Democracy and Security in the 21st Century : Perspectives on a Changing World [1 ed.] 9781443859394, 9781443856812

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Democracy and Security in the 21st Century

Democracy and Security in the 21st Century: Perspectives on a Changing World

Edited by

Valentin Naumescu

Democracy and Security in the 21st Century: Perspectives on a Changing World, Edited by Valentin Naumescu This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by Valentin Naumescu and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5681-9, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5681-2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword .................................................................................................. viii On Promoting Democracy and Security Aurel Braun Acknowledgements .................................................................................. xiii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Democracy and Security in a Multipolar System Valentin Naumescu Chapter One: Before the Cold War: A Historical Perspective, Present Connections “Behind Closed Doors”: The Myth of the Anglo-Soviet Percentages Bargain (October 1944). A Re-Evaluation and Contemporary Meanings ................................................................................................... 16 Lucian Leuútean Chapter Two: The European Union and Beyond: Crises, Democracy, Changing Policies The Treaty of Lisbon, the Common Foreign and Security Policy and its Institutional Consistency Problem ...................................... 34 Georgiana Ciceo Challenges to the Future of the European Union ....................................... 48 Cristina Vohn The CFSP of Post-Lisbon EU: From Theory to Practice ........................... 65 Sanda Cincă The Culture of the European Security ....................................................... 87 Liviu Petru ZăpârĠan

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“In the Guardian We Trust!” National Security in the 2012 French Presidential Elections .............................................................................. 100 Ioana-Cristina HriĠcu and Sergiu Miúcoiu The European Union’s Action in the Field of Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament ..................................................................................... 133 Mihaela Vasiu The Eastern Partnership: Still a Relevant EU Policy? ............................. 165 Cristian ConĠan The European Union Strategy for Central Asia and the Regional Democratisation Process.......................................................................... 185 Cristina-Maria Dogot The European Citizens’ Initiative ........................................................... 224 Diana Ancheú A Philosophical and Political Treatment of the Blocking Effects of Democracy .......................................................................................... 248 Viorella Manolache Europe 2020: An Agenda for Citizens and States ................................... 267 Adrian-Gabriel Corpădean Chapter Three: Global and Regional Security Today: Actors, Shaping Forces, Current Approaches The Forthcoming Age of Urban Insurgency: Ways to Counteract .......... 286 Octavian Manea NATO in the 21st Century: Spreading Democracy through Security and Assuring Security through Democracy—A Critical Perspective ...... 317 Claudiu Bolcu Humanitarian Intervention and Human Security: Sociological, Critical, and Constructivist Approaches to (In)security in Africa ........... 343 Laura M. HerĠa Information Technology: A Force Shaping the Future ............................ 382 Rareú Păteanu

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Democracy vs. Islam? The Rise of Political Islam in Egypt and Tunisia and the New Regional Security Challenges ......................... 404 Ecaterina Cepoi and Marius Lazăr Civil War and Proxy War in Syria: The Ugly Face of the Arab Spring ..... 431 ùerban Filip Cioculescu The Strategic Partnership between Romania and the United States of America in the Context of the Current Dynamic of the TransAtlantic Partnership ................................................................................. 458 Bogdan Aurescu Contributors ............................................................................................. 468 Index ........................................................................................................ 473

FOREWORD ON PROMOTING DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY AUREL BRAUN

The search for security is one of the oldest human quests, one which sadly remains in many ways unfulfilled, even in the 21st Century. The struggle for democracy, and here we are looking at what we characterize as the modern form of democracy that basically started with the American Revolution, however is of a somewhat more recent vintage, where remarkable successes have mingled with failures and continuing risks. It is also the case that especially since the 1980s scholars began to assert that systemic analyses have demonstrated that there is a vital linkage between democracy and security. To help us better understand the seminal issues in these areas there is a rich body of literature on democracy and the prolific field of international relations has certainly provided us with a plethora of works on security. Various books have also sought to elucidate linkages between the two. Consequently it is a fair question to ask why we would need another work on democracy and security. This new book, Democracy and Security in the 21st Century: Perspectives on a Changing World provides very satisfying answers here, for it is a major contribution in three significant ways. First, it is a broad and bold analysis that incorporates a wide range of expertise from different authors in a sophisticated and nuanced analysis that is comprehensive and dynamic. Second, the vast majority of the contributors are from a new democracy and bring a fresh perspective to analyzing the significance of that political order and its links to security that for them has a relevance and immediacy that is not always adequately appreciated in older democracies and in sometimes jaded western scholarship. Third, this work effects a very successful melding of theory and practice as directed by the editor Valentin Naumescu. A senior social scientist and a seasoned diplomat, Naumescu has shaped this volume in a way in which there is that necessary organic linkage between theory and

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empirical studies to produce the type of dynamic analysis that not only provides for a deep understanding of the subject but it is also forward looking. It is as well important that what courses through this complex work is a notion of democracy that is essential to understand if we are to fully appreciate its linkage to security. As in the case of all modern democracy there is an obvious draw on the Aristotelian principles where there could be both a good and a bad variant of democracy. In this work democracy clearly transcends the notion of “mobocracy” where majorities could be tyrannical and pivotally points to the underlying principle of democracy in Aristotle that focuses on freedom. It is crucially in a democracy that citizens may have a share in freedom for as Aristotle noted: “but one factor of liberty is to govern and be governed in turn; for the popular principle of justice is to have equality according to number, not worth,… and one is for a man to live as he likes; for they say that this is the function of liberty, inasmuch as to live not as one likes is the life of a man that is a slave.”1 This Aristotelian principle of freedom matured (even if in an imperfect way) in the creation of the modern democratic political order following the American Revolution. The guiding principle here was the protection of rights rather than the pursuit of virtue. In terms of institutions and processes this meant the very early development in the United States of a system of checks and balances that is at the heart of all current modern democracies. In defining democracies for the purposes of this book then it is worth going back to the American Founding Fathers, in particular James Madison who in Federalist No. 10 was keenly aware of the dangers and vices of popular governments and concluded that because conflicting ideas, passions and interests were part of the fabric of all societies and evident in the nature of man, factions would need to balance other factions to prevent abuse.2 The 21st Century iteration of the Madisonian checks and balances remains vital and is evident in the analyses in this book. Though Abraham Lincoln rightly posited that “the ballot is stronger than the bullet”3 a 1

Aristotle, Politics, Book 6, Part II. James Madison, “Federalist #10,” in The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter (New York: New American Library, 1961). 3 Abraham Lincoln, “Speech Delivered Before the First Republican State Convention of Illinois, Held at Bloomington, on May 29, 1856,” in The Writings and Papers of Abraham Lincoln, (New York: FQ Books, 2010). 2

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corollary in a play by Tom Stoppard, the humorist, is also most apt for modern democracies. He noted, “It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting.”4 And it is this “counting” that involves institutions and processes essential to the viability of a modern democracy. Broadly understood fairness in counting speaks to the entire political order in terms of limitations of power, fairness and due process. This is why some of the most perceptive analysts of modern consolidated modern democracies such as Linz and Stepan have noted that elections are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for democracy.5 This is also why in this volume edited by Naumescu there are chapters on democratic society, spreading of democracy through security and the blocking effect of democracy. Linz and Stepan rightly pointed out that democracies require a vibrant civil society, relatively autonomous and valued political society, the rule of law, a bureaucracy that can be used by democratic government and an institutionalized, workable economy.6 Checks and balances and the multiple principles that underpin modern democracy as enunciated by Linz and Stepan provide seminal internal constraints on the behaviour of governments internally and externally. This is not an argument for perfection, for all democracies are flawed but dictatorial systems simply lack the popular involvement and the requirement for government responsiveness that characterizes democracies and this is where we can see a link to international security. Such a linkage goes back at least to Kantian analysis where in his 1795 essay Perpetual PeaceKant contended that in a world comprised exclusively of Constitutional Republics (what we would now call modern democracies that would meet the Linz and Stepan criteria, for instance) there would be one of the necessary conditions for perpetual peace.7 The modern iteration of this theory came largely with the seminal work of Michael Doyle beginning in 1983 where, as part of his democratic peace theory, he basically argued that democracies do not fight each other.8 It should be noteworthy that essentially both Kant and Doyle argue for a dyadic peace, 4

