Tag: European Union
Get ready for 2025
Marija Jovicevic of Podgorica daily Pobjeda asked some questions. I answered:
- Montenegro entered NATO one year ago. Do You think that we, in Western Balkans, live in safer region?
A: I think Montenegro’s NATO accession was an important step in the right direction that gave encouragement to others in the region. It signified that the doors of the Alliance and the EU are not closed.
2. Do You think that Montenegro and Western Balkan are visible for the US administration? What do we need to do to be more visible?
A: They are visible to the Vice President, which I think is sufficient. Frankly, I worry that President Trump might be tempted to upset the applecart and sow confusion in the Balkans, which would be a bad idea.
3. People in Montenegro are slowly losing patient that we will enter European union soon. In that regard, European Commission announced that Albania and Macedonia can open negotiations by the end of next year. Is this a clear message that enlargement policy is on hold?
A: No. I think it is a clear signal that enlargement is progressing, albeit at a slower pace than some might like. The right strategy is to do the necessary political and economic reforms as well as meet all the requirements of the acquis. Those who fully qualify by 2025 are doing the right thing.
4. Can we expect better relations with Russia? Do You think that danger from Moscow is over after everthing they tried to do on election day on 2016?
A: The danger is not over. Moscow still supports anti-constitutional, anti-NATO political forces in Montenegro. Better relations with Russia will develop once a pro-EU, pro-NATO opposition emerge that can hope to govern. Ending Putin’s hopes for destabilizing Montenegro is the best route to a good relationship with Moscow.
5. How do you see relations between USA and EU?
A: They are bad, both because of the US tariffs (and EU retaliation) and because of President Trump’s hostility to the EU. Brussels will need to be patient while the Americans find a way back to sanity.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Chemical weapons: how and who
The deployment of chemical weapons in Homs, Syria by the Assad regime in late 2012 ended a 20-year freeze on state employment of chemical weapons. Since then, the use of these weapons of mass destruction has exploded, with over 200 attacks reported in Syria alone, in addition to incidents in Iraq, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom.
One week before the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OCPW) meets to discuss multilateral methods to enforce accountability for users of chemical weapons, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) convened a group of chemical weapons experts to share their ideas for enforcing accountability for users of chemical weapons. Ahmet Üzümcü, Director-General of the OCPW, gave the keynote address before a panel moderated by Rebecca Hersman, Director of the Project on Nuclear Issues at CSIS, discussed the issue of chemical weapons proliferation. The panel included:
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance
Samantha Job, Counsellor for Foreign and Security Policy, British Embassy Washington
Nicolas Roche, Director of Strategic, Security and Disarmament Affairs, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Üzümcü detailed the successes of his tenure as OPCW Director-General, which included the elimination of 96 percent of declared chemical weapons stockpiles worldwide. He also delved into the challenges the OPCW faces in the coming years, emphasizing that increased chemical weapon attacks in Syria and elsewhere call for heightened international coordination to reinforce nonproliferation. However, Russia’s enabling attitude towards Syria’s chemical weapons use has actually eroded this norm. In recent years, Russia has vetoed UN Security Council resolutions to condemn Assad’s actions. Putin has also led a defamation campaign against the OPCW’s investigation methods. In the face of this challenge to the OPCW and its mission, the Director-General advocated for member states to give the organization the power to conduct investigations to identify the perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks.
Roche focused on France’s desire to combat chemical weapons use by strengthening multilateral institutions. He stressed the importance of international partnerships for information gathering and sharing, as well as the need for a stronger OPCW with the power to identify perpetrators of chemical weapons violence. In what could be seen as a slight to both the US and Russian behavior vis-a-vis international institutions over the last year, Roche emphasized that a multilateral regime for addressing the attribution gap in chemical weapons investigations is a greater good. France will move forward with multilateralism in combating the chemical weapons threat, regardless of who is on board.
