European Union

Helle, Hajer and Hussein are young, articulate and ambitious. They dream big and aim high. They want the best for themselves and for the countries – Tunisia, Libya and Syria – they live in.

You won’t read about them in traditional newspapers. They aren’t making headlines just yet.

But more, much more, than their governments, these young people and millions of others like them hold the key to our future.

Almost 65 per cent of the population in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is under the age of 30.  The choices that Helle and her friends make will determine the fate of their own countries. But they will also have a strong impact on Europe and the world.

I met these “Young Mediterranean Voices” – teachers, journalists, environmentalists, social entrepreneurs, peace and democracy activists – at the MedForum 2016, organised last week in Malta by the Anna Lindh Foundation.

The energy and enthusiasm of more than 500 savvy, young Europeans and Arabs whom the Anna Lindh Foundation had identified as “change-makers” rang through the Valetta conference centre. The talk was of crafting a narrative of hope, dialogue and cooperation that runs counter to the extremist discourse of hate and violence.

‘No-one is born a terrorist’, says one young man. Instead of trying to counter the extremists’ poisonous voices, many underline the need to articulate an inspiring vision of societies where people can live in peace.

Religion is the last thing on their minds. These young people want to fight for better education, jobs, clean government, stability and hope. And forget the stereotypes: the girls – including the small number who wears headscarves – are even more confident than the boys.

The focus on civil society and young people as agents of social change is not new. But there is a consensus on the need to act urgently.

The good news is that the Anna Lindh Foundation is getting the attention and support it deserves. The message of the EU High Representative, Federica Mogherini, to the Forum highlighted Europe’s commitment to engagement with young people.

And there are growing opportunities for young people to make a difference.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250, agreed last December, emphasises the crucial role they can play in managing conflicts and establishing peace. And building stronger Euro-Mediterranean bonds is going to be a key priority for Malta, which takes over the EU Council presidency in January 2017.

The conversations in Valetta provided many lessons for policymakers.

First, stop obsessing about religion and start putting money where it really matters: into schools, job creation and investment schemes.

Second, engage with civil society – don’t fear it. MENA governments too often reject the ideas and passion of young people instead of seeking to channel their enthusiasm for change and reform into positive contributions to national policymaking. And while many EU cooperation agreements include an important people-to-people component, these programmes need to be made more crucial and more exciting.

Third, even as it seeks to engage with MENA governments, the EU should invest in the region’s young people. This is essential if the region is to have long-term peace and stability.

Certainly many parts of the Arab world are jolted by conflicts and wars. Violence and economic deprivation are driving many young people to come to Europe.

But the gathering in Malta is proof that Europe’s southern neighbourhood need not be a place of death and destruction. With the right policies, the right people in charge, and sustained support, it can be a region of hope and peace.

Related content

• Friends of Europe: Report – Islam and the challenge of Muslim democrats
• Europe’s World: Throwing money at failing states isn’t working
• Debating Europe: Changing the Politics of Fear – new series

IMAGE CREDIT: CC / FLICKR – Anna Lindh Foundation

The post Young, gifted Arabs hold the key to peace appeared first on Europe’s World.

There is an old American saying, ‘politics should stop at the water’s edge’. It means foreign policy should be driven by a country’s national interests and values, not its domestic politics. But it’s a myth.

Britain’s vote to leave the European Union is one example of exploding this myth. Overnight, British citizens fundamentally altered the structure of their foreign policy. David Cameron had tried to use the referendum as leverage for concessions from Brussels, with the goal of addressing long-standing tensions within the ruling Conservative Party regarding EU membership. But he underestimated the British electorate’s growing anti-establishment sentiment. The Brexit vote was dramatic, but hardly unique. In this world of global networks and instant messaging, where almost anyone can draw millions of online spectators to the scene of an unfolding drama, public opinion is more dynamic than ever.

Existing assumptions about the world seem to be routinely overtaken by unexpected events. Political leaders who traditionally counted on public ambivalence regarding foreign affairs are finding it hard to keep up. No political leader can afford to ignore what his or her street is thinking, doing and tweeting, with democrats focused on the next election and autocrats fearing the next uprising.