Tom Stoppard, Jumpers, (London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1986). Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). 6 Ibid. 7 Kant, Immanuel. Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, (London: Pearson PLC, 1957). 8 Michael Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs,” in Philosophy and Public Affairs 12,Vol. 12., No. 4. (Autumn 1983), 323-353; Michael Doyle, “Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs, Part 2,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 12, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Autumn, 1983), 323-353. 5

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namely that democracies do not fight each other, rather than a monadic peace that would suggest democracies are inherently more peaceful and consequently unlikely to go to war. Nonetheless the theory that democracies (again there is a need to employ a rigorous definition of what constitutes a democracy as in Linz and Stepan) do not fight each other, even if not an ironclad rule of history, represents I would argue a vital and powerful tendency. Newer works such as the one by Russett and O’Neal have provided additional important evidence that democracy and peace mutually reinforce each other.9 This collective work under Naumescu’s editorship thus logically and most helpfully has multiple contributions that look at the linkages between democracy and security in Europe and elsewhere and brings into its analytic focus the Treaty of Lisbon, NATO and ideological or religious developments globally that touch on these key issues. In terms of perspective in evaluating the above issues, it is worth noting here that even in ideal conditions countries need to confront the traditional security dilemma, which as John Herz put it is “a structural notion in which the self-help attempts of states to look after their security needs tend, regardless of intention, to lead to rising insecurity for others as each interprets its own measures as defensive and measures of others as potentially threatening.”10 This volume however shows that the problems with democracies in the 21st Century have become significantly larger than just the traditional security dilemma and conditions are far from ideal. True, the implosion of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought about tectonic shifts that have profoundly transformed the international system and in many instances brought about remarkable democratic successes. The security that would have followed had the rather triumphalist Hegelian argument put forth by Francis Fukuyama proven valid, (namelythat following the collapse of communism humanity had reached what may be seen as a penultimate form of political and economic organization, that is liberal democracy11) however never materialized. Internal and international conflicts have remained endemic and democracies as this volume shows, confront multiple security problems.

9

Bruce Russet and John O’Neal, Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations, (New York: Norton, 2001). 10 John Herz, “Idealists Internationalism and the Security Dilemma,” in World Politics vol. 2, no. 2, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950),171-201. 11 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, (New York: Free Press, 1992).

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Further, security problems are global but they also very strongly affect Europe. This volume, which begins with an historical analysis, is especially strong in articulating the multiple security problems faced by European nations. There are rightfully questions about the “hard security” guarantees of NATO which only the U.S. is capable of providing. Yet as Naumescu points out, the January 2012 Strategic Defense Review12 not only pivots America to the Asia-Pacific region but it does not reconfirm the vital traditional priority of the trans-Atlantic relationship. Add to this the Obama administration’s aversion to military involvement, its central focus on “extricating” the U.S. from many international involvements and a preference for “leading from behind” that to many is fundamentally a lack of American leadership, it is easy to understand the increasing nervousness, particularly among the new democracies in Europe. As they witness the shrinking of the democratic space in Russia and elsewhere and the rise of extremist movements globally Eastern European concerns are emblematic of larger global problems. Though American declinism may be overstated at times and a post-Obama administration may more fully and vigorously reengage America, for the next few years the search for security depends on strengthening other sources. As some of the contributors including Zapartan, Cinca and Aurescu show, however, the European Union, despite the Lisbon Treaty and its ambition to become a security agent on the international scene, the E.U. has not been capable of fulfilling a replacement role.The U.S./E.U. relationship and American primacy in NATO then remain seminal if there is to be security. This volume though is considerably more than just about Europe. It has a truly global agenda to which it brings a multi-disciplinary analysis that is most helpful and persuasive. In examining such matters as democracy in Islam, the civil war in Syria, the problems of humanitarian intervention and the power of information technology, it contextualizes the role that democracy can and should play and the crucial linkage to security. In sum, this book is a most welcome contribution to scholarship that will benefit enormously scholars, students and policy makers alike. It highlights that democracy is not just an ideology but an inspiration that involves optimistic struggle and a constant link to domestic as well as international security. More than an analysis, this work should also serve as a warning about the dangers of complacency and the risks of absent or feeble democratic leadership in achieving security.

12 Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, p. 2.,(Washington:The Department of Defense, January 2012).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Dr. Adrian-Gabriel Corpădean, whose dedicated and skilful work has been a great help in endowing this book with its present format and also is supporting some of our authors’ efforts of meeting editing standards. Valentin Naumescu Cluj-Napoca November 2nd, 2013

INTRODUCTION DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY IN A MULTIPOLAR WORLD VALENTIN NAUMESCU

“The world is changing” is probably one of the most frequent clichés in international politics and media, as well as in social sciences. Beyond the general truth that every generation of scholars dreams of detecting, explaining or predicting the direction(s) of change, whilst believing that its time is unique and tremendously important for the future of humanity, there is certainly a substantial dynamic and a sense of major transformation in any epoch. Hence, we are entitled to restate in this book that the world is changing and to aim to focus our perspectives on two crucial dimensions for people’s lives: democracy and security. At a time when even the foundations and pre-eminence of the Western order are called into question by both the weaknesses of the transatlantic partnership and the spectacular rise of the Asia-Pacific region, suggesting a switch to a post-Atlantic order, the contributors to this volume give specific answers to present-day interrogations regarding various processes of transformation. We offer, in this book, multidisciplinary perspectives on political, economic, social, technological and cultural dimensions of change and we also propose some possible responses to current global and regional challenges. The never-ending but fascinating dialogue between the major schools of international relations is substantially present in our volume. Both realism and neorealism, on the one hand, and the social theory of international relations, on the other hand, bring their solid arguments through the voices of the contributors. Military and economic interests of the states, contrasting somehow with cultural interpretations and constructivism, are reflected in interesting approaches to on-going processes.

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Introduction

Since the terrible attacks of 9/11 and especially after the Iraqi crisis, most of the analyses of international politics, hypotheses and academic reflections with regard to the decline of the Western order1 have been based on the idea that we are witnessing a rift with the post-1945 transatlantic relations2. What was once thought to be the essential mechanism of containing the Soviet Union’s ideological and military ambitions in Europe, namely the NorthAtlantic Alliance, has been removed from centre-stage and relocated to a shady zone of little interest. The West is slowly losing its remarkable post-WWII unity, possibly along with the brightness of its principles and generosity, the confidence in its unlimited growth and prosperity, and the mirage of its omnipotence from the time of the Cold War. Nevertheless, its fundamental set of rules, institutions3 and values continues to form a stable order, sometimes assumed by nonWestern countries and often challenged by rising economic powers (e.g. BRICS4), and still proposes a way of life which is globally attractive, fully rewarding, as well as morally superior to any other political, economic and social system that can be seen outside the Euro-Atlantic space. Under these circumstances, the West’s prolonged crisis, more than a simple media fantasy but less than a fatal stalemate, generates an international framework which is suitable for a series of global and regional structural changes, as well as challenging analyses. We might disagree with the severity of this diagnosis pertaining to the West’s decline (in fact an almost 100-year-old idea, if one considers Oswald Spengler’s well-known work5), but multidisciplinary analytical approaches are definitely useful for a correct understanding of main directions and trends. By integrating the global transformations following the western political, diplomatic and military crisis of 2003, as well as the implications of the financial crisis of 2008-2009, scholars proclaim the end of the unipolar system (with reference to the two decades of U.S. hegemony after the demise 1 Jeffrey Anderson, G. John Ikenberry, and Thomas Risse (editors), The End of the West? Crisis and Change in the Atlantic Order, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2008. 2 Jeffrey Kopstein and Sven Steinmo (editors), Growing Apart?: America and Europe in the Twenty-First Century, New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 3 We consider as institutions of the Western post-war order: the United Nations, the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), the European Union, the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. 4 Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. 5 Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Ed. Arthur Helps, and Helmut Werner, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

