EU and Russia: every summit meeting counts

The next EU-Russia Summit is taking place on Tuesday, 28 January, in Brussels. It will be a very short meeting. Initially thought to last for two days, it is now planned for three hours. That says a lot about the state of mind of the leaders, on both sides of the table. But it is also related to the fact that the current EU bosses are at the end of their mandates. Later in the year all the key European institutions will be headed by new people.

It would be however a mistake to take this summit as a mere formality. There are important issues on the table, from trade to visa requirements, from Ukraine to the Transnistria break-away region of Moldova. The Europeans should find a balance between pushing forward what is positive and can strengthen the relationship and stating the key principles they believe are important to ensure the full respect for international law and human rights. 

Yanukovych´s desperate move

President Yanukovych of Ukraine is now blinking. The offer he made, without proper negotiations, to take one of the opposition leaders as Prime Minister is perceived by many as a losing gesture. It will not contribute to a durable solution. People, those who are on the streets in Kiev and in the provincial head towns, want the President to go. They must feel tonight they are closer to achieve it. 

EU and Ukraine: what´s next?

The Ukrainian situation remains at the top of the EU agenda. It is true that the crisis keeps widening. But there is another major reason. Brussels is preparing itself for the next summit meeting with Russia, scheduled for 28 January. And the Europeans are struggling to find a common and effective position on Ukraine to bring to the summit table. The countries to the East of EU are pushing for a very strong statement on Ukraine. They think that will contain Russia´s European ambitions. Other countries, lead by Germany, believe that trade issues are more important than the Ukrainian fate.

In the meantime, Baroness Ashton is getting ready to travel to Kiev. She will bring a message about human rights and democracy. That´s not bad. But it is not enough to unlock the current impasse between Yanukovych and the opposition. 

Ukrainian escalation

We are witnessing a serious escalation of the Ukrainian crisis. There are good reasons to be very worried.

It is now impossible to remain silent and inactive. There is a need to build bridges between the two sides.

It is true that no-one on either side of the divide seems interested in dialogue. But the outside world has to tell them that there is no other way out of the current dangerous situation. 

We need a new approach to EU external military deployments

The decision to deploy an EU brigade to Bangui –EUFOR RCA – has now been taken. The level of ambition and the duration of this mission are very limited, at best 6 months, and just to protect the international airport.

But that´s not my point today.

The decision has shown once more that the EU has to adopt a different model to finance this type of missions. They cannot be financed by the participating countries. Some countries would be ready to supply the soldiers and the logistical military support but they can´t afford the costs. Portugal is just one those countries. Lisbon would be willing to deploy but the defence budget for 2014 cannot pay for it. This means the Portuguese will stay away.

These missions should be funded from a common EU budget. Each member state should contribute to the annual replenishment of that fund in accordance with their GDP per capita. This is the only way to approach in more proactive way the external peace keeping operations of the EU. If it is not adopted, we will continue to see a contradiction between the decision to assist counties in crisis and the effective deployment of a credible force. The foreign ministers will taken the decision but the soldiers will not reach the ground on time and in sufficient numbers.

 And Germany, among others, will never be part of any effort of this type. Not even by contributing a few euros. 

Iran and Syria

Throughout the day there was a lot of controversy about Iran´s participation in the Geneva II talks on Syria, scheduled for Wednesday. The key Western powers looked at Secretary-general Ban´s decision to invite Tehran as a serious blunder. And he got quite a number of calls to change his mind, which he did. The invitation was withdrawn under the pretext that Tehran had not endorsed the transitional framework that came out of Geneva I.

Beyond this tangle, the point the SG was trying to make is very simple and clear. Iran has to be part of the solution. The Syrian crisis has many hands in it. One of them is at the end of the long arm that connects Assad with the Iranian leaders. If the other hands are in the kitchen, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, there is no reason to bar Iran. A negotiation is not just to be held between friends. It should bring together adversaries and enemies. 

Davos 2014

Davos is back this week. The World Economic Forum will discuss, during a few days, how to change to the planet. Some big names from the business will meet again lesser names from the politics. The wheels of networking will get their required dose of grease.

But the meeting itself has lost some of the shine of the past. There are now too many competing initiatives.

In the end, the great and the powerful will go back to their usual occupations. And the world might not have noticed that on the top of a Swiss mountain some beautiful people have spent a few nice days debating how to change it.

The world remains, as we can see, a very ungrateful place.

Karzai is making it impossible

Yesterday’s suicide attack against a well-known Kabul restaurant, which killed so many people and also destroyed the little flame of normalcy that the establishment symbolised, reminds all of us that President Karzai has yet to move on the security cooperation agreement with the US.

That agreement is the indispensable framework for any future assistance to Afghanistan after the departure of ISAF, at the end of this year. It was approved by the Loya Jirga (great assembly of elders and local traditional chiefs) in November 2013. Hamid Karzai could have signed it soon after. He has not done it and the delay is making it almost impossible to ensure a proper transition to the period post-ISAF. This will have a major impact on the continuation of key development projects. International staff will be drastically reduced if the security conditions are not properly guaranteed.

What are Karzai´s motives?  

Kiir should take a bold political initiative

Salva Kiir, the President of South Sudan, has managed to collect the support of the regional leaders. But the crisis is deepening. The ceasefire discussions in Addis Ababa are not making any visible progress. The humanitarian situation is worsening.

In this deteriorating context,  the international community should tell President Kiir that the support he is getting from the region should encourage him to seek a political solution. Because of the backing he is receiving from his neighbours he is more than anybody else in a stronger position when it comes to taking the political initiative. He should understand that the region and the international community can only see an all-inclusive political agreement as the way forward for sustainable peace and nation building in South Sudan. Anything else, including the military option, is just a recipe for further collapse and human misery. 

The hammer and the security challenges in CAR

My column of today in the Portuguese general affairs weekly magazine Visão is about the deployment of foreign troops in the Central African Republic (CAR). My point is basically that the international community is sending soldiers there in very limited numbers and then asking them to play law and order roles in the midst of a widespread civilian chaos. Not only the deployed military are insufficient in numbers for securing such a vast country, they are also called to do tasks that police and gendarmerie are best suited to implement. This is a major source of frustration for the soldiers. And they see no end to it, as there is no plan to bring formed police units from outside the country, no international police advisors, and no trainers to help the CAR authorities to re-establish their own security institutions. Again, the international community is making use of a hammer when the tools required are quite different.