Five years after political protests swept across the Middle East and North Africa, revolutions, counter-revolutions, crackdowns and civil wars have left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced. The mayhem enabled the rise of Daesh, which established a caliphate defined by its opposition to the modern secular world. Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, saw the 2014 revolution in Ukraine spiralling beyond his control and sought to undermine it, appropriating Crimea in the process. The US and Europe imposed sanctions in response, but the successful Sochi Olympics, combined with the Ukraine crisis, reminded the Russian people of the halcyon days of the Cold War. What political leader would change course with approval ratings above 80%? Putin, far more a gambler than a grand strategist, doubled down in Syria. He will be antagonist-in-chief for the next American president’s entire term in office.

Putin, the Syrian civil war and Daesh have been significant issues in the 2016 US presidential campaign, far more so than Brexit. Nonetheless, the political dynamic that powered Brexit is evident in the astonishing emergence of Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee. Trump embraced a neo-isolationist political credo of “America first”, which appealed to a narrow sub-segment of the population. He promised to construct walls and impose bans to keep immigrants at bay. He rejected multilateral trade agreements that, in his view, favour China and others who don’t play by accepted international rules. He called NATO obsolete and conditioned the United States’ alliance commitments on whether America’s friends were shouldering their fair share of the security burden. He even saluted Brexit as an effort by the people to take their country back.

Trump’s contest against former secretary of state Hillary Clinton quickly embodied the prevailing tension between two different conceptions of America’s global leadership role. Clinton, a strong internationalist, is an ardent believer in American exceptionalism. She sees the US as uniquely positioned to lead the world in solving pressing global challenges. Clinton helped set the table for the international agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear programme, arguably the signature achievement of the Obama administration, and promised to vigorously enforce it as president. She was an ardent supporter of the NATO intervention in Libya, concluding that the only way to protect the Libyan people from a vengeful leader was to create favourable conditions for Gaddafi’s overthrow. Her vote in favour of the Iraq invasion probably cost her the Democratic nomination and election in 2008.

“Putin, the Syrian civil war and Daesh have been significant issues in the 2016 US presidential campaign, far more so than Brexit”

On the other hand, Trump called the Iran nuclear agreement ‘one of the worst deals ever negotiated’, although he was more circumspect than other Republican presidential candidates over what he would actually do about it. Trump promised to restore respect for American power, calling Obama’s struggles with the Syrian civil war – in particular the red line he drew over the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons – a ‘humiliation’. While he pledged to be tough and strong as president, he also promised to be more selective on US intervention. A Trump administration would not engage in nation-building. Trump riled the Republican establishment too by denouncing the Iraq War as a ‘big fat mistake’, and accusing George W. Bush of lying about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Given the shock of the 11 September attacks, Bush faced little political opposition when he declared a war on terror and developed an aggressive strategy of ‘with us or against us’ that illuminated a path from Afghanistan to Iraq. Obama represented a counter-narrative, leading a US prepared to find common cause with friends and constructively engage adversaries. By and large, Obama’s foreign policy mirrored what he offered on the campaign trail in 2008. And to a great degree, he delivered the foreign policy the American people said they wanted. He was unable to close the prison at Guantanamo, but he made the problem smaller. Forces remain in Afghanistan and Iraq, but as allies, not occupiers. Given his mandate to end wars and avoid new ones, Obama struggled to find a viable strategy in Syria. He declared war against Daesh but not Assad, and in so doing avoided placing large numbers of American troops in the middle of a conflict that plays into the narrative of an intractable war between Islam and the West.

Notwithstanding Trump’s populist appeal, underestimated ever since his campaign began, it’s not clear the American people are looking for a dramatic change. They continue to support American leadership in the world even if, after Iraq, they are wary of its costs. Confronting a world that seems to be changing dramatically with each passing day, the American public is most likely to stick with the foreign policy they know. But, as with Brexit, it’s the actual votes that count.

IMAGE CREDIT: CC / FLICKR – Matt Wade

The post US exceptionalism or withdrawal from the world? appeared first on Europe’s World.