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of the Soviet Union) and a certain fade-out of the European-American strategic alliance. It is somewhat ironic to notice that just a few years earlier, in 2001, Henry Kissinger had written triumphantly: “At the dawn of the new millennium, the United States is enjoying a pre-eminence unrivalled by the greatest empires of the past”6. In fact, the central issue of the entire debate around the idea of Western order reflects the controversy over the United States’ status of single superpower. “Whether the U.S. is a hegemon represents an issue decided by a ‘generalized other’, not by the U.S. on its own, and from this point of view the cultural formation of identity (subjectivity) is a form of power, as poststructuralists said”7. That is how Alexander Wendt explained, in 1999, the essence of the social constructivist theory of world politics. Thomas P. M. Barnett denies Zakaria’s famous 2008 hypothesis of a postAmerican world. Rather optimistically, the author of Great Powers: America and the World after Bush believed, in 2009, that “this is still America’s world […], a world of our making”. Trying to look at the future, Barnett claimed that “the next years will constitute the first true test of globalization. As our globalized system continues processing its worst financial crisis ever, President Barack Obama encounters an international order suffering more deep-seated strain than at any time since the Great Depression”8. The potential of the Western alliance to regulate and control violence and armed conflicts in different parts of the world, as well as to reduce the tensions on global markets, has also waned. This is not only due to the weakening relations between the United States and the European Union, but also to the extraordinary rise of the global emerging powers and of the complexity of economic problems, as well as of historical, religious and cultural fault-lines fuelling regional conflicts. To give just one example, the contradictory developments in the aftermath of the “Arab spring” (20112012) pushed the western democracies towards an unprecedented moral dilemma, culminating with the embarrassing silence related to the military coup followed by bloody confrontations in Cairo, in July 2013. After the dramatic transformation of Eastern Europe in 1989, the world has changed again. We are now moving beyond the “post-Cold War era”, which is already a completed chapter of history. Albeit we do not yet have the name of the nascent epoch, what we know for sure is the fact that there 6

Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy?: Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century,New York: Simon &Schuster Paperback, 2001, p. 18. 7 Alexander Wendt, Teoria socială a politici iinternationale (Social Theory of International Politics), Iaúi: Polirom 2011, p. 189. 8 Thomas P.M. Barnett, Great Powers: America and the World after Bush, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2009, p. 4.

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Introduction

are several major competitors on the global scene. Their power and influence are constantly growing. While the United States’ supremacy as a global political power is not called into question at this time, there is conclusive evidence of a massive economic, technological and military ascension of China, India and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, all the way to international pre-eminence, also accounting for the United States’ strategic rebalance towards the Pacific area. For the first time in post-war history, the U.S. government published in January 2012 a policy paper (The Strategic Defense Review) which does not reconfirm the priority of the transatlantic relations, while the growing importance of Asia-Pacific is clearly emphasized: “U.S. economic and security interests are inextricably linked to developments in the area extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia, creating a mix of evolving challenges and opportunities. Accordingly, while the U.S. military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region.”9 Meanwhile an aged, indebted, less competitive and increasingly divided Europe is heavily struggling to overcome a long and complicated crisis which still seems far from its end. For sceptical authors, the European project appears to be “exhausted”. For the most optimistic analysts, it is simply deemed “business as usual”, since the entire history of European integration has in fact been a long series of ups and downs. From the political to the economic dimension and from military to strategic issues, the “post-American world” which Fareed Zakaria has so accurately described 10 is moving towards a multipolar architecture, with several centres of growth and influence that are competing for resources and pre-eminence. Accordingly, the global economy and international politics are facing a shift of “gravity centre” from the Atlantic to the Pacific11. Therefore, it came as no surprise to hear the minister mentor of Singapore, Lee Yew, saying in crystal clear words that “the centre of economic and geopolitical gravity is shifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific…Trade, investments and economic ties will make this the world’s most important and dynamic region during the 21st century.”12 Meanwhile, the Western order, established after the 9

Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, p. 2, The Department of Defense, Washington D.C., January 2012. 10 Fareed Zakaria, Lumea post americană (The Post-American World), Iaúi: Polirom, 2009. 11 Valentin Naumescu, “From the Atlantic Order to the Pacific Pre-Eminence: A Historical Shift?” in Studia Universitatis Babeú-Bolyai / Studia Europaea, issue no. 2/2012, Cluj-Napoca: Cluj University Press, 67-82. 12 Lee Kuan Yew, Battle for preeminence, in Forbes,

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end of WWII, struggles amid a confusing international context. The global leadership vacuum, according to Der Spiegel, on the occasion of the 2013 Munich Security Conference, renders “Europe incapable and America unwilling”, while “international institutions, such as the United Nations, NATO and the European Union are suffering from an identity crisis of what they are supposed to do”13. The general disengagement of the United States, especially from Europe and to some extent from the Middle East, is not only seen in terms of a strategic rebalance towards Asia-Pacific, but also as a sign of a changing world. From the security perspective, it is already commonplace to state that the world does not have a “global policeman” any longer. Beside the early 21st century new political and military realities, analysts outline high levels of competitiveness, economic interests and increasing stakes gliding to the East. Growing markets flourish in Central Asia, South and East Asia. In only two of these countries, namely China and India, we encounter about one third of the total population of the world. After the so-called “two lost decades”, Japan is thriving under the new government of Shinzo Abe, but tensions have arisen in its relations with China. From one ocean to another, states and nations are reshaping strategies so as to tackle the massive global “war for resources”, which was initially predicted in the early 1970s by the Club of Rome. The present volume is structured into three distinct sections. A historical perspective from the 20th century (just before the Cold War) with consistent connections to today’s international politics opens the series of contributions. The first half of the past century was a time when Europe was still seen as centre-stage. Historian Lucian Leuútean reveals the major continental impact of the attitudes of two non-European powers at the end of WWII, namely the Soviet Union and the United States. Ruined by the terrible confrontations of the twentieth century and playing second fiddle in world politics, European powers gradually agreed to abandon the global pre-eminence of the old continent. Both the World Wars and the Cold War had destructive effects on Europe’s prestige and power, and made possible the switch from a failed “European order” to the American century. Neither the UK nor France or Germany had succeeded in retaking centre stage at the global level after 1945 or 1990, despite the remarkable progress of European integration in the past http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/1011/rich-list-10-opinions-lee-kuan-yew-currentevents-preeminence.html, consulted on February 26, 2013. 13 Gregor Peter Schmitz, Global Leadership Vacuum: Europe incapable, America unwilling, Der Spiegel, February 1, 2013, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-global-leadership-vacuum-europeincapable-america-unwilling-a-880945.html, consulted on July 29, 2013.

