8. The European Neighbourhood Policy South: addressing the autocracy dilemma
Mark Furness
in: Hackenesch, C., Keijzer, N., & Koch, S. (Eds., 2024). The European Union’s global role in a changing world: Challenges and opportunities for the new leadership (IDOS Discussion Paper 11/2024). IDOS.
State of play
The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) has been the framework for the European Union (EU)’s relations with neighbouring countries to the East and South since 2004. Both neighbouring regions present the new Commission with dangers and risks. This section offers some thoughts on the outlook in the ENP-south region.
From a European perspective, the political and economic state of affairs across the ENP-south in 2024 is bleak. A decade after the Arab Uprisings, Tunisia’s retreat from democracy in 2021 appeared to have killed the democratic dream in the Arab world. Autocratic regimes have tightened control with varying degrees of surveillance and repression, especially in Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. The protests in Lebanon, Jordan and Algeria in 2019 were supressed by the Covid lockdowns, and provided a reminder that the issues that drove the Arab Uprisings remain unaddressed more than a decade later (O’Driscoll et al., 2020). Socio-political tension remains high in several countries, and there is a strong likelihood that upheaval will again afflict the region.
The Israel-Gaza war has not only raised difficult questions over the future of the Palestinian people, but has geostrategic, humanitarian and political implications for the ENP-south. Western support for the Israeli government’s scorched earth approach to the war, which has breached international humanitarian law, has negatively affected Europe’s standing with Arab societies and thereby its legitimacy as a supporter of human rights and self-determination. The Gaza war has further destabilised the Levant and raised the prospect of a regional war involving Iran and its proxies in Lebanon and Yemen, the latter threatening the key Europe-Asia trade route through the Red Sea.
Two long-standing conflicts in the region have become less violent, but their “settlements” have not evolved in ways that serve European interests. In Libya, the de facto division of the country into Eastern and Western blocs ruled by violent militias threatens long-term destabilisation with implications for core European interests in migration management and energy supply. In Syria, the survival of the repressive Assad regime has driven millions of refugees out of the country permanently, while pockets of instability in the country’s north and east draw in international actors. Russia has seized its opportunities to engage militarily in both countries. Conflicts on the edge of the ENP-south region, especially in the Sahel, Sudan and Yemen, are creating further waves of instability.
Meanwhile, some countries, such as Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia and Jordan, are under major economic pressure driven by deficits and persistent high inflation (IMF, 2024). Conflict and economic deprivation are exacerbated by the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, especially with regard to water resources in an already arid region. This, in turn, is driving migration through and from several ENP-south countries. Thus far, the EU’s measures to manage migration have been only partly effective, while incurring significant moral and humanitarian costs.
A review of the ENP is planned for the new Commission, which will have to get to grips with all of these issues. The new Commission is faced with an inescapable dilemma in the ENP-south. The EU must engage with the region’s autocratic regimes, because proximity dictates that events there impact on Europe’s security, prosperity and social cohesion. However, the EU’s leverage is minimal and engaging with autocrats creates pressure to compromise on core values, especially human rights and democracy. Moreover, EU cooperation with autocrats, especially on security, migration management and large infrastructure projects that carry significant prestige, is likely to strengthen their grip on power. The likelihood that social tensions created by repressive authoritarianism will erupt into violent conflict cannot be ruled out (Wehrey, 2023). This means that the authoritarianism that the EU is supporting presents a significant, long-term strategic threat to Europe.
Internal and external influences
The increased global multipolarity of the 21st Century’s third decade is becoming a battle of different systems for socio-political organisation, as was the case during the Cold War in the second half of the 20th Century. Notwithstanding major differences within these systems, global competition between “Western liberal democracy” and “Eastern illiberal autocracy” has emerged (Ikenberry, 2024). The competition is most obvious in the Ukraine conflict, where Russia’s ongoing invasion is supported materially by China, North Korea and Iran. Russian and Chinese support for and protection of autocratic regimes in the Levant and Africa in return for strategic presence and access to resources is another manifestation. The competition is also playing out in many Western countries, as illiberal forces destabilise and undermine social cohesion with more or less overt support from Russia. The 21st Century systemic competition has at least two major differences to the Cold War: the first is that the Cold War was a battle between communist and social-democratic capitalist blocs, which offered different models for prosperity that promised to benefit whole societies. The current global battel is about two different forms of exploitative capitalism: Western neoliberalism and Eastern oligarchy. The second difference is that the “West” presented a largely united, cohesive and ultimately successful front during the Cold War, which was able to demonstrate the superiority and attractiveness of its model to non-Western societies, some of which even subsequently joined the EU. The West is not so cohesive now, with the implication that it is far from certain that the Western model will prevail.
The ENP-south region is a key arena for this global systemic battle. Competition for geostrategic influence and resources has increased in recent years, with Russia, China, the Gulf states, Iran, Turkey, the EU and the United States all pulling strings. Examples include Russia’s military support for the Hafter and Assad regimes in Eastern Libya and Syria respectively. China has supposedly been able to step into a geostrategic space left by the reduced American presence and the relative weakness of European former colonial powers, mostly in terms of economic engagement under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) but also as a security actor (Ghafar & Jacobs, 2020).
The EU has responded with migration management deals with several ENP-south countries, including Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and militias in Western Libya, as well as with Turkey, offering cash, market access, and finance in return for assistance with border control. The EU has launched the Global Gateway infrastructure investment programme, which promises to build “connectivity” and further the European Green Deal in the Mediterranean basin.