Before the next Tour de France starts on the 1st of July from the banks of the Rhine, the entire country will embark on a seven-month election marathon, beginning with three primaries, one of which (the Greens’) is already half-way through, with ‘the Right and the Centre’ to follow in November and the Socialists (or what’s left of them after five years in power) finishing by 29 January. These will kick off the all-pervasive campaign for the presidential election on 23 April and 7 May, which in turn will be followed by the legislative elections on 11 and 18 June, all held in the traditional two-round voting system.

Over this period, a politically interested French citizen may thus direct his or her Sunday afternoon stroll at least eight times towards a polling station (nine if he or she’s among the 17,146 individuals registered for the Greens’ second round next Sunday). Chances are that he or she will be sucked up by the media tornado before the end of winter into a highly personalised campaign that will end up becoming frenzied in spring, especially between the two rounds of the presidential election. The catharsis of 7 May will in all likelihood be followed by a collective hangover and a feeling of utter disappointment and fatigue, reinforced further by the almost meaningless duty of voting in June.

Until then, the French citizens will have been reminded on an almost daily basis by politicians, media experts and the inevitable ‘declinists’ that the principles they thought their Republic firmly anchored on, are all severely threatened. ‘La liberté’ is under attack by the never-ending state of emergency apparently necessary to fight ‘the war’ against home-bread terrorists. ‘L’égalité’ is being torn to pieces alongside with a beloved ’social model’ that is perceived to be crumbling and an education system that reveals itself ever more incapable of respecting its own meritocratic promises of social mobility. Even ‘la fraternité’ is no longer what it used to be, with public services deserting rural areas, refugees being welcome in very small numbers and certainly not in my backyard, and the eternal identity debate setting up one ethnic or cultural community against another. Not to mention ‘la laïcité’, which has never been understood outside France and is now increasingly under siege at home.

The journey to next summer will be a hard one. In the state the country is currently in, this will be more than a typical election drama with its usual dose of hypocrisy, hyperbole, and hysteria. Rather, the next months will very painfully reveal the severity of the systemic crisis France finds itself it, probably the most important one since 1958. And, contrary to 1958, with no providential saviour in store and hardly any light at the end of the democratic tunnel.

If you consider France hopelessly ‘has-been’, in irremediable decline, and no longer of relevance to what happens on a European level, please simply ignore this blog. If you think that a dispirited, disheartened and depressed France is a problem for Europe (even without subscribing to the ‘Domino’ theory), you might be interested in following this blog’s musings about why France seems so irremediably stuck in a stagnation that increasingly feels like a ‘Groundhog Day’ treadmill.

Contemporary French political culture is the result a highly complex historical process. We teach our students the concept of ‘path-dependence’, but for the French case study we might as well invent the neologism of ‘path-imprisonment’.

This blog is a modest attempt to accompany the country’s journey over the next seven months with a regular series of comments and reflexions on how France found itself imprisoned, how imprisonment is denied (and sometimes almost celebrated against better evidence), how key individuals position themselves with regard to the system, and what the (more than slim) chances are something might actually change for the better in the next legislature.

It is possible that despite all efforts to uphold a minimum of academic objectivity, these election chronicles may be tainted with a tinge of sadness. Bon voyage, malgré tout.

Albrecht Sonntag
@albrechtsonntag

The post Ref: France (2017), Campaigns, Elections, Hangover (forthcoming). appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The editor-in-chief and other staff at Turkey's most important opposition paper Cumhuriyet were arrested early Monday morning. The prosecution has accused them of supporting the Kurdish PKK and the movement of Turkish preacher Fetullah Gülen. Commentators find the accusations absurd and call for a harsh response from the EU.

A new FBI probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private server for sending emails dealing with official matters has put the US presidential candidate under pressure shortly before the election campaign ends. Some commentators accuse the FBI chief of acting without due authority and out of vanity. Others criticise the parties' behaviour towards the country's justice system.

Central Italy was once again rocked by a severe earthquake on Sunday, the worst in Italy in 36 years and the fifth destructive tremor in the region since August. The press draws attention to the tens of thousands of people left homeless and stresses that Italy cannot shoulder the costs of emergency aid and reconstruction on its own.

After its surprise victory in Lithuania's parliamentary elections, the Peasant and Greens Union has presented its first plans for government. These include a state alcohol monopoly meant to curb alcoholism in the country. Lithuanian commentators show little enthusiasm for the proposal.