nEUwletter 04/11/2019

NATO is dead, long live Europe !

By Alexandre Capel

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will celebrate its 70th birthday during a summit that will be held in London from 3rd to 4th December, the military organization has never seemed so challenged. Founded at the beginning of the Cold War, to ensure the security of Western Europe – the liberal side of the “Iron Curtain” – against Soviet expansionism by establishing a strong relationship with the United States, NATO seems nowadays weakened by some recent events. 

On the one hand, America – first investor and world’s largest military power – led by the Trump administration is turning his back on the European project, especially after the disengagement of North-East Syria. On the other hand, Turkey – one of the alliance’s largest member, considered during Cold War as the “southern flank pillar” – no longer share the same interests and values as other European members. 

This situation is therefore increasingly worrying the European member states which are – since the failure of the European Defense Community (EDC) project in 1954 – remaining very dependent on NATO. In a recent interview with The Economist, French President Macron even confided that he considered that the Atlantic alliance was in a “brain-death” state and that Europe was now “on the edge of a precipice”. According to him, the effectiveness of article 5 of the Washington Treaty – which states that if one NATO member is attacked all would come to its aid – is now seriously questioned. Despite these blunt words, the one that appears since the beginning of his mandate as the leader of a united Europe is defending on this occasion his desire for a more powerful and autonomous “Europe of defense” against the unpredictability of the United States.

  “It is high time for Europe to wake up (…) Europe needs to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power; otherwise we will no longer be in control of our destiny”

Emmanuel Macron, The Economist, October the 21st, 2019

However, this vision is not shared in the same way within and outside the alliance and this united European vision that Macron is trying to defend seems to collapse just in front of him.  On the one hand, Chief of the transatlantic defense alliance, Jens Stoltenberg and German chancellor, Angela Merkel have both reacted by criticizing these “drastic words”. US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo – who is visiting Eastern Germany to mark the 30th birthday of the Berlin Wall fall – even goes further by pointing out the historical importance of NATO. On the other hand, Moscow – which is not part of the alliance – has described the Macron’s analysis as “golden words” which are given “a clear definition of the current state of NATO”. 

Why is Putin Suspected of Trying to Destabilise Europe?

By Nomfundo Ndlwana

A contested EU Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report, examining the purported Russian interference in British politics, has once again raised what analysts define as the censored topic of Russian meddling in European affairs. Central to this ISC report is the alleged Russian activity targeting the UK, as well its involvement in the 2016 referendum on EU membership. Whilst the report has been cleared by the ISC, Downing Street has not given the nod for its publication, which means by December 12 elections it will still be classified. Gustav Gressel, the acting director of the Wider Europe Programme at the European Council of Foreign Relations (ECFR), states the report manifests the material effects of Russian interference, including its projected potential impact. Though Gressel doubts that Brexit is a creature of an absolute Russian interference, he believes Russia did assist in bringing Brexit about. He posits the objective of Russia is to destabilise the EU by operating through political parties who share its philosophy. 

Igor Kovalev, a global politics expert in Moscow, refutes the veracity of Gressel’s assertions. He contends Russia is being used as a scapegoat for the ignominious failure that Brexit has turned out to be, and that there is no evidence to substantiate its interference with the will of the British electorate during the Brexit referendum. However, Tara Varma, the head of ECFR in Paris ridicules this rebuttal arguing that the Russian attempts at destabilising the EU are historic. Which could be true, because during bilateral talks with Putin in 2017, Emmanuel Macron openly rebuked him for an alleged Russian intervention in the French presidential elections. Subsequently, in a joint press conference in Versailles, Macron labelled the Russian state-sponsored media outlets RT and Sputnik the “agents of influence and propaganda, lying propaganda”. At the time, Macron remained evasive when asked about the allegations of the hacking attempts by Russia aimed at swaying the electorate. Regardless, his campaign team barred access to these Russian outlets, accusing them of disseminating misleading information. Putin only commented that the idea of the Russian hackers at work was either conceivable or not so much.  

Varma bases the attempts to undermine the EU political project by Kremlin on the notion that it competes with the Russian revisionist conceptualisation of the world, meaning it is Kremlin’s attempt to reclaim the great power status they once held before the fall of the Soviet Union. Gressel corroborates this notion, stating the Russian elite are still operating under the 19th-century ideology of great power competition, where authoritarian powers like China represent the future. These Russian elites denounce the democratic communities of independent sovereign states such as the EU, and further describe the EU as an artificial construct that will dismally fail and not survive the coming century of great power competitions. According to Gressel, Russia believes the EU is too weak to be a superpower, it is not worth investing time on because it will not survive anyway, such that it is patiently waiting for its take-over moment when the EU and NATO ultimately collapse. Gressel suggests with NATO out of the way, an unbridled Russian scope of influence in the West is quite likely. 