The EU’s efforts have, however, been undermined by internal weaknesses. Within Europe, the threat to liberal democracy posed by the populist right raises the difficulty of promoting liberal democratic norms and institutions abroad when these are under attack at home. The success of populist narratives regarding migration has pushed the EU to engage in measures that have breached international human rights norms, undermining the EU’s authority to discuss human rights issues with ENP-south governments (United Nations, 2023). Compounding this are the long-standing positional differences among EU member states on key challenges in the ENP-south, especially regarding Libya and the Israel-Palestine conflict. The inability to find a way out of dilemmas raised by domestic politics in Europe undermines the EU’s legitimacy as well as its effectiveness in the ENP-south.
As the EU prepares to revise the ENP under the new Commission, internal and external views on the ENP were captured by a recent EuroMeSCo expert survey. Respondents expressed consensus that the ENP has had a limited impact on the main areas of the cooperation agenda with Southern partners. The two most ineffective areas were considered to be “Conflict resolution” and “Democracy and respect for human rights”. When asked to identify the reasons for this limited impact, respondents mentioned several elements in combination, but largely blamed disagreement among EU and ENP partners about priorities. EU respondents highlighted a lack of cohesion between member states as the main factor in weakening the EU’s foreign policy. Respondents agree that the ENP needs to be transformed, with socio-economic development, improving partnership structures, managing migration, supporting democratisation, and adaptation to climate change as the main priorities of a revamped ENP (EuroMeSCo, 2024).
Looking ahead
The ENP revision planned for 2025 needs to outline a strategy for harmonising European foreign policy objectives and development policy principles and the interests of partners, in a region where the autocracy dilemma holds sway. The new Commission faces the reality that EU policies that aim to create stability in the short term inevitably support authoritarian regimes. Their medium- to long-term effect is likely to increase the risk of violent upheaval and the strategic threat to Europe.
Since this dilemma cannot be avoided, it needs to be faced head on. The new Commission needs to set about demonstrating that the liberal democratic system is better that the Eastern autocratic system, so that ENP-south countries want to cooperate with Europe rather than Russia, China and the Gulf states. This needs to work on two levels: i) delivering demonstrable results; and ii) standing up for core values when challenged to do so.
The Global Gateway is potentially a good framework for delivering results. It aims to create public goods with smart industrial policy. It is multi-sector, and aims to build connectivity, innovation, employment, and sustainability – all the important areas. Thus far, the main reason why the Global Gateway does not (yet) offer a viable alternative to China’s BRI is investment volumes. Since the “democratic standards” aspect is a potential weakness in authoritarian contexts, the Global Gateway needs to offer big, technologically advanced investments in key areas so that autocrats cannot say no to democratic standards. At the same time, the EU does not need to take a confrontational approach to Chinese engagement in the Southern Neighbourhood. Partner countries want to work with both. Europe will achieve its goals if it leads by example, to the benefit of all parties.
The Global Gateway is a framework for building the “hardware” of connectivity infrastructure. The revised ENP will need to keep working on the “software” aspects. In this regard, continued support for democratic social, political and economic processes and actors is crucial. The EU has never put enough on the table in the ENP-south region (Bodenstein & Furness, 2009). The ENP review needs to look at what the EU can offer that can incentivise change. Better market access, training programmes with job guarantees, and visas are all things that citizens in ENP-south countries want more of. Offering something to citizens would provide some leverage over their governments.
That the two aspects of the EU’s approach need to be coherent in that they complement, rather than undermine, each other, should be obvious. It is not enough to just talk about core values such as democracy and human rights, the EU has to stand up for them when it is challenged to do so, even if this means accepting costs and breaking cosy relationships. This stage can potentially be avoided by a smart strategy, both public and behind closed doors where necessary. The new Commission will have to recognise and deal with real and potential conflicts of interest, instead of expecting automatic win-win scenarios in the challenging environment of the ENP-south, and then being surprised when things do not unfold as expected. The stakes are high, and the danger of “losing” the systemic battle in the region is great. The potential rewards for Europe are, nevertheless, incalculable.
References
Bodenstein, T., & Furness, M. (2009). Separating the willing from the able: Is the European Union’s mediterranean policy incentive compatible? European Union Politics, 10(3), 381-401.
EuroMeSCo. (2024). 20 years of the European Neighbourhood Policy: A general assessment. https://www.euromesco.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Full-descriptive-report.pdf
Ghafar, A., & Jacobs, A. (2020). China in the Mediterranean: Implications of expanding Sino-North Africa relations. Global China: Assessing China’s growing role in the world. Brookings Institute. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/china-in-the-mediterranean-implications-of-expanding-sino-north-africa-relations/
Ikenberry, G. (2024). Three Worlds: The West, East and South and the competition to shape global order. International Affairs 100(1), 121-138.
IMF (International Monetary Fund). (2024). Regional economic outlook: Middle East & Central Asia, April 2024. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/REO/MECA/Issues/2024/04/18/regional-economic-outlook-middle-east-central-asia-april-2024
O’Driscoll, D., Bourhrous, A., Maddah, M., & Fazil, S. (2020). Protest and state–society relations in the Middle East and North Africa (SIPRI Policy Paper 56). SIPRI. https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2020-10/sipripp56.pdf
United Nations. (2023). Report of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya. UN Human Rights Council. https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/libya/index
Wehrey, F. (Ed.). (2023). Disruptions and dynamism in the Arab world. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/files/202305-Wehrey_etal_DisruptionsArab_World_WEB.pdf
