Keep the eyes on the ball

The Football World Cup started today in São Paulo. The TV screens will be full of soccer news during the next few weeks. At a time when the crises in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mali, Libya, Ukraine, Iraq, Pakistan and other places keep deepening, people´s attention will be busy and focused on the ball. As they say, keep the eyes on the ball, we will take care of the rest…

Iraq: The Western allies have forgotten the country

The Iraqi situation is deteriorating faster than we had thought yesterday. Today, the Islamists managed to advance further towards the capital city. The armed forces have been able to fight a few battles, here and there, but they seem to lack proper leadership. And the country´s political leaders are now collecting the results of a very divisive governance.

On top of this, the key Western allies of Iraq, those who were quite fast at moving in in 2003, seem to be in another planet. There has been little movement, in the last few days, to try to get the West together in support of a country that has been, in the recent past, so much present in our political agenda.  

Iraq should urgently seize the Security Council

Iraq is again in deep trouble. The radical combatants of the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIS) are a very serious menace for peace and stability in the country. Their taking control of Mossul is a very serious indication that the Iraqi armed forces are not prepared to respond to the challenge. It is true that Mossul has always been an unstable city in a restless province. But today´s take over by the extremists of ISIS marks a new stage in a rapidly deteriorating situation.

The government needs external support to effectively stop the ISIS progression towards other regions and in the direction of Bagdad. They should take that request for support to the Security Council without any further delay. 

The European social-democrats are getting me confused

Is the European democratic socialism in crisis?

That was today´s question in a small group that met to discuss what next for the social-democrat movements in Europe. And I have to add that the debate was not very conclusive. To start with, it is getting more and more difficult to make a difference between the left wingers and their opposite parties of the centre right. Then, there are those who place greater emphasis on behavioural matters, such as the gay and lesbian issues, and others that keep the focus on the economy, job creation and equality matters. But you find people from both the right and the left saying the same things about these issues. And one gets confused then.  

Chaos as usual in the CAR

The Central African Republic has disappeared from the news. But the internal situation in the country is as chaotic and violent as it has been in the recent past. Lawlessness is the rule, ethnic cleansing is the daily reality. The international community´s response remains insufficient and unfocused. The UN presence is struggling to cope with the humanitarian challenges but lacks political strategy and a clear sense of direction.  

Summits are crucial for crisis resolutions.

Today´s top level meetings at the D-Day commemorations have shown, once again, that summits matter. Leaders that meet regularly and know each other are in a better position to sort out big issues when a threatening crisis occurs. It is not enough to have the Foreign Ministers around the table. They are, at the end of the day, more radical than their masters. The critical step is to get the political bosses to sit together and talk the issues through. 

Draghi´s measures should have a positive impact

I fully support the measures taken today by the European Central Bank president Mario Draghi. It´s far too early to talk about their impact, even less about the results. But they are bold decisions. They are a very serious attempt to revive the EU economies, to facilitate access to productive credit and also put a stop to the strengthening of the euro currency. The only problem is that the financial markets are very volatile, they have their own logic, and, in many cases, they are only interested in the short term. And they move trillions of resources on a daily basis. However, there is money out there that is looking for a more predicable economic environment and that is ready to invest long term. Let´s see if they get additional incentives to invest on productive and job generating activities now that Draghi has adopted a more proactive approach. 

Our attention lost sight of the Boko Haram girls

Boko Haram is still very much alive and kicking. They keep attacking civilians in Northeast Nigeria and making sure everybody understands that the federal government is just composed of a bunch of inept political opportunists. The school girls are yet to be freed. And the international security teams that came to help are now realising that corruption within the armed forces of Nigeria is a major handicap. A few generals have now been accused of selling weapons to the armed extremists. But that´s not enough to turn things around. And the world has lost sight of the girls and the extremism and moved its attention elsewhere. 

G7 in Brussels, a messy affair

Tomorrow Brussels will be hosting the G7 Summit. This was actually supposed to be a G8 thing. But the relations with the Russians being what they are now, we will only have seven of them in the room. The Russian ghost will however be there as well. That might be the main phantom. There will some others in the air: the banking and commercial tensions between Europe and the US, the lacklustre commitment of EU to collective defence, Syria, North Africa and, in the American minds, the growing armed instability in the South China Sea. All in all, including from a traffic perspective, Brussels will be messy. 

The waters of West Africa

The security challenges in the Gulf of Guinea are a new opportunity to promote cooperation between the key African States of the region, including Nigeria and Angola. They are also being used to enhance the political relations between those countries and States from outside the region. Brazil is one of those States. The US, of course, is particularly interested. And within the EU, Portugal has been a front player in terms of advancing the partnership agenda between Europe and West Africa.

My advice is that the partnership has to deal with fisheries protection – which key for the economy of the coastal populations of the region – as much as it deals with piracy and freedom of navigation. This dual approach is the only sustainable way forward. Without fishing the livelihood possibilities in the region will shrink further. And the illegal activities will be seen by many young people as one of the very few doors to remain open.