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six decades. Politically, economically and militarily, Europe is no longer the centre of gravity of the world. This is where we start from. Lucian Leuútean argues that “neither the percentages agreement nor the Yalta Conference in February 1945 deserve the role of milestones, not in the issue of the spheres of influence in post-war Europe, not in the issue of the Eastern Europe’s abandonment into the Soviets’ hands. The essential decision in this problem was the American leaders’ one not to have their troops present, at the end of the war, in the eastern part of Europe. The British were not capable either of convincing the Americans to do it, or to act by themselves.” In fact, what we can easily understand from this international arrangement is the acceptance of the realist approach of the balance of power, by both Soviets and Americans, and the attitude of disregard of the great powers towards Central and Eastern European nations, at the end of World War II. After 1990, the Western paradigm finally extended to the East and covered most of the “betrayed” part of Europe. Both the North-Atlantic Alliance (in 1999, 2004 and 2008) and the European Union (in 2004, 2007 and 2013) opened their gates to a considerable number of post-communist countries in the sensitive and also historically disputed region situated between Germany and Russia. The reunification of Europe within the European Union is therefore considered by many Eastern Europeans as a historical and moral restitution after the half-century-long political, military and ideological split of the continent. However, as I said before, the postCold War enthusiasm seems already obsolete in both Western and Eastern Europe, while increasing frustrations, populist approaches and xenophobia gain prominence in European politics. Europe is a chapter in itself. After the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, the European Union finds its way with difficulty, sinking into economic and political uncertainty. The contributions unveil different perspectives regarding the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy), the Eastern neighbourhood approach (EaP – Eastern Partnership) or the European strategy for the economically emerging Central Asia, the EU’s non-proliferation and disarmament policy, the “Europe 2020” agenda or even the outcome of the European project. Academics, diplomats and EU experts leave their own professional imprint and intellectual mark on a wide range of political, conceptual, but also technical issues. According to Professor Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan, “the Union has aimed to become a security agent of the international scene, assuming a series of initiatives which also have their basis in its cultural background, in the fundamental orientations of its axiology. Through the Lisbon Treaty, the political dimension of the Union was consecrated, the integration of some

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states released from under socialism was validated and so, new themes of European security were asserted”. The author notices the switch that took place in European security studies, from military threats (hard security) to economic, environmental or societal threats (soft security), conceptualized for the first time by the Copenhagen School. Following the academic approach from the early 1990s, ZăpârĠan remarks that “the study of security has become more complex and – even though it is still an important field of international relations analysis – it has been extended to social, food, energy, environment, value and even personal security, from the street climate to the one of the workplace, from transport safety to human rights, from human rights to moral anarchy and then, to collective security”. With regard to the CFSP, Sanda Cincă states, in her contribution, that “although European leaders have often recognized the need for the EU to redefine its role in the international system by creating a more effective and coherent foreign policy, these ambitious goals remained unfulfilled, each time being just reaffirmed. Taking into account the failures which have been recorded in this area so far, the Lisbon Treaty represented a step forward, by bringing changes to the architecture of CFSP”. With a different analytical discourse, Georgiana Ciceo does not see the Treaty of Lisbon as a major step forward (at least not for the CFSP), whilst her findings are rather cautious and do not offer very encouraging perspectives. In her own words, “the Treaty of Lisbon does not come up with ultimate clarifications. It does not alter the intergovernmental character of CFSP, it does not change significantly its decision-making mechanisms, and it does not modify radically the positions of the existing institutions in the decision-making structures of CFSP. It mostly subscribes to the policy of small steps towards, transforming the existing fragmented actorhood of the European Union into a more coherent one.” Speaking about the unity and effectiveness of European external action, the reference to the famous rhetorical question attributed to Henry Kissinger has become almost commonplace: “Who do I call if I want to speak with Europe? Give me a name and a phone number!”, suggesting the vulnerability of the European Union as a global power, in comparison to the United States, because of the lack of a single voice with regard to foreign policy and security issues. To some extent, the Lisbon Treaty and the creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS) have attempted to solve the old confusing decision-making process. As a European Union expert in disarmament, Mihaela Vasiu brings a valuable and consistent perspective on the European Union’s action in the field of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Approaching the thorny issue of the Iranian nuclear file, Vasiu notes that “it is fully consistent (…) that the EU has been involved in the diplomatic efforts with regard to Iran,

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Introduction

concerning the latter’s nuclear programme. It is important to note that the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton is currently leading the E3+314 talks with Iran. The role of the EU in the field of prevention has been clearly recognised internationally.” Cristian ConĠan, from the field of diplomacy, comes with a more technical contribution to the Eastern Partnership, in the context of the approaching Vilnius Summit, which is likely to bring new Association Agreements on the part of a number of EaP states. “While security issues in the EaP region are not meant to be addressed through the EaP policy”, he remarks, “it is expected that enhanced relations with the EU, reducing trade barriers, promoting good neighbourly relations or supporting confidence building measures, as well as making full use of the multilateral dimension of this policy which fosters cooperation among the six15 EaP countries would contribute indirectly to the resolution of the frozen conflicts”. Despite Russia’s political and economic pressures against any progress of the former Soviet republics towards the European Union, the upcoming Vilnius Summit of November 2013 will probably be a historical opportunity for (maybe) two or three of the six EaP member states to sign their Association Agreements (AAs). Although the European perspective of the Republic of Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine could mark at Vilnius an important step forward, the strategic competition for this region will continue in the coming years. As the Stratfor agency has predicted16, the European Union and Russia are disputing pre-eminence in this political and economic European periphery (once part of the Soviet Empire), while President Putin is continuing his campaign of strengthening Moscow’s influence and international profile. The external action and strategic interests of the European Union go far beyond the Eastern Neighbourhood Policy. Central Asia is nowadays one of the most dynamic, resourceful and potentially attractive regions in the world. Cristina-Maria Dogot contributes with an analysis of the EU’s strategy for Central Asia and also with regard to the democratisation process in the region. Due to its geographical position, our contributor explains that “at the crossroads between China, Russia, Ukraine, Iran and Afghanistan, its 14

The E3+3 are the three European countries (UK, France and Germany) plus the US, Russia and China. The six countries are, in this context, also referred to as P5+1 (i.e. the five nuclear weapon states, members of the UNSC, plus Germany). 15 The six member states are: Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, while Belarus is participating only in the multilateral dimension of the EaP, rejecting a bilateral relation with the EU within the EaP policy. 16 Stratfor - Analysis, Increasing Russian and EU Competition for Influence in Moldova, http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/increasing-russian-and-eu-competitioninfluence-moldova, consulted on October 1st, 2013.

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abundance in terms of mineral resources and its important capacity to produce energy, the EU considered the ‘great strategic importance’ of the region. The EU did not disregard the interests of other key actors in Central Asia, such as Russia, China, the US, Japan or even Iran and Turkey, but it announced that it had ‘a strong interest in using all the means at its disposal to promote the peaceful political and economic development of the region’, with the main objective ‘of promoting the stability and security’ and of supporting Central Asian countries ‘in their pursuit of sustainable economic development and poverty reduction’”. Nevertheless, the advance of Europe in Central Asia is still a difficult process, while Russia, under Putin’s regime, is struggling to protect its influence and interests in a region that is more or less politically confused, at the borderline of the democratic paradigm, and not yet very convinced of its Western-oriented future. Our contributors are not only preoccupied with the external actions of the European Union, but also with the domestic aspects. Speaking about the democratic deficit, Diana-Ionela Ancheú has identified “four essential aspects which are implied by this problem: the legitimacy of institutional structures and of the relationships between them, the representative character of the institutions and of the political staff in relation to the equality among citizens, the functional character of the institutional system of the European Union and the citizens’ participation in European political life.” Based on this perspective, the 2014 elections for the European Parliament could be seen as a relevant benchmark for the popular support of the European Union in its present format, if we consider the results, as well as the turnout. The rise of radical populist, nationalist and Euro-sceptical parties in the past years does not offer an encouraging framework for pro-European movements. The idea of democracy remains a fundamental value and a sensitive aspect for many European authors. Regarding the long-debated issue of the democratic deficit, Cristina Vohn identifies two main theoretical approaches: “one predominantly supporting the existence of the democratic deficit within the Union's institutional system, represented in particular by the contributions of Simon Hix and Andreas Follesdal, and another arguing for the legitimacy of the EU, whose main supporters are now Andrew Moravcsik and Majone Giandomenico.” It is more and more evident that the issue of legitimacy becomes a growing concern for Brussels, since after the failure of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005 there have been several expressions of popular mistrust in European institutions during the crisis, especially in the most economically affected member states. Viorella Manolache introduces the dimension of political philosophy, in an attempt to create conditions for a further reflection and a deep understanding of the European malaise. According to her own commitment, the

