European Union

in a referendum on April 16, the Turks will vote on the introduction of a new presidential system that would see President Erdoğan's powers substantially increased. Opponents and supporters of the constitutional reform are neck and neck in the polls. Commentators complain about unequal conditions for the two camps in the campaign and argue that in the end Erdoğan only stands to lose.

Will the EU crumble under the pressure of internal disputes and conflicting interests? Will right-wing populism bring about its collapse? Or will Europe get its act together and create a new and more stable architecture? Commentators discuss their views on the future of the Union.

“When our uprising started, we chanted ‘Syria is for all’, meaning that it’s for all Syrians. But it became for all the people around the globe. Mostly the bad ones, too. They misunderstood us”, Ahed Festuk told me. She is a 28-year-old pioneer activist who worked in the rebel-held east of Aleppo for more than five years.

There are no accurate statistics on the number of foreign fighters who have invaded Syria over the last six years, but it is estimated that between 27,000 and 31,000 foreign fighters have entered Syria and Iraq since the Syrian uprising started in 2011. Data provided by the Soufan Group, a strategic consultancy firm, in 2014 said that the identifiable number of foreign fighters was approximately 12,000 from 81 countries.

Yazan, an activist from the city of Idlib, wrote on his Facebook page recently: “Six years ago, if I found a foreigner visiting my town I would have taken a picture with him as a souvenir! Now foreigners are the ones who should be taking pictures with me, because I am the only Syrian in my neighbourhood!” Yazan lives in a neighbourhood that is mostly inhabited by international jihadists and their families.

As the borders between Syria and Iraq have been removed it is difficult to tell how the fighters are distributed between the two countries. In Syria, most of the fighters have joined the self-styled ‘Islamic State’ group, or Daesh, and have been living with their families in its territories in eastern Syria and the northern suburbs of Aleppo.

“The worst humanitarian crisis of our time has contributed to the worldwide rise of extremism”

But these are not the only newcomers storming Syria. A head of one of the rebel groups told me last year, after their battle against Syrian government regime forces in Retian, in northern Aleppo: “To call what is going on in Syria a civil war, aren’t we supposed to be fighting other fellow Syrians? Well, in this battle alone, we have captured ten fighters attacking our city. None of them are Syrian! They are Afghan refugees from Iran, and Lebanese fighters.”

Researchers Vincent Beshara and Cody Roche concluded that 53 foreign militias are fighting on the side of the Syrian government regime. They are mostly Shia Muslims. Iran alone commands a force of around 25,000 Shia Muslim militants in Syria, mostly made up of recruits from Afghanistan and Pakistan. While 61% of Syria’s population fled their war-torn homes, thousands arrived in Syria from Iran, Pakistan, the Gulf states, Iraq, Russia, Chechnya, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Tunisia, Europe, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Syria did not previously host such a variety of nationalities even in its peak tourism seasons. Now there are regular reports of American soldiers being killed while doing ‘consultancy’ work in the Kurdish areas of northern Syria; it is common to see videos of Turkish flags and soldiers in other rebel-held areas as part of their ‘Euphrates Shield’ operation.

There are now dozens of single-nationality militias that don’t allow Syrians to join, each using their own flags, leaders, territories and bases. There are so many conquerors that Syrians can’t keep up with their languages and cultures.

Suddenly Syrians are getting local news from the Russian media and news agencies. The Russian Defence Minister announced the details of the Aleppo forced-evacuation deal. The President of Russia is speaking on behalf of the Syrian army and state. Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qassem Soleimani is held up as an example of the success of the Syrian Arab Army.

“Some analysts have even referred to the Syrian crisis as the reason behind Brexit and Russia’s increasing international power.”

“I passed the Russian checkpoint; in front of me is the bad Lebanese Shiites’ one, then the Iranians’. Both are moody and don’t respect the deal, so I am still terrified”, wrote Ola, an activist from Aleppo, to her sister as she was evacuated from Aleppo in December 2016.

