For the European Union, the spate of popular democratic movements in North Africa has exposed the combination of hypocrisy and incompetence that underlies the chasm between Europe’s inherited ambitions on the world stage and 21st century geo-political reality.
The EU has responded with a strange mixture of a multiplicity of reactions and lack of reactions. Criticism of the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has made a scapegoat out of an individual while ignoring the inherent contradictions in countries that are brutal former colonisors and more contemporary abettors of unsavoury regimes in Africa, espousing pieties about the need for the rest of the world to adopt “European values” of democracy and human rights.
That the creation of a new external action service (EEAS) or diplomatic corps at the European level and the appointment of Ashton as the so-called High Representative of foreign affairs has made absolutely no difference to the region’s ability to project power and influence shouldn’t really have come as a surprise. The 27-member bloc does not have a common foreign policy and Ashton is thus not empowered to do the very job she was appointed to do. Far from speaking in one voice, individual member states have been reacting to developments in North Africa in very individual, and often blatantly hypocritical, ways.
France was the first to embarrass Brussels, with the French foreign minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie offering the “know how” of French security forces to then President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali when the Tunisian uprising began in December. She was then revealed to have used a private jet belonging to one of Ben Ali’s associates while vacationing in Tunisia over Christmas, even as the protests were ongoing. It was later reported that France had approved the export of police equipment and crowd-control devices to Tunisia at the height of the demonstrations.
As self-appointed leaders of Europe on human rights issues, the French response to Tunisia was glaring in its duplicity. “Rather than issuing anathemas, I believe our duty is to make a calm and objective analysis of the situation,” Alliot Marie had told parliament when asked to respond to suggestions that Paris had failed in calling Ben Ali to task for deploying the army against protesters. “We must not stand out as lesson-givers,” she had said.
The French support for Ben Ali stemmed from his dictatorship having provided a stability that had benefited France’s range of economic interests in the region, in addition to preventing Islamist extremists from operating in Tunisia, or at least such was the perception amongst many in the French establishment.
The current spotlight however is on Italy and its maverick Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has over the years cultivated a close relationship with Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. With major oil, gas and arms interests in Libya (Italy’s energy giant Eni is the No. 1 foreign oil producer in the country) Italy’s main reaction to the ongoing atrocities in Libya has been focused on fears of an influx of migrants and refugees into the country in the event of the collapse of Gaddafi’s regime.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini warned earlier this week of a “biblical exodus” of potentially hundreds of thousands of refugees from Libya to his country. In 2008 Berlosconi and Gaddafi had struck a deal that involved stricter policing by Libya of potential immigrants to Europe.
But support for Gaddafi has not been limited to Italy. An EU report last month said licences for $473 million in arms were authorised for export to Libya in 2009, including anti-riot gear, telecommunications jamming equipment and small arms.