10

Introduction

author “seek(s) to identify and diagnose the ambiguities (and perhaps not as much the crises) of the contemporary European space, proposing a relaunching of the debate (with a clear politico-philosophical focus) on the subject and object of Europe and democracy”. One of her interesting findings looks fairly similar to the outcomes and conclusions of two other contributors (mainly Diana-Ionela Ancheú and partly Adrian-Gabriel Corpădean) and states that “while recent European reforms have failed to correct the democratic deficit, thus contributing to the consolidation of a European regulatory system, European citizens have been unable to give meaning to ‘civic commitment’ and find independent sources of political ‘input’ oriented towards the legitimization of free public deliberation”. Democracy and domestic politics in major EU member states are essential ingredients of the political shape and behaviour of the European Union. Sergiu Miúcoiu and Ioana Hritcu propose a meaningful analysis of the French presidential campaign of 2012, with a focus on identity and societal security issues, which reveal another side of France. “By using the methodologies of discourse theory”, the two contributors explain, “we will try to investigate the ways in which […] the association of themes such as immigration or identity with the topic of national security were reflected in the discourses and campaign strategies of the two contenders in the run-off elections and impacted on the decision-making processes of voters”. The switch from Sarkozy’s conservative government to Hollande’s socialist approaches was a key moment not only for France and French democracy, but also for European politics. The alternation of power in Paris has not yet generated economic and social satisfaction in the second largest economy of the Euro zone. On the contrary, President Hollande is the French head of state with the worst popular support after the first year in office. This new disappointment is one more reason for populists and radicals to point out that there are actually no effective “political solutions” to be picked from mainstream politics. The EU’s perspectives in the medium term are obviously difficult to be anticipated, but the preliminary outcomes of some fundamental programmatic documents can reveal interesting aspects. Analysing the progress report of the Europe 2020 Agenda, Adrian-Gabriel Corpădean seems less optimistic than other authors. “At this point in time”, he writes, “we are most certainly entitled to state that the failure of the Lisbon Strategy is unquestionable, as albeit its key objectives were ambitious and summarised a course of action that Europe taken as a whole hoped to pursue, the entire framework lacked consistency and coordination”. Looking beyond the frontiers of the European Union, we see strategic, political, cultural and technological changes reshaping the world we live in. The third set of contributions is an attempt to detect and understand some of

Democracy and Security in a Multipolar World

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these dynamic processes. Democracy and human security therefore face a number of challenges, stemming from a new set of pressures and demands. Our contributors deal with the concept of national security, the present and future roles of NATO, urban insurgencies and ways to counteract, humanitarian intervention and human security, the impact of new information technology, the rise of political Islamism in the Middle East and Northern Africa after the “Arab spring” and the strategic partnership between the United States and Romania (with a focus on the project of the American antimissile shield in Europe), in the context of present transatlantic relations. NATO has obviously been for a long time the cornerstone of Western post-WWII order. The concept of “the West” in itself was defended and strengthened during the Cold War through the political, military and also symbolic North-Atlantic Alliance. Claudiu-Alexandru Bolcu proposes an analysis of NATO’s post-Cold War meaning and transformation. “By investigating NATO’s responses to the security challenges of the 20th and 21st century”, we foster the opportunity “to reveal that there is indeed a case for security and democracy as two complementary concepts, one being a sort of default condition for fulfilling the other”. Also, he asserts that “the success of implementing and maintaining either of the [concepts] is context-dependent, as well as actor-dependent (when it comes to both the agent delivering either security or democracy and the one receiving or implementing them).” The foundation of NATO and the Western order essentially reflects the strategic transatlantic partnership. Although the United States and the European Union have not had the best decade in their long and successful relations, Bogdan Aurescu is rather optimistic. He definitely supports the establishment perspective, while his contribution emphasizes the classic (and hopefully long-lasting) approach of European and American common values and interests. “In a world strongly marked by globalization, by the proliferation of media communication and by the rise of new, asymmetric and transnational risks and challenges, the trans-Atlantic partnership will certainly remain the cornerstone of the global security architecture, a catalyst of global cooperation and a global stabilising factor.” One of the most appreciated Romanian high-ranking diplomats and specialists in international law, Aurescu, also believes that “the US–EU relations represent the strongest partnership in the international arena, an essentially strategic partnership, with the goal of interaction lying not only in common values such as peace, democracy and human rights, but also in economic compatibility and shared perspectives on local, regional and international security. The trans-Atlantic partnership must remain the fundamental point in the EU’s approach to the international system and the engine for the promotion of peace, stability and

12

Introduction

democracy in the world, as well as one of the most effective instruments of asserting the Union’s role as a global actor”. Octavian Manea presents his findings on several “mega-trends” of future security environments and insurgencies. He mentions the “empowerment of the individual” (with all possible consequences), along with “the dispersion, the diffusion and migration of power. It is not merely a geographical tendency, from the West to the rising East, from the Euro-Atlantic world to the Indo-Pacific region, but we are currently witnessing the slow-motion erosion of the traditional Westphalian state in favour of non-state actors (individuals, communities, cities and networks). This particular phenomenon has huge implications, from the perspective of the ability of states to respond and counteract future threats”. An exciting interview with general David Petraeus gives more substance and empirical relevance to his contribution. Two substantial contributions approach the current situation in the Middle East and Northern Africa after the Arab spring of 2011. Our Arab space experts, Marius Lazăr and Ecaterina Cepoi, bring their common view on Tunisia and Libya (with some references to Egypt), while ùerban Filip Cioculescu proposes a political, social and religious interpretation of the tragic Syrian civil war. The expectations with regard to the Syrian conflict are not optimistic, either in the short or in the long term. Dr Cioculescu believes that “certainly, there is a possibility that Syria will turn into a completely failed state like Somalia, where gangs and warlords control pieces of the territory and prevent the state from regaining full control. The division of Syria is another possible scenario, and it would create at least two small Syrian territories (two ‘Syrias’): one populated by Sunnis and the other by Alawites, Shias, Druze, Christians etc.” When we were preparing this book, the success of the U.N. experts in monitoring the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons (after the attack with Sarin gas against civilians in Damascus, in the summer of 2013) was not yet seen as certain. Starting from the “transitology paradigm and its limits”, Ecaterina Cepoi and Marius Lazăr affirm that “the future of Tunisia is still marked by uncertainty. Ennahda’s temptations to perpetuate its power by any means and the ambiguous relations that it maintains with the Salafi movement, which, although officially criticized, are often used for political or strategic purposes against rivals, call into question the compatibility of political Islam with real democracy, as a value of political governance”. With regard to post-Qadhafi Libya, the two contributors believe that “the assimilation or dissolution of the numerous brigades and militias that have remained outside the new security structures, especially in the case of those that programmatically refuse to integrate into the new system, with some violently contesting it – like the jihadi groups, is one of the keys to Libya’s recovery”.

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From a totally different perspective, with apparently no direct political connections, Rares Pateanu from the York University of Toronto provides a very accurate definition of the changes and new paradigms in information technology, with a significant impact on society and the transformation of day-to-day life. “In its less than 70-year-long history, computers and Information Technology have undoubtedly brought dramatic change to the world we live in, and with it, to just about every aspect of human interaction”, concludes Professor Pateanu in his overview of the most recent innovations in IT. For the overwhelming majority of us, IT is already an important ingredient of daily life and it can be considered part and parcel of ultimate human security, dealing with essential aspects like communication and planning, information, banking services, payments etc. These soft changes of the 21st century are in fact reshaping the way people live in different parts of the world, though they have nothing to do with war, military, hard security, alliances or high politics. Concluding my introductory remarks, there is no unique answer or panacea for European malaise, the present crises or the structural threats haunting this changing, unpredictable world. Through various viewpoints, the contributors to this book approach certain aspects of the current transformations in strategy, politics and economy, according to their expertise. Less than a holistic prediction of the world of tomorrow, but more than a simple description of some structural changes in the realm of democracy and security, this volume offers an all-in picture of the main pressures, actors, interests, risks, but also opportunities which appear to change the global or regional order at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Bibliography Anderson, Jeffrey, Ikenberry, G. John, and Risse, Thomas (editors), (2008), The End of the West? Crisis and Change in the Atlantic Order, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Barnett, Thomas P.M., (2009), Great Powers: America and the World after Bush, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Department of Defense, (2012), Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, Washington D.C. Kissinger, Henry, (2001), Does America Need a Foreign Policy?: Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century, New York: Simon & Schuster Paperback. Kopstein, Jeffrey, and Steinmo, Sven (editors), (2008), Growing Apart?: America and Europe in the Twenty-First Century, New York and London: Cambridge University Press.

