations: the Kosovo army, the business environment and education.
- Kosovo is now entitled to have an army. It has hesitated because of pressure from internationals and the expense, but once NATO starts to draw down the issue will arise.
- How big an army Kosovo needs and its capabilities depend on the threat: if Serbia does not accept Kosovo’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, the threat needs to be taken seriously.
- But if Serbia recognizes, or if NATO provides guarantees, Kosovo can do with less, which would reduce interethnic suspicions and tensions.
- As for the business environment, the main issue is the role of political parties, which play too strong a role in hiring and public investment.
- The reported rate of paying bribes (16%) is not especially high, but there is a pervasive sense that political connections are important to getting any major projects done.
- It’s the nexus between politics and the economy that needs to be cleaned up. There is particular dissatisfaction with tendering and contracting, which Kosovars are convinced gets done in ways that block open competition.
- Education is the key to Kosovo’s economic future.
- It should be done at least in part in English, to ease entry into Europe, reduce pan-Albanian sentiment and promote integration.
- Voluntary K-12 education in English would attract both Albanians and Serbs, enable Kosovo to accelerate its preparations for the EU, and vastly increase employment prospects.
6. Even if all these issues are resolved satisfactorily, there will remain the question of distant inter-ethnic relations.
- The missing ingredient, on both sides, is acknowledgement of the harm done and sincere expression of regret.
- Missing people are a particular source of unhappiness.
- Once there is real acknowledgement of harm, that problem will be resolved and there will be many more opportunities for exchange, collaboration and cooperation.
- I’d like to see lots of Serb visitors to Kosovo and Albanian visitors to Serbia. Increasing contact is vital to develop healthier inter-ethnic relations.
- Extending the Durres/Pristina road to Nis is particularly important, but there are many other regional infrastructure improvements that could be undertaken, including in energy and telecoms.
- The April agreement foresees entry of both Serbia and Kosovo into the EU, each on its own bottom: that, ultimately, is what will fix inter-ethnic relations in both Kosovo and Serbia.
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Supercharge the EU
As Kosovo and Serbia are proceeding with implementation of their April agreement on northern Kosovo, it is time to look at the other remaining war and peace problem in the Balkans: Bosnia and Herzegovina. The country is at a standstill, its institutions inadequate to qualifying for European Union membership, its people annoyed and frustrated, its economy declining, its youth departing if they can, much of its society sharply divided along ethnic lines, and the international community puzzled as to what to do.
The best that can be said is that war seems unlikely, not least because no one cares enough. The peace is not a warm one.
I’ve been inclined to think that there is nothing much that should be done about this. Bosnia has a clear prospect for EU membership. If it stews in its own juices for a while, its people should be able to figure out that the current crop of political leaders is not moving in the right direction. Certainly the enigmatically named “baby revolution,” a protest movement precipitated by the government’s inability to solve even simple problems, and the parallel Prvi Mart effort to encourage voter registration across entity lines, suggest that the country’s more or less open society has potential for pressuring the leadership in the right direction.
In the meanwhile, a weak European military force (EUFOR) pretends to maintain a safe and secure environment while the civilian international community “high representative” created by the Dayton accords, pretends to preside (but no longer rules) over a dysfunctional state and its two entities, Republika Srpska (RS) and the Federation. The RS leadership alternately defies and manipulates the EU, the Federation ignores it and the state government can do little to influence either one.
The trouble with the “hands off” approach is that things might evolve in a less salutary direction, as Kurt Bassuener has amply documented. The European Commission, frustrated by the inability of the Sarajevo government to come to decisions, is dealing increasingly with the RS, the Serb-controlled 49% of Bosnia, ignoring the 51% (Croat and Bosniak-controlled) Federation. It is natural for bureaucrats to deal with bureaucrats who can get something done, but the net result is that the EU is de facto helping Republika Srpska qualify for EU membership independently of the rest of Bosnia. That has even been proposed as EU policy.
The EU thus risks precipitating the breakup of Bosnia. That is not what it wants to do. In its progress report at the end of last year, the EU commission made clear that it wants to negotiate membership with the government in Sarajevo:
The need for an effective coordination mechanism between various levels of government for the transposition, implementation and enforcement of EU laws remains to be addressed as a matter of priority, so that the country can speak with one voice on EU matters and make an effective use of the EU’s pre-accession assistance.
But actions speak louder than words.
What is to be done? The successful EU mediation on northern Kosovo between Belgrade and Pristina shows a possible way. By insisting on elimination of Belgrade’s parallel structures in Kosovo as a condition for giving Serbia a date to begin negotiations on EU accession, Germany gave EU High Representative Catherine Ashton enormous leverage with a Serbian government whose protagonists had little domestic support for flexibility on Kosovo. Americans often complain that EU consensus decisionmaking leads to least common denominator outcomes. But in this case Berlin showed that consensus decisionmaking can lead to a tough, even uncompromising, EU stance, so long as at least one member holds firm.
The EU could apply this lesson learned in Bosnia. The best bet would be a coordinated maneuver by Berlin and Zagreb, whose July 1 entry into the EU makes it a power player vis-a-vis its southeastern neighbor. Germany has long been a strong supporter of a united, democratic and multiethnic Bosnia. Croatia’s interest in preventing Bosnia’s breakup is clear: it does not want a rump Islamic state on its borders. That is why even its nationalist first president Franjo Tudjman backed the Bosnian Federation (and wanted it confederated with Croatia). Strengthening Bosnia’s insitutions and accelerating its entrance into the EU would protect the interests of both Bosnian Croats and Croatia.
Bosnia’s problems are above all constitutional, as its constitution establishes group rights and institutional constraints that render the Sarajevo “state” government dysfunctional. The reforms needed have been known for almost a decade, at least since the Venice Commission outlined them with admirable clarity in 2005.
The EU Commission is loathe to make constitutional reform a condition for EU membership. But EU member states can do it, as their approval will be needed for Bosnia’s candidacy and eventual accession. If, in addition, Germany and Croatia insist that the state government in Bosnia must have all the authority needed to negotiate and implement the EU’s acquis communitaire, wholehearted implementation would solve 90% of what makes Bosnia dysfunctional.
The Europeans have been anxious to eliminate the American-invented (but always European-manned) civilian “high representative” responsible for implementation of the Dayton agreements (and armed in theory with dictatorial, aka “Bonn,” powers). The Americans have balked. They want to be certain Europe will do the right thing and not allow Bosnia to come apart.
If the Americans were certain that at least Zagreb and Berlin were unequivocally committed to constitutional reform and a sufficiently strong state government in Bosnia to negotiate and implement EU obligations, they would have far less motive to hold on to the high representative and his “Bonn” powers, who at the very least could be moved offshore and reduced to the role of ultimate guarantor rather than constant watchdog. Once the needed constitutional changes are made, there would no longer be any reason for a Dayton-focused “high representative.”
Europe has done well with Serbia and Kosovo. It can do well on Bosnia as well. But a lowest common denominator consensus at of 28 members will not work. Zagreb and Berlin, working in close consultation with Washington, could supercharge the EU and make good things happen.
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