However, Kovalev repudiates this notion, stating Russia has nothing to benefit from the EU disintegration, even from the withdrawal of just one member state from the union because such modifications translate to an emergence of a new player in international relations. He posits an increase in the number of international players will proportionately stronger the difficulty in reaching consensus on specific issues than if there were less. In contrast, as Kovalev states, the EU collapse will only result in uncertainty for Russia, because as a Eurasian country, tensions at its European border is not in its strategic interest. He states what is vital to Russia is its alliance with Turkey since it is instrumental to the realisation of its main objectives: the survival of Bashar al-Assad and a resultant end to the American presence in Syria. The reason why Russia considers its alliance with Turkey strategic, is because of the pressure the latter has put on Washington so far, thus fomenting squabbles within NATO. This situation places the EU in an awkward predicament because alienating Turkey will boomerang, since it will force Turkey to open the borders with Europe, recreating the 2015 crisis. Kovalev adds that EU powers have failed to find a solution to prevent Erdogan from using this threat again and again. 

The visit of the French President in China

By Hélène Veysseyre

From november 4th to November 6th 2019, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, was in China for an official visit to the Chinese president, Xi, in order to get closer to the Chinese market. This visit was aimed to help support French economic interests but also the EU’s interests.

As for the French economic interests, accompanied by French businessmen, Macron signed about 40 contracts regarding economic cooperation between France and China, in several fields such as agri-food industry, aeronautics, space, energy, environment and trade. Those contracts are worth 13,6 billions of euros. Among those, there has been some negotiations on a major contract that has been discussed for many years now and that should be signed before january 31th 2020, regarding the construction of a factory recycling chinese used nuclear fuel. As well as this contract, some others regarding the field of environment have been signed, such as the creation of a cooperation between Engie company and the Beijing Enterprises Clean Energy company for the investment within the field of new energies worth 1,3 billions of euros. Also, regarding the aeronautical field, the Chinese airline company Colorful Guizhou Airlines signed a contract to purchase aircraft engines worth one billion of euros, from the Safran company.

As for the European economic interest, accompanied by Phil Hogan, European Commissioner for Agriculture who will assume the portfolio of Trade in the new Commission and Anja Karliczek, German Minister of Education and Research, Macron signed a bilateral agreement between China and the European Union to protect the geographical indications on a list of 100 Europeans goods in China and 100 of Chinese goods in the European Union. This agreement will help to reduce the amount of imitations and usurpations to symbolic national products such as Champagne, Feta, Irish whiskey, Münchener Bier and Porto for the European Union and Pixian Douban, Anji Bai Cha, Panjin Da Mi and Anqiu Da Jiang for China. This agreement should come into force before the end of 2020. During this business trip, Macron and Xi also reasserted their mutual support to the “irreversible” Paris Climate Agreement, while implicitly condemning the first formal step to the US withdrawal from this accord, on November 4th. The two presidents then expressed the maintain of their "strong commitment to improving international cooperation on climate change."

Finally, after five months of protests in Hong Kong, Macron affirmed having discussed the crisis with the Chinese president. Nevertheless, the subject of human rights remains difficult to debate as China reject foreign interference within the internal affairs. As a result, Macron did not directly argue on the protesters behalf and their will to remain independent as well as he has not talked about the police attitude regarding that crisis.

This business trip has substantially contributed to the French and European interest even if it carries this specific disappointment.

Where to go & What to do: Refugees and Smugglers & European Countries

By Ruiling Zhang

©Hannah McKay/Reuters Police are seen at the scene where bodies were discovered in a lorry container, in Grays, Essex, Britain October 23, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

On 23th October, the police found the bodies of 31 men and 8 women in the industrial park of the town of Grays, England. The trafficking case is one of the highest in the smuggling case investigated in the UK so far. On 8th November, the police released the latest findings of this human trafficking case in container trucks and the list of victims. Ten of them were teenagers, three of whom were underage.

According to a recent report issued by the International Organization for Migration, since January 2014, nearly 19,000 people have died or disappeared due to attempts to illegally land in Europe. Turkey’s military operations in north-eastern Syria have also led to a large number of refugees fleeing their homes, many of whom are targeting neighboring European countries.

Smugglers and refugees are two inseparable groups. Smuggling is a mean of refugees, and refugees are one of the smuggling's origins. Refugees abandon their homes and rush to the unknown with the hearts full of yearning for a better life. Should the European countries give more humanitarian help or build up the barricades to keep their own people safe and sound? In response to the rising number of illegal immigrants and refugee deaths, the ministers of Justice and Home Affairs of Cyprus, Greece, and Bulgaria stated that the "current situation is a wake-up call for a new round of refugee crisis.” (Joint Position and Recommendations on Migration Pressures in the Eastern Mediterranean, at the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council held in Luxembourg, 7 and 8 October.) They added that “Europe cannot be unprepared again; the EU should be active. Consider providing assistance to countries affected by a large number of refugees on the Eastern Mediterranean."

Under a 2016 agreement with the EU, Turkey imposed stronger controls to curb the flow of migrants and refugees to Europe. France and Italy are calling for a new system that would automatically redistribute migrants across the EU as the number of people entering Europe surges. "The European Union hasn't shown enough solidarity with countries handling first arrivals," French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday (6 November, Rome.) The UK is also facing an unprecedented crisis. As soon as Brexit will be official, both the UK and the EU will no longer be bound by the Dublin agreement that originally defined the refugees, but the UK may have difficulty repatriating any immigrants from the EU. Where should the refugees go? What should European countries do? These questions are still a current issue within the European Union and will be even more of interest following Brexit.