Poblete agreed that multilateralism should be at the forefront of the fight against chemical weapons proliferation, but argued that bilateral negotiations between states should also play a role. International approaches fail when compromise becomes the enemy of the good. Poblete defended president Trump’s bilateral strategy with North Korea, repeating multiple times that the administration was well-informed going into the Kim summit. Trump’s failure to mention Kim’s chemical weapons program in the buildup or the aftermath of the meeting in no way indicated that dismantling North Korean stockpiles was off the table.
Job took the point about the need for multilateralism a step further, focusing on the critical role OPCW plays in strengthening the international norm against chemical weapons proliferation. Job emphasized the need to combat Russia’s attacks on the legitimacy of the Chemical Weapons Convention’s regulatory body, arguing that member countries should appoint permanent representatives to the OPCW to accomplish this goal. OPCW also needs increased funding to face the threat of chemical weapons attacks by non-state actors. Like Roche, Job also explicitly endorsed giving the OPCW the power to fill the attribution gap that currently exists in the prosecution of chemical weapons crimes.
Bottom Line: The international community is currently at a crossroads when it comes to dealing with the rejuvenated threat of chemical weapons attacks. Our European allies have already decided on the way forward: multilateralism. The United States is still welcome at the international negotiation table, but like with the JCPOA, France and other European powers will not capitulate to the US preference for bilateralism. The United States must present a united front with its allies on the chemical weapons issue, both for the sake of nonproliferation and for prevention of further erosion of American credibility in the current international framework.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Flim flam
President Trump today tweeted:
Donald J. TrumpVerified account@realDonaldTrump2 hours ago
Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer – sleep well tonight!
Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Not with a bang
The prime ministers of Macedonia and Greece today announced a solution to the “name” issue: they propose that the former will in the future be known as the Republic of Northern Macedonia, its language as Macedonian, and its citizens Macedonians, if I understand correctly. The new name is to be used both within Macedonia, including in the constitution, and externally, as the Greeks had insisted. The agreement needs to be approved by parliaments in both capitals as well as by referendum in Macedonia.
This is excellent news. Disagreement about the name has slowed the country’s progress towards the EU, stalled its entry into NATO, and exacerbated frictions between its Albanian and Macedonian communities. A solution would mark important progress in a lingering Balkans dispute. Progress in one place gives encouragement to others, as last year’s entry of Montenegro into NATO did. Keeping the Balkans bicycle moving forward is vital to keeping it from falling over.
Of course it isn’t finished until it’s finished. Approvals in parliaments aren’t automatic. Nationalists in both countries will oppose the new name. Referenda are likewise dicey: no telling how things will go, though the Albanians in Macedonia, who are impatient for NATO accession, will presumably turn out in force to vote in favor. That’s close to half the votes needed for approval.
This is one of those issues that has aroused passions but will soon be forgotten once the solution is approved in both countries. There are much more important issues for both Greece and Macedonia: the welfare of their citizens (including EU and NATO membership for Macedonia), defending their electoral campaigns from Russian trouble-making, and exploiting the many synergies between their economies. The sooner both countries refocus on those issues, the better.
Once the name issue is settled, the remaining Balkan tough nuts will be normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia as well as making the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina capable of negotiating and implementing the acquis communautaire required for EU membership. Those are not easy problems, but there is more than enough time to solve them before the window for EU membership opens again in 2023.
Republic of Northern Macedonia: it’s a solution that could have been found at any time during the last 25 years. No big bang here, but a blessing to the politicians willing to take the associated risks. Prime Ministers Tsipras and Zaev deserve a lot of credit, as do Foreign Ministers Dimitrov and Kotzias and the ever-patient UN envoy Nimetz. Congratulations! Googletranslate tells me the right words are: συγχαρητήρια! and алал да му е! I trust someone will tell me if I’ve got that wrong.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Giving away the store for a photo op
President Trump today agreed to suspend US military exercises with South Korea during negotiations with the North and to provide Pyongyang with unspecified security guarantees in exchange for an equally vague commitment to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. He and Kim Jong-un also got their photo op, which featured a stunning array of American and Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea flags.