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Introduction

Lee, Kuan Yew, (2010), “Battle for preeminence”, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/1011/rich-list-10-opinions-lee-kuanyew-current-events-preeminence.html consulted on February 26, 2013. Naumescu, Valentin, (2012), “From the Atlantic Order to the Pacific PreEminence: A Historical Shift?”, in Studia Universitatis Babeú-Bolyai / Studia Europaea, issue no. 2/2012, Cluj-Napoca: Cluj University Press, 67-82. Schmitz, Gregor Peter, (2013), “Global Leadership Vacuum: Europe incapable, America unwilling”, Der Spiegel, February 1, 2013, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-global-leadership-vacuumeurope-incapable-america-unwilling-a-880945.html, consulted on July 29, 2013. Spengler, Oswald, (1991), The Decline of the West, Ed. Arthur Helps, and Helmut Werner, New York: Oxford University Press. Wendt, Alexander, (2011), Teoria socială a politicii internationale (Social Theory of International Politics), Iaúi and Bucharest: Polirom. Zakaria, Fareed, (2009), Lumea post americană (The Post-American World), Iaúi and Bucharest: Polirom.

CHAPTER ONE BEFORE THE COLD WAR: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, PRESENT CONNECTIONS

“BEHIND THE CLOSED DOORS”: THE MYTH OF THE ANGLO-SOVIET PERCENTAGES BARGAIN (OCTOBER 1944). A RE-EVALUATION AND CONTEMPORARY MEANINGS LUCIAN LEUùTEAN

Abstract The Moscow meeting between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin in October 1944 is certainly best known for the existence of an apparent agreement to a percentage table covering some countries of South-Eastern Europe. This table became part of the accepted mythology of Allied secret wartime diplomacy. Following Churchill’s hint in his book The Second World War, most historians and analysts explained the deal as a cynical bargain that settled down the fate for hundreds of millions of people. Although there have been some voices contesting allusively or vehemently such an explanation, the myth has survived almost untouched. I am trying once again to challenge this interpretation and my endeavour is based not necessarily on new evidence but on the refined and logical meanings of the events. Last but not least it is an honest attempt to find out some contemporary meanings for British-Soviet arrangements from October 1944.

Keywords Churchill, Stalin, percentages agreement, world war II, Balkans, myth.

The facts By the end of World War II, at the beginning of October 1944, when the eastern front was, for several weeks already, in collapse, and the Nazi Germany’s allies were signing, one by one, the armistices with the

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representatives of the United Nations coalition1, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who had just come from a transatlantic travel where he had participated in a reunion with the American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at Quebec, got on a plane again, to go this time towards East, to the Soviet Union, via London-Naples-Cairo-Moscow. He got to the capital of the Bolshevik allied partner on 9 October 1944 and, the same evening, at 10 p.m., he met Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. The Foreign ministers of the two countries, Vyacheslav Molotov and Anthony Eden, were also there. This was a preliminary, exploratory discussion, meant to establish the “rules of the game” for the coming week of talks and negotiations; but, at one point, during this relaxed, friendly dialogue, Churchill proposes Stalin to talk about the “Balkans issue”. Let us give the floor to Sir Winston Churchill, to tell, a few years after the events, his own version of what followed: “Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. Your armies are in Romania and Bulgaria. We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don’t let us get at cross-purposes in small ways. So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety per cent predominance in Rumania, for us to have ninety per cent of the say in Greece, and go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia? While this was being translated I wrote out on a half-sheet of paper: Rumania Russa 90% The others 10% Greece Great Britain (in accord with U.S.A.) 90% Russia 10% Yugoslavia 50-50% Hungary 50-50% Bulgaria Russia 75% The others 25% I pushed this across to Stalin, who by then had heard the translation. There was a slight pause. Then he took his blue pencil and made a large tick upon it, and passed it back to us. It was all settled in no more than it takes to set down.

1

Romania, on 12 September 1944, Finland, on 19 September; Bulgaria, though it had solicited the armistice on 6 September, immediately after the Soviet Union had declared war on it, would sign the armistice on 26 October, while Hungary would sign it on 20 January 1945 (Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Istoria relaĠiilor internaĠionale, 19191947, vol. I, Bucureúti: Ed. ùtiinĠelor Sociale úi Politice, 2006, p. 296).

18

Behind the Closed Doors Then there was a long silence while the pencilled paper lay on the centre of the table. At length I said, ‘might it not be thought rather cynical if it seemed we disposed of these issues, so fateful to millions of people, in such an off-hand manner? Let us burn the paper’. ‘No, you keep it’, said Stalin”2.

This is how it all started. The one who is quoted with witty remarks like: “History is written by the victors!” and, above all, “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it!” proved consistent. He was a victor who wrote the history, as a main character and as a narrator as well. The history of World War II, in six volumes, published by the British statesman in the period 194819533, is not only the most influential narrative on the Second World War, but also the main literary work which caused its author being awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature4. Hundreds of pages were written on what Winston Churchill omitted, altered or mistook in his story about the World War, as well as on the fact that his “work” was teamwork5, so our objective will not be to join a chorus of revisionists objecting to Sir Winston’s version, but rather to ask some questions meant to nuance the previously accepted explanations regarding the so-called “percentages agreement” and to teach us lessons whose applicability could be extended to our times. Not least, we were stunned to read in a reference book, a title of a classic series in the Anglo-Saxon academia, a sentence that is surely worth contesting: “In practice, neither is to exercise influence in Yugoslavia, which remains determinedly independent. Otherwise the agreement is to reflect reality until 1990”6.

In other words, the influences were balanced in Hungary until 1990, while in Bulgaria the Soviets had three quarters and the British one quarter...

2

Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy, London: Casell, 1953, pp. 196-197. 3 The first edition was in six volumes, but after that there were editions in twelve, four or even one volume; obviously, their content was not identical. 4 Thomas Parrish, Enciclopedia războiului rece, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2002, p. 69. 5 See e.g. David Reynolds, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War, London: Penguin/Allen Lane, 2004, 672p. 6 Adrian Webb, The Routledge Companion to Central and Eastern Europe since 1919, London and New York: Routledge, 2008, p. 67.

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The characters The main character was, undoubtedly, the British leader, Winston Churchill. He was the one who asked for the Moscow meeting, at the beginning of October 1944, and we could assert that he was the one who had the best advantages out of it. Furthermore, whatever he might have got from Stalin, at that point of the war, as far as Eastern Europe was concerned, was inestimable. He needed an opportunity, which he created and capitalized on. Subsequently, he presented it to a world audience, when he wanted and the way he wanted. The second important character was Joseph Stalin. He hosted the reunion, as he did not wish to travel to places that the Red Army did not control. He listened with interest to the proposition of the British official and was unusually serene: he gave his consent with a tick and did not comment very much. But he was not surprised by the proposition: he was aware of Sir Winston’s propensities. He was also aware of both the lack of American support to such an action and the fact that any arrangement they were doing could only be provisory, as long as the military situation was still changing with rapidity and the politico-diplomatic evolutions in Eastern Europe were relatively difficult to control, even by the omnipresent Red Army. The great absent was the American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had plenty of well-founded reasons not to come: he was sick (he had only six more months to live), he was in the middle of an electoral campaign (he was to be re-elected for his fourth term of office in November 1944) and, above all, he did not agree with what the British Prime Minister wanted to put forward. It seemed to him an “imperialist” arrangement, beneath the new international realities. He did not wish to compromise his chances to be reelected for the fourth term of office, but he especially did not wish to endorse schemes related to spheres of influence. They seemed obsolete and incompatible with the way in which the world should have been organized after the carnage of such a big war. The secondary characters were the two Foreign ministers present in the debate: Anthony Eden and Vyaceslav Molotov. They did not interpose, but the second day they were the ones who continued the negotiations, like real merchants, because of the Soviets’ wish, it seems, to increase their percentages for Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia7. It also seems that Molotov did obtain higher percentages, but the “second day” agreement did

7 André Fontaine, Istoria războiului rece, De la RevoluĠia din Octombrie la războiul din Coreea, 1917-1950, vol. 1, Bucharest: Ed. Militară, 1992, p. 276.

