Foreign policy

The European Union has agreed to suspend non-military sanctions on Burma for one year, following democratic reforms in the Asian nation. Ruled by a military junta who suppressed opposition and wielded absolute power for over half a century, it was a widely-condemned pariah in the international community. [1]

But over the last two years, things have, slowly, begun to change. In 2010, pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest, which she had been under on and off for 21 years. In March 2011, a nominally civilian government was introduced under President Thein Sein, and in parliamentary elections in April 2012, the National League for Democracy, Ms Suu Kyi’s party, won 43 of the 45 seats it contested, including hers.

In April 2012, key EU figures visited Burma; David Cameron became the first British Prime Minister to visit the country since it declared independence in 1948, and Catherine Ashton visited between 28th-30th April. Both met with both Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi. Ashton stated before her visit "The European Union welcomes the remarkable changes in Burma/Myanmar and has decided to open a new chapter in our relations. We have suspended the sanctions with the exception of the arms embargo. Of course reforms need to continue - we need to see further progress, in particular the unconditional release of all political prisoners and efforts to end ethnic conflicts. We are ready to assist with these efforts as well as with economic and social development. We will continue to support the democratic transition, including through electoral assistance, and encourage trade and investment in the country.”  [2]

As Ashton says, reforms need to continue: the military junta automatically has 25% of the seats in parliament, and the positions of interior and defence minister are reserved for serving generals. But the signs are certainly encouraging, and the West has recognised that. It can only be hoped that the progress continues, and that we will see a fully-democratic Burma being accepted and welcomed into the international community.

Image source: European Commission

The Commission welcomes the signature of a cooperation agreement between the EU and republic of Korea. Specifically, the agreement concerns the below main areas: the notification of enforcement activities that may affect the interests of the other jurisdiction; mutual assistance, including the possibility for one authority to ask the other to undertake enforcement action; coordination of enforcement activities; exchange of non-confidential information; and organisation of regular bilateral meetings between the parties’ competition authorities. Neelie Kroes, Competition Commissioner stated “This agreement is an important step in the effective application of competition rules and the fight against anticompetitive behaviour in the global economy. For decades international trade has been growing significantly and the world’s economies are becoming increasingly interlinked. This has multiplied the risk that anticompetitive practices affect more than one market and the likelihood that one competition authority’s action has implications for others. We are therefore eager to stimulate cooperation with other important competition authorities.”

Image: European Commission Audiovisual Service

The European Commission reaffirmed its support for Turkish membership this week, as Olli Rehn reassured the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that the Commission ‘is committed to the EU accession process of Turkey ..on the basis of the negotiating framework that was adopted by unanimity by all EU member states and Turkey in October 2005’. Along with Mr Rehn, the Czech and the Swedish foreign ministers, Jan Kohout and Carl Bildt called on Ankara to ‘continue implementing the needed reforms’. Last Tuesday the Turkish Foreign Minister restated that ‘full membership is the only acceptable outcome of the negotiations process’.

Image: European Commission Audiovisual Service

The EU-Russia Summit, which took place in Khabarovsk on the 21st and 22nd of May, was an opportunity to discuss and tackle issues such as the economic crisis, climate change and last but not least energy security. The discussions between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, President Jose Manuel Barroso, Benita Ferrero- Waldner (External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy), Baroness Catherine Ashton (Trade Commissioner) and Andris Piebalgs (Commissioner for Energy) did not go as expected. Moscow accused the EU of creating dividing lines by offering closer ties to six former Soviet republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine). Mr Medvedev highlighted in a press conference ‘We would not want the Eastern Partnership to turn into partnership against Russia. There are various examples. I would simply not want this partnership to consolidate certain individual states, which are of an anti-Russian bent, with other European states’.

Concerning the domain of energy, the Russian president questioned Ukraine’s ability to pay its gas stocks, proposing that it borrow from his country and the EU. In contrast, Mr Barroso stated ‘We are open to discussing new proposals, but we should rely on existing agreements. We should not question the present energy security system in Europe’.

Image: European Commission Audiovisual Service

While Georgia’s President was present, the Presidents of France, Italy, Spain, UK, Austria, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus were notably absent. Only Germany was the ‘bug Western player’ to support the event. The summit’s main goal was to “gather leaders from the EU Member States, EU institutions and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine to launch this new framework of reinforced bilateral and multilateral cooperation” in order to “lead to deepening of political and economic relations, more energy security, increased mobility and will give an additional boost to pro-democratic and market oriented reforms in partner countries.”