Despite reaching an agreement with the Russians, the Iranian and Lebanese militias attacked the first convoy trying to leave the city, halting the evacuation process until their conditions were met. Russia, who granted the deal, even announced that they would be fire back on anyone targeting the convoys. The Russians livestreamed the process using drones.

Syria became the land of international complications. And Syrians have exported these complications to the rest of the world. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 4.8 million Syrians have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, and around one million have requested asylum in Europe.

Germany, with more than 300,000 applications, and Sweden, with 100,000, are the European Union’s top receiving countries. This number excludes all the family-reunion applications that allow a minor and one parent to bring the rest of the family to join them.

The worst humanitarian crisis of our time has contributed to the rise of extremism in all parts in the world. We feature in western parliamentary discussions and election debates, used by the left and the right to frighten those who do not support them.

Some analysts have even referred to the Syrian crisis as the reason behind Brexit and Russia’s increasing international power.

“We have wrecked the world”, I wrote after the UK’s EU referendum. A British friend of mine replied: “This is how I would define our karma for leaving Syrians to suffer alone for six years, being killed by all kind of internationally forbidden weapons, breaking every single decree in international human rights law. We Europeans are paying the price”.

IMAGE CREDIT: zurijeta/Bigstock

The post “We have wrecked the world” – inside Syria’s international civil war appeared first on Europe’s World.

Delegations

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On 3 May, Members of AFET and SEDE will hold an exchange of views with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The debate will primarily focus on the strategic cooperation between the EU and NATO-EU, including the implementation of the 2016 Joint Declaration, and on how the two organisations can jointly face complex security threats emerging globally and in our neighbourhood.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

will take place on Wednesday 3 May, 15:00-18:30 and Thursday 4 May 2017, 9.00-12:30 in Brussels.

Organisations or interest groups who wish to apply for access to the European Parliament will find the relevant information below.

Further information
watch the meeting live
Access rights for interest group representatives
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

On this day fifteen years ago, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) communicated its decision regarding the delimitation of the border between the State of Eritrea and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The EEBC had been established as part of the Algiers peace agreement signed by the leaders of Eritrea, President Isaias Afwerki, and Ethiopia, late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, in Algiers, Algeria on 12 December 2000. The EU signed as a witness alongside Algeria, the United States of America, the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity. 

The EU remains deeply concerned that the present stalemate continues to put regional stability at risk, with potentially negative implications on international peace and security as well as international trade, and hampers regional cooperation and development. 

The EU is convinced that the parties have all to gain from a full implementation of the provisions of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission's decision. In this regard, the EU encourages all concrete steps that could lead to finally demarcating the border in accordance with the EEBC decision and to move to a phase of building constructive and peaceful relations. 

As part of its strong engagement on the Horn of Africa, the EU stands ready to support the process and any measures that will create conditions for a mutually beneficial relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia in the future.

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Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
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It takes a lot to shock people who work with migrants in north Africa, but revelations of active slave markets in Libya managed it.

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REPORT on the 2016 Commission Report on Kosovo
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Ulrike Lunacek

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REPORT on the 2016 Commission Report on Serbia
Committee on Foreign Affairs
David McAllister

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Last month the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued two judgments that led the mainstream media to proclaim that “employers can ban headscarves”.

The headlines were overly simplistic. Workplace policies requiring staff not to wear any clothing or symbol of a religious, political or philosophical nature are allowed, but must meet a set of criteria, and only national courts can decide whether these are met. What is of great concern from the point of view of human rights is the guidance that the ECJ gave to national courts to make these decisions.

In the first case, Achbita v G4S Secure Solutions NV, the ECJ ruled that it is the Belgian court that referred the case must decide whether it had been legitimate to dismiss the employee, Samira Achbita. She had not complied with a demand from her employer, security company G4S, to work without a headscarf. The company alleged that she had been informed of its policy requiring ‘neutral’ clothing from the beginning of her employment.

The ECJ’s guidance to the national court is very troubling. It suggested that a company’s objective of presenting a ‘neutral’ face to the public can be used to justify restricting an employee’s freedom of religion or belief, and that this policy’s negative impact on employees’ rights can be acceptable as long as it applies only to staff who work directly with the public.