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Behind the Closed Doors

not get as famous as the first one. Almost nobody speaks about the MolotovEden agreement.

The context After the strategic initiative shifted, as a result of the victories obtained in the different theatres of operations (the Eastern front, North Africa, the Pacific), to the side of the United Nations Coalition, in 1942-1943, the Anglo-American alliance started to get destabilized, its dysfunctions becoming increasingly striking and the dissensions increasingly frequent and sometimes insurmountable. It got more and more clear that Franklin Roosevelt’s and Winston Churchill’s views were not similar at all, and that was less due to the inevitably distinct national interests and more to the completely different understandings and assessments of events and courses of events in the different areas of the world and particularly in Europe. Not least, they represented countries with a different participation in the evolution and the winning of the war, which gave them unequal roles in the decisionmaking process. The chasm had become visible since the Casablanca Conference, in January 1943, when the American idea of an unconditional capitulation of Germany and of its allies did not appeal to the British, who only accepted it forced by the circumstances8. Afterwards, the debate regarding the opening of a new front in Europe deepened the gap: the Americans were only interested in a landing in Western Europe, while the British aimed at attacking the fortress of the Axis from the south and possibly from the south-east (the Balkans). The compromises that were made were just partial and temporary, of the kind that failed to satisfy all of the actors involved. Furthermore, starting with the first reunion of the “Big Three” at the Teheran Conference, in November 1943, Churchill had to cope with the American-Soviet cooperation9, a by-product of the debate on the opening of the second front10. Roosevelt seemed sometimes to be more willing to try direct bilateral approaches with Stalin, than to always coordinate with the British partner11. Sir Winston understood he lost his status: 8

Adam B. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence, Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1973, second edition, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1976, p. 339. 9 The Teheran Conference (28 November-1 December 1943) was originally intended to be a bilateral summit between the Soviet Union and the United States (Geoffrey Roberts, “Stalin at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam Conferences”, in The Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 9, no. 4, Fall 2007, p. 8). 10 Martin Gilbert, Churchill and America, New York: Free Press, 2008, pp. 288-289. 11 Norman Rose, Churchill. O viaĠă de rebel, Bucharest: All, 1998, p. 338.

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“There I sat with the great Russian bear on one side of me, with paws outstretched, and on the other side the great American buffalo, and between the two sat the poor little English donkey, who was the only one, the only one of the three, who knew the right way home”12.

In the period 1943-1944, the Anglo-American partnership was not taking place on an equal footing any more, being obviously dominated by the Americans. The new world war reiterated one of the lessons that had been learnt after the first one: the British could not win any major conflict without the money and the material and human resources of the United States of America. Dependency on the Americans’ money was best illustrated by one of Winston Churchill’s replies to Franklin Roosevelt, at Quebec in September 1944: "What do you want me to do? Get up on my hind legs and beg like Fala [Roosevelt’s dog]?"13. But there was no alternative: he could not count on anyone else in Europe, either then or after the war. The British could not defeat the Germans by themselves, and afterwards they could not resist alone to the Russians. From a different perspective, the cooperation within the United Nations Coalition was, from the very beginning, marked by Stalin’s requests to control substantial parts of Eastern Europe, a Soviet sphere meant to act as a strategic buffer against the West, and an area that had to be economically exploited in order to help the Soviet economy to recover quickly14. Roosevelt had to choose since 1942 whether to reject or to accept the Soviet claims. In the first case, tensions would have escalated, and the Russo-American relations would have eroded, the two countries running the risk to end the war and the alliance as enemies. In the second case, the American hopes to enforce the principles of the Atlantic Charter would have evaporated, as it would have meant a capitulation in front of the totalitarian views. On the other hand, the alliance with the Soviet Union was fundamental, especially that it had born, for a long time, the brunt of the confrontation with the Axis, the losses of the Soviet state in the eastern front being unimaginable15 and quasi-impossible to explain for the public opinion, by a democratic leader.

12

Action This Day; Working With Churchill. Memoirs by Lord Norman Brook (And Others), edited with an introduction by Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, London: Macmillan, 1968, p. 96. 13 Apud N. Rose, op. cit., p. 344. 14 Walter Lafeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War 1945-1980, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1980, p. 13. 15 Colin S. Gray, Războiul, pacea úi relaĠiile internaĠionale. O introducere în istoria strategică, Iaúi: Polirom, 2010, p. 225.

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Behind the Closed Doors

The American reaction was a mix of remorse and gratefulness, as well as a hesitation to offend the Russians. Roosevelt’s first answer to this moral and strategic dilemma was his famous theory about the “four policemen” – USA, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and China – who were going to stabilize the post-war world. Stalin was thrilled, as he understood that his country will “patrol” the Eastern Europe. By the end of 1943, Roosevelt started to realize the incompatibility of his theory with a free, unified world. But he had no alternative option, so he adopted an attitude of expectancy, in the spirit of the American strategic thought, which preferred that the arms should say the first word, while the diplomats and the politicians should intervene subsequently, after the militaries finished their job.16 But the British regarded with an increasing anxiety the course of events in Europe. Though the invasion of Europe was successfully launched, after the landing in Normandy, the situation was not at all reassuring from the standpoint of the political consequences of the military decisions. After the relatively easy advancement in Western Europe in the period July-August 1944, the rhythm started to slow down significantly. General Eisenhower, the Commander of the Allied Forces, refused to accept the evident idea that the degree to which his troops would enter Central Europe was going to determine the post-war map: "I would be loath to hazard American lives for purely political purposes"17. The politico-military leadership wished to maintain full cooperation with the Soviets, in order to square up to the Germans, so that they could focus on the war in the Pacific against the Japanese, whose resistance was expected to last18. This was the context in which the British Premier had to decide whether he had to sit by and wait for the Americans to concretize their strategy or to try to save whatever could be saved in the last minute, at the risk of offending the American ally. He could not possibly have too many objectives left, the available resources were inevitably limited, and the possibilities to influence the events were almost inexistent. His only chance was actually bluffing, in desperation, but he did it magnificently, obtaining unexpected but decisive success for what was going to happen in the first post-war years. 16

Wilfried Loth, ÎmpărĠirea lumii. Istoria războiului rece 1941-1955, Bucharest: Saeculum I.O., 1997, pp. 72-73. 17 Apud Paul Johnson, O istorie a lumii moderne, 1920-2000, Bucharest: Humanitas, 2005, p. 423. 18 Today, of course, it is widely recognized that it was a grave mistake for the United States at the end of World War II to be preoccupied with military objectives to the neglect of political aims (Fred Charles Iklé, How Nations Negotiate, New York: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1967, pp. 156-157).