Source: European Commission Audiovisual Service

EU leaders reached agreement this week on the launching of a new partnership programme with six Eastern states. Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine will take part in this programme, into which the EU will invest €600 million. Previous EU partnership agreements such as the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and European Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) have been praised for their effects in ensuring economic reforms and political progression in participating states. It is hoped that this will also be the case for the six above-mentioned states, particularly Belarus, whose system of government is widely regarded as more authoritarian than democratic. However, without the perspective of accession the political conditionality has proved to have little effect.

Image: www.wikimedia.org

2008 has been a year of many changes for the Balkans. The year began with Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 17th. Although this decision had been expected, it confronted the international community with a range of new challenges. Like many other states, 22 of the 27 European member states recognised the Kosovo as independent. The EU sent a civilian peace-keeping mission, EULEX, to support the establishment of a democratic state of law. In Serbia, anticipated elections took place on May 11th after Prime Minister Kostunica had resigned. The EU supported the pro-European tendency with the signature of a stability and association agreement. The pro-European democratic party under president Tadic finally won the elections. Serbia further proved its pro-European attitude with the capture of Radovan Karadzic who had been searched for several years by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Bosnia equally signed a stability and association agreement with the EU. On December 15th finally, Montenegro officially applied for EU membership. The negotiations with Croatia are ongoing, whereas in the case of Macedonia different political problems hinder further negotiations.

Photo: www.flickr.com/David Le Masurier

Pascal Lamy, Director General of WTO, summoned a last chance meeting in Geneva this Monday 21 July, bringing together thirty trade ministers among the 153 members to the organisation. Taking into account the electoral calendars of the main partners and the general economic situation, which tends to favour protectionnist views, this ministerial meeting will either lead to an agreement on the Doha Round, or freezing negotiations for a while. The Doha Round, launched in 2001, is the ninth cycle of international trade negotiations aiming at lowering cross-border tariffs since 1945. Current negotiations are lagging as they are not only involving ten developed countries like in the past, but 153 member states launched in a worldwide barter of thousands of products. If Mr. Lamy’s bet fails, trade wars and bilateral agreements risk multiplying, which very few will benefit from.

Development Commissioner Louis Michel has obtained a visa for a diplomatic mission in Burma. He will attempt to persuade the leaders of the military regime to open their boarders to international aid which is desperately needed after the Southeast Asian country was hit by cyclone Nargis last week. Michel has promised the Burmese authorities that he would not take advantage of this trip to condemn the authoritarian regime and that he only objective was to help save as many lives as possible. The Commissioner is walking a tight rope but at this point it is absolutely essential to gain the trust of the Burmese government and get them to cooperated in dealing with this humanitarian disaster.

Those were the words on Serbia spoken by enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, when the Commission Wednesday presented a paper on the Western Balkans. Mr. Rehn stressed the key role in ensuring peace and stability that Serbia holds. In relation to some of the other Balkan states the commissioner stated that Bosnia-Herzegovina should be able to sign a Stabilisation and Association Agreement in April, which is the first step towards EU membership. A condition is, however, that Bosnia and Herzegovina begins a state-level political reform. In the same way Mr. Rehn called for Croatia to make progress with its judicial and administrative reform. Croatia is the more advanced country in the membership process with ongoing association talks and Zagreb hopes to join the EU by 2011. There is a long way to go before peace and stability is the order of the day on the Western Balkans.

EU foreign policy, if there is one, has produced a number of several blunders over the last decade. In retrospect, granting EU membership to Cyprus before the southern Greek part of the island had accepted to be unified with the Northern part of the island was a serious strategic blunder. How history will judge the issue of Kosovo remains to be seen. The words spoken by Serbian foreign minister Vuk Jeremic to the European Parliament, indicates that EU foreign policy could have produced another blunder. Serbia is now as far away from EU membership as ever. The member states are split down the middle. The EU is left with Kosovo under its protection - a country that is unable to run its own affairs, with 40 per cent unemployment, staggering levels of corruption and organized crime and an economy in a poor state. One can not help wondering if the Balkans as a whole, and with that Europe as a whole, would not have been better of by maintaining status and securing peace through EU-membership with time.