The quid pro quo is clear: the US will be guaranteeing the permanence of one of the most brutal dictatorships on earth and reducing its commitment to its South Korean allies in exchange for some still-to-be-determined constraints on North Korean missile and nuclear weapons capabilities. The joint statement contains no reference at all to human rights issues or North Korean abductions, though it does refer to repatriation of the remains of prisoners of war and those missing in action from the Korean War. All you need to know about this deal is what the Republicans would be saying if President Obama had negotiated it.
Kim also got a lot from the photo op, which portrayed him as the equal of the President of the United States. The handshake was a de facto acknowledgement of North Korea’s nuclear power status, legitimizing both the regime and its acquisition of nuclear weapons. It will strengthen Kim both at home and abroad. Trump has no problem with that: he seems to relish relations with dictators and disdain democrats.
Trump will also benefit from the photo op, though less than Kim. He’ll use it to assert effectiveness in foreign policy, an arena in which the Administration has had absolutely no success and a number of significant failures, not the least at the G7 meeting in Quebec last weekend. The Atlantic alliance is a shambles, relations with European and Pacific allies and trading partners have been upended, and Russia continues its occupation of part of Ukraine as well as its marauding in Syria. America is more alone in the world, and less able to exert its will, than it has been in decades.
I don’t expect Trump’s supporters to understand or acknowledge this. Their enthusiasm for Trump is unconditional. I do hope that others can see through the photo op to what it really amounts to: Trump has given away the store in exchange for very little. He is a lousy negotiator. He put himself in the unenviable position of having no alternative to this premature and ill-advised meeting. The only hope left is that now some serious American negotiators will get busy making lemonade out of Trump’s lemons.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
The 7 – 1 reality sitcom
That’s what is meeting in Quebec today. The odd one out at the G7 is the United States, which has managed to unite Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Japan in a display of pique against President Trump’s trade policy. That’s what you get for using spurious national security arguments to raise tariffs on steel and aluminum rather than pursuing your complaints through the World Trade Organization (WTO) and withdrawing from a nuclear deal with Iran that the other 6 view as vital to their security.
The vodka will be flowing in Moscow, which will be delighted to hear its Shanghai Cooperation Organization (that’s China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) compared favorably with the more venerable, more powerful, and in the past more effective G7. President Putin is getting his money’s worth: Trump is dismantling Washington’s relationship with its friends and allies in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, dramatically weakening the West and providing openings for Moscow and Beijing to fill the vacuums. Trump has even called for Russia to be invited back into the G7 (which for a time was the G8). If you find that hard to believe, watch it:
Trump is also claiming this morning that Iran has moderated its behavior due to his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal:
They’re no longer looking so much to what’s going on in Syria, what’s going on in Yemen and lots of other places. They’re a much different country over the last three months.
This is completely untrue. Iran has done nothing to withdraw or lessen its involvement in Syria, Yemen, and other places. It is not only the same country over the last three months, it is getting ready to start up a plant to produce advanced centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
And the President is vaunting his meeting next week with Kim Jong-un:
Obama, Schumer and Pelosi did NOTHING about North Korea, and now weak on Crime, High Tax Schumer is telling me what to do at the Summit the Dems could never set up. Schumer failed with North Korea and Iran, we don’t need his advice!
No Democratic president ever wanted to concede a summit with the North Korean dictator without getting something in return up front. Trump has done so, to no noticeable benefit to the US so far. Nor is there any sign he will get anything tangible in Singapore, though you can bet on his vaunting a fantastic triumph.
The simple fact is that Trump is finding it a lot easier to offend America’s friends and allies than to get anything from our adversaries, who recognize that he is a bullshitter who flogs flim-flam. It would all be laughable–a kind of reality sit-com–if it weren’t real. The G7-1 is however unified and represents an economy larger than that of the US. Trump may prefer a light-on-substance summit with Kim Jong-un, and he may want to falsely claim that Iran has moderated its behavior, but neither our friends nor our adversaries will be fooled. The only fool in this reality sit-com resides in the White House.
RSS - Posts