The problem here is that under international human rights conventions, which all European Union member states have signed up to, a desire for neutrality is not acceptable as a justification for restricting the right to freedom of religion.

“Is it not important for young people of all identities and faiths to see people like themselves as role models in visible positions in society?”

In our diverse and cosmopolitan societies, who decides what is neutral and what is not? Could the company have considered an alternative form of neutrality that would comply with human rights – a policy where all displays of religious and cultural identity, and none, are welcome? If the policy is to exclude entire sectors of society from a range of jobs, doesn’t it become the opposite of neutrality? Some customers might think so, if they knew about the policy. But the ECJ was concerned only with the outward image of the company: excluding people is allowed, as long as this exclusion is hidden from sight.

By arguing that G4S’s policy may be acceptable because it applies only to public-facing staff, the ECJ appears to be saying that it is acceptable to limit employment and career options for a significant sector of our societies – particularly Muslims, Sikhs and Jews. Muslim women in particular already face significant discrimination in access to employment.

On this point, the answer of the court’s Advocate-General (whose opinion formed the basis of the Achbita judgment) is that people can simply choose not to wear religious clothing to work. Samira Achbita, she argues, demonstrates this because she “opted” not to wear a headscarf when she started work at G4S. This flies in the face of decades of human rights case law, which requires freedom of religion or belief to be protected, including its manifestation in public. It also fails to take account of the ‒ sometimes profound ‒ changes in religious belief and practice that people can undergo during their lifetimes.

Achbita herself refuted the idea of wearing a headscarf being optional through her actions – she chose to lose her job rather than the headscarf (as did Asma Bougnaoui in the second ECJ case, Bougnaoui v Micropole S.A., where the Court ruled that a French company was wrong to require an employee not to wear her headscarf on the grounds that it had made a customer feel uncomfortable). This is a choice that non-religious people, or people who do not feel their faith requires religious clothing, do not have to make.

“It is deeply troubling that the proposed solution to the neutrality ‘problem’ is to make diversity invisible”

Crucially, it is fair to ask whether calls for neutrality might simply mask intolerance of Muslims and other minorities – by customers or employers. The ECJ must not be blind to the rising tide of discrimination against Muslims in Europe and elsewhere, with people caught in an echo chamber of hate, between the outbursts and discriminatory executive orders of US President Donald Trump on one side of the Atlantic, and anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim politicians and commentators on the other.

The problem is multiplied for women from minorities, who are subject to criticism and regulation of what they wear and how they look. The furore over the clothing choices of Muslim women – be they headscarves, hijabs, full-face veils or burkinis – has been fuelled by misogynistic and xenophobic stereotypes.

Finally, it is deeply troubling that the proposed solution to the neutrality ‘problem’ is to make diversity invisible. Companies have been told that they cannot dismiss an employee based on the negative reaction of a customer, but all they need to do to avoid that situation is to bring in a blanket policy allowing them to consign all crosses, headscarves, kippahs and turbans to the back office – or not to offer the wearers a job in the first place. National courts can declare such policies discriminatory, but the ECJ’s guidance in the Achbita judgment does not encourage them in that direction.

Is it not important for young people of all identities, convictions and faiths to see people like themselves as role models in visible positions in society?

The EU proclaims pluralism to be one of its founding values in its treaties – but we have a right to question the message this particular judgment sends about the many identities that make up our continent.

IMAGE CREDIT: Ruud Morijn/Bigstock

The post Headscarf bans in the workplace: neutrality at any price? appeared first on Europe’s World.

General : One in every three girls in developing countries is married before turning 18, and one in nine before 15. Child marriages limit future prospects as children are usually forced to drop out of school. Girls also face dangerous complications from pregnancy and childbirth, the leading causes of death among adolescent girls in developing countries. They are also at great risk from suffering abuse. On 11 April Parliament's women's rights and human rights subcommittee discussed the issue with experts.

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