ANSD : EU, Arab leaders to boost cooperation

FRI 26 - 4 - 2024

Date: Feb 25, 2019
Source: The Daily Star

EU, Arab leaders to boost cooperation

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: Leaders from European Union and Arab League countries pledged Sunday to boost cooperation in the fight against terrorism and to tackle unauthorized migration at a first-ever summit high in symbolism but likely to yield few concrete results.

Under tight security at the Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi opened two days of talks with a speech celebrating what he described as historic cooperation between the two organizations.

Addressing European and Arab leaders, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman reiterated his government’s support for an independent Palestinian state, calling it a top priority for regional stability.

“The Palestinian cause is the first issue for all Arab countries and we uphold the rights of the Palestinians, especially the establishment of the state, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” King Salman said.

Despite the public display of unity, just drafting a summit statement has proved difficult. EU and Arab League foreign ministers failed to agree earlier this month on a text after Hungary objected to the section on migration, and work on the document is continuing.

In it, the leaders are likely to commit to addressing conflicts in Syria and Yemen, yet paper over major differences about how to resolve them or who might be responsible.

Some said that merely sitting down together at the same table for the first time was a result in itself.

“The meeting is the message,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters, summing up the largely symbolic nature of the summit, while EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said “this summit is, in itself, a deliverable.”

In his opening speech, Sisi painted a “bleak” picture for a region hit by conflict and extremism as he appealed for deeper cooperation.

European Union countries view the summit as a way to protect their traditional diplomatic, economic and security interests while China and Russia move to fill a vacuum left by the United States.

European Council President Donald Tusk, who organizes summits for EU countries, acknowledged “there are differences between us” but said neighbors had more at stake than distant powers.

“We need to cooperate and not leave it to global powers far from our region,” the former Polish premier told leaders from about 40 countries.

He did not identify those powers but an EU source confirmed he meant China and Russia.

China is increasing trade with the region and has established a military base in Djibouti. Russia militarily backs Syria’s President Bashar Assad in his civil war.

EU sources said the first EU-Arab summit was all the more important as the U.S. “disengages” from the region while Russia and China make inroads. “We don’t want to see this vacuum soaked up by Russia and China,” one of the sources told AFP. Europe’s migration challenge is also at the heart of the two-day meeting, being held under the slogan “Investing in Stability.”

Desperate to bring migrant arrivals under control, the EU offered the summit last October as a symbolic sweetener to Sisi, much as it did with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2015.

The EU wants Sisi to order the Egyptian coast guard to pick up migrants leaving Libya and take them back to the African mainland, ensuring they do not become Europe’s responsibility.

Sisi, in turn, would receive high-profile European recognition, promotion for Sharm el-Sheikh and a muting of criticism of his government’s human rights record.

“We must work together - countries of origin, transit and destination - in order to break the business model of smugglers and traffickers who lure people into dangerous journeys and feed modern-day slavery,” Tusk said.

While the number of people crossing the central Mediterranean has now dropped to a seven-year low, Europe’s inability to agree on how to manage the arrivals has sparked a major political crisis, as nations bicker over who should take responsibility and whether other EU partners should help out.

Some, like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, contend that extremists are entering among the refugees.

Sisi also called for a broad plan to combat terrorism that would deprive extremists of funding and “include a strict security offensive to counter the terrorist organizations and other elements of terrorism. And there should also be an effective ideological offensive against their ideological platforms.”

Saeed Sadek, professor of political sociology at the Canadian University in Cairo, told the Associated Press that security would be of prime concern in Sharm el-Sheikh, but he too played down expectations from the summit.

“The timing is very important because it comes after eight years of instability in the Mediterranean affecting Europe and the Middle East,” Sadek said. “Both sides want to know how can we stabilize the area further, produce stability, how can we deal with the consequences and prevent any further escalations.”

“But the imbalance of power between the two sides may not produce the concrete results that people imagine,” he added.

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