Those are the words of general Nash the Irishman who will be leading soldiers from 14 Member States as part of the the Eufor, an EU Mission in Chad and the Central African Republic. The objective of the mission is to provide assistance to the thousands of refugees who have fled from Darfur into Chad and who no longer receive the help of NGOs. The situation is getting especially tense because Idriss Deby the President of Chad is on the verge of being overthrown by rebels connected with the Sudanese regime. Concerns have been raised about the neutrality of the force as France, which has the largest contingent in the force, is also an ally of President Deby. Given the present context the mission has been suspended for the time being. The situation which is unfolding deserves our attention, the EU cannot afford to get embroiled in a civil war which would undermine its credibility in peace keeping for many years to come.

A nationalist candidate leads after the first round of voting in the Serbian presidential elections. Tomislav Nicolic won more than 39% of the vote for the pro-Russian Serbian Radical Party while Tadic the incumbent president, representing the Serbian Democratic Party got 35.5 %. The race in very much undecided and some analysts believe that the endorsement of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica could be the deciding factor. The debate leading up to the second round will continue to focus on the status of Kosovo, whose independence is opposed by both candidates. Debates on this issue have yielded a record turnout with 61% of voters going to the polls. This is bad news for the EU which is trying to find a solution regarding the status of the breakaway province as both candidates will be tempted to demonstrate their firmness on the Kosovo dossier to catch undecided voters. Given the political situation, the impatience of the people in Kosovo and Russia’s support of the Serbia, the EU is left with very little margin for manoeuvre.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French head of state, commented on a decision by the Council reached Friday 14, to deploy a 1800 strong police and civilian mission in Kosovo. In this way the UN will refer the current UN-mission in Kosovo to the EU. The unity on the deployment of the mission stands tall instead of the unity on the question of independence of Kosovo, which countries like Cyprus, Spain, Greece and Slovakia are still opposed to. Instead, the scenario outlined in EU-diplomat circles is that the EU will “take note” of the expected one-sided declaration of independence from Kosovo. Hereafter, it is up to each member state to recognize Kosovo as an independent state. The perspective of European unity on Kosovo, the perhaps single most important foreign policy question since the invasion of Iraq, does not look promising.

International relations is popular with students of political science. Understandably, one could add, when thinking about the important yet extremely difficult questions of international politics that Europe has to respond to these days. The relationship with Russia and the US, the future of Kosovo… the list is long. The European Council on Foreign Relations is the new kid on the block of think tanks that aims at assisting European politicians with sound policy advice in the difficult discipline of decision-making. The think tank aims to promote a more integrated European foreign policy in support of shared European interests and values. A praiseworthy yet challenging ambition.

The official site of European Council on Foreign Relations

They came, they saw and they left, without having reached an agreement. Less than two weeks before the US, Russia and the EU are to report back to the UN on the future of Kosovo, the EU-countries failed to align their foreign policy positions on the status of Kosovo, who seeks independence from Serbia. Three-day talks in Austria between the member states ended Wednesday 28 without an agreement on the single most important foreign policy issue in the backyard of the EU. A majority of the 27 would support a unilateral declaration of independence from Kosovo as would the US. However, at least five member states are strongly opposed to this solution. Should Kosovo, as expected, declare its independence, a strong and firm common position is necessary to prevent the question from turning into another regional armed conflict. At present, the member states are writing the script of another Balkan-story featuring the Union as a lame duck in its own backyard. Again, it is not looking good.

This week, Jose Manuel Barroso travels to China for the yearly EU and China political pow-wow. Whereas human rights issues have traditionally been high on the agenda, another topic seems to be dominating the agenda of this year’s summit: the economy. European leaders are not satisfied with the trade balance between the economies of China and the EU. The EU is the largest oversee export market for the Chinese but the traffic seems to be only one way. The Union exports more to Switzerland than to China and the result is a trade deficit that grows by a staggering 15 million euros per hour. European leaders are accusing China for not opening its market and, more generally, not following the rules of the World Trade Organisation WTO. Whether Mr. Barroso will bring home results is another question. The Chinese leaders feel that they are struggling with economic problems at home. Consequently, economic reforms that would open the Chinese market are not considered especially timely.