EU policy on Arab world is a tale of lost opportunities

In the coming weeks, citizens from around Europe will vote for a new European Parliament. It will take some careful negotiation and time, but the election signifies the beginning of a process that will lead to a new face for the institutions of the European Union. That sort of change will have an effect, also, on the EU’s foreign relations. What the Arab world will want to know is what effect that change in Europe will have on it, ­particularly given the tumultuous changes that are currently underway in the Arab neighbourhood.

The last time there were elections for the European Parliament, in 2009, few imagined that anything substantial was going to happen in the Arab world in the near future. Members of the European Parliament were taken by surprise at the uprisings in several Arab countries, filled with incredible hope in terms of the potential of those revolts, and then sobered by the course of events over the past three years. If “sombre” was an appropriate word to describe the mood of European institutions a few months ago, “despondent” seems to characterise it now.

Many European officials celebrated the burst of civil-society energy that swept across the Arab world in late 2010 and early 2011. Some thought this would herald the beginning of a straightforward, if long, transition to democracy in various countries. Fairly quickly, however, their expectations were tempered. In Tunisia, the revolution brought an Islamist party into the corridors of power – hardly what the European establishment expected. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood initially saw its political fortunes soar – again, not what European diplomats and officials had been hoping for. Nevertheless, in both cases, the consensus within European institutions was that whether these Islamists were advocates of liberal democracy or not – and the Tunisians were far more palatable in this regard than the Egyptians – they had to be engaged with, as legitimately elected representatives.

It helped, of course, that the powers in Washington generally agreed – the European Union’s collective foreign policy has not been known to stray far from America’s. They are now, however, in a quandary. As Washington’s policy towards the uprisings has failed to materialise into a cohesive, solid strategy, so has the collective EU’s external relations with the Arab world in the midst of those changes.

Indeed, European officials seem to feel frustrated that until the US makes up its mind over quite what it intends to do in the Arab world, the EU’s policy will come to naught. Even though the Arab world is on Europe’s doorstep, as opposed to being across the Atlantic Ocean, EU policy is still dramatically affected by America’s approach – or lack thereof.

That sort of proximity has also affected the EU’s policy on the Arab world in another way, particularly at present.

Ukraine, which borders a number of EU member states, is engaged in its own troubles. The intervention of Russia, which has incorporated a secessionist Crimea, has awakened old fears about the threat of a rejuvenated neo-Soviet imperialism. That has taken up the attention of much of the EU. The fixation of that is punctuated by momentary shocks from the Arab world – such as the recent death sentences imposed on more than 500 people in an Egyptian court – but in general, attention seems to be in danger of permanently moving on.

EU institutions are now essentially split on the “Egypt question”. There are those who breathed a sigh of relief when the Islamist presidency of Mohammed Morsi came to an unceremonious end. While it is hard to find sympathy in Europe for the new Egyptian government, many do nonetheless relate to Cairo as something more familiar and “business as usual”, as compared to the Brotherhood period.

On the other hand, there are others who have had, and still do have, grave reservations about the Brotherhood, but want human rights advocacy to be at the heart of any European collective foreign policy – whether it be in Egypt or elsewhere. What that would mean in practice, given the structural limitations of the EU’s own systems and the ­relationship with a US that has not indicated what steps it might try to accomplish, is anyone’s guess.

For now, the EU’s policy on the Arab world, as it relates to those countries in transition, is an open one. Tunisia would seem to be the main benefactor of European support – and even that might not be up to the level the Tunisians are expecting. Syria is a nightmare, which won’t be solved through European action primarily (or even secondarily) and thus will not be focused on to the exclusion of closer problems, such as the situation in Ukraine.

Egypt is widely regarded as having lost a great opportunity for historical change – the question of what that now means in terms of actual policy, beyond well-intended statements about human rights, has not yet been answered.

In the meantime, the Arab world moves on. History may recall that when there was so much potential for change in the Arab world in 2011 and 2012, it was not only some of the Arabs who missed opportunities. It was also the ­Europeans – and both Arabs and Europeans may regret that in years to come.

Dr HA Hellyer is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and the Brookings Institution in Washington DC

On Twitter: @hahellyer