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The historiographical fate of the agreement As we have showed above, the agreement was, to a large extent19, an unknown, until Sir Winston, a Prime Minister again, published the sixth volume of his work dedicated to the Second World War. This happened in 1953, after Stalin’s death therefore. The latter would have probably been the only one who could have challenged, with chances to succeed, the British leader’s version. But he could not do this from his grave. As for the rest, Eden was still collaborating with Churchill, succeeding him in the Cabinet of London, which made quite unlikely a contestation by him. As for Molotov, disgraced by Stalin in his last years, he had become again a Foreign Minister in the period 1953-1956. But he completely disappeared afterwards from the Soviet leadership, being even excluded from the party. In any case, before 1956 he had never referred in any way to the percentages agreement. In fact the Soviets did not comment anything about Churchill’s assertions related to the arrangement of 9 October 1944 for five year. It is only in 1958 that the Soviet historiography reacted, affirming that the idea of the spheres of influence was an obsession of the British leader and that Stalin did not take it into consideration, a proof being the fact that the subject was not discussed any more in the subsequent meetings between the two20. The first serious historiographical analysis of what happened in Moscow late in the evening of 9 October 1944 was Albert Resis’ article of 1978, quoted above. Relying upon British and American documents, the author makes a nuanced presentation of the arrangement, of the context in which the parties “agreed” and of the consequences. He outlines the relatively heated discussions of the time between the members of the United Nations Coalition regarding the armistices, particularly the one with Bulgaria, but also those with Romania, Finland, Hungary and Italy: he who held the control of the enforcement committees was going to impose his point of view in the country in question. Resis’ opinions took into consideration the fact that the Americans did not wish to get formally involved in the arrangement, though they suspected what this was all about, asking for nothing, not even for details about the agreement, while the British and the Russians did not rush at all to offer them. The conclusion of the American historian was that: 19 James Byrnes, former State Secretary of the US at that time, declared for The New York Times, in October 1947, that in a message dated March 1945, Churchill communicated to Roosevelt about the agreement he had made with Stalin in October 1944. 20 See Albert Resis, “The Churchill-Stalin Secret „Percentages” Agreement on the Balkans, Moscow, October 1944”, in The American Historical Review, vol. 83, no. 2 (April 1978), p. 369.

24

Behind the Closed Doors “The ‘percentages’ agreement worked until Britain proved too weak to sustain its side of the bargain. The United States inserted itself increasingly into Balkan affairs and finally, in March 1947, replaced faltering British power in that area”21.

After that, many historians and authors of different affiliations expressed their opinions about the so-called percentages agreement. Actually everyone who analysed the beginnings of the Cold War, this true “Homeric question” of the Western (and not only) historiography, had to specify one’s position in relation to what had been (or not) established in the last hours of the day of 9 October, in Moscow. We do not aim at offering a list of these contributions – other people who were more justified than us did it – but we could identify a few categories of authors. There are, first of all, two distinct categories of commentators: those who assert that the agreement was a very concrete one, observed by both parties, no matter if the third one (the US) did not accept it or admitted it tacitly sooner or later22, an agreement whose outcomes were experienced for a period whose length varies from a few months to the end of the Cold War in 1990; and respectively those who do not give a lot of importance to the discussion between Churchill and Stalin, deeming it irrelevant, and regarding the agreement as a non-functional one and implicitly one which had no real effects in the period that followed. There are also, of course, authors who could be placed in different positions along the line from one category to the other, trying to nuance the conclusions that might be drawn, who avoid inveighing against the cynicism of the two leaders who decided, on a piece of paper (some even mentioned a “napkin”!), the destiny of tens or even hundreds of millions of people; they try to answer questions like: how could one explain the percentages of influence? What does, for instance, 50%-50% mean? Why was Stalin so relaxed though he received nothing else but what he already had? How could Churchill obtain the control of Greece, though he had nothing to offer in exchange? etc. This is the category that we tend to join, so in the last part of the paper we try to present and argue our own opinions about the ChurchillStalin agreement of October 1944.

21

Ibidem, p. 387; see also Idem, “Spheres of Influence in Soviet Wartime Diplomacy”, in The Journal of Modern History, vol. 53, no. 3 (September 1981), pp. 417-439. 22 Alfred J. Rieber, “The Crack in the Plaster: Crisis in Romania and the Origins of the Cold War”, in The Journal of Modern History, vol. 76, no. 1 (March 2004), p. 63.

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The recent Romanian historiography and the percentages agreement The Romanian historians could not avoid the debate about the percentages agreement. Much has been written on the issue, even before 1989, but especially afterwards. These were unequal contributions, from mere reproductions of some other people’s opinions to partisan standpoints, meant to blame this or that party, or everyone else except us, for the start of the Cold War and implicitly for Romania’s fate for half a century. We will not insist on this type of opinions, which are not worth fighting. But our attention was attracted by the works of two young Romanian historians who have rather recently started to study with thoroughness and scrupulousness the subject, collecting rich information from diverse sources and emitting interesting conclusions, even if contradictory ones. From this perspective, their opinions deserve to be presented and commented. LaurenĠiu Constantiniu, in his volume Uniunea Sovietică între obsesia securităĠii úi insecurităĠii [The Soviet Union between the Obsession of Security and That of Insecurity] starts from the operation “Autonomus”, launched by the British secret services at the end of 1943, by parachuting in Romania a group of people whose mission was to convince the Romanian opposition, led by IuliuManiu, to approach first of all the Soviets in order to end the war. Although the group failed, being arrested shortly after, and the British had announced the NKVD about the operation, the Soviets asked for explanations, which determined Churchill to wish to reach an agreement with the Soviets as far as the South-Eastern Europe issue was concerned, in the spring of 1944, in April-May. The starting point was to cut the influence in two of the countries, Greece going to the United Kingdom, and Romania to the Soviet Union, the rest having to be negotiated afterwards. The Americans, by their own choice, but also because the Soviets and the British were not quite eager to inform them, set by, though the two parties were consistently referring to their possible agreement23. The Romanian historian underlines that at the moment of the meeting, on 9 October, in Moscow, the table of percentages was already drawn, being not a hic et nunc creation, an improvisation, but a well-prepared move24. Using Russian documents, LaurenĠiu Constantiniu underlines that Stalin himself asked for an increase of the Soviet percentage in Bulgaria to 90%, which Molotov continued to do during the discussions with Eden in the following 23

LaurenĠiu Constantiniu, Uniunea Sovietică între obsesia securităĠii úi insecurităĠii, Bucharest: Corint, 2010, pp. 172-174. 24 Ibidem, p. 175.

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Behind the Closed Doors

days, the British being hard to convince. The historian from Bucharest also tries to elucidate the significance of the percentages: 90%, 10%, 50%, 75%, 25% of what? Churchill spoke of the British and Soviet “interests”, and in the Soviet documents appears the word “influence”, the two terms being, of course, not synonymous. L. Constantiniu thinks this is about the “extent of intervention of the USSR and of the Great Britain in the countries included in the percentages agreement”.25 The conclusion is clear-cut: “the percentages agreement guided the policy of the two partners”, “laid the foundation of the Soviet strategic glacis in south-eastern Europe”, “meant, in fact, the acknowledgement of the Soviet strategic glacis by the Great Britain”26. Moreover, “understandings like the percentages agreement were deemed both in London and in Washington perfectly compatible with the interests of the two major democracies, who did not see in the generous principles of the Atlantic Charter but simple rhetoric of propaganda war. The idea that the Soviet Union had to have an area of protection, where there should have been governments ‘friendly’ with Moscow, seemed to be perfectly legitimate”27. The other Romanian historian who expressed his opinions on the percentages agreement is Liviu C. ğîrău, in his work Între Washington úi Moscova. Politicile de securitate naĠională ale SUA úi URSS úi impactul lor asupra României 1945-1965 [Between Washington and Moscow: The US and USSR National Security Policies and Their Impact on Romania 19451965]. He also presents the context of the Moscow meeting in October 194428, and one of his important contributions is the quest in the Anglo-Saxon historiography of the issue29. The historian from Cluj-Napoca adheres to the opinions of the members of the post-revisionist school regarding the beginning of the Cold War, with authors like John Lewis Gaddis, Geir Lundestad, Vojtech Mastny or Albert Resis, who, without minimizing the effects of the Churchill-Stalin agreement: “pointed out several particularities of the Eastern European political context …: the Soviets held anyway the dominant position in Eastern Europe, with or without the percentages agreement; …Churchill’s move should be regarded not only as an egoist action, meant to protect the British interests, but also as a 25

Ibidem, p. 179. Ibidem, pp. 181-182. 27 Ibidem, p. 213. 28 Liviu C. ğîrău, Între Washington úi Moscova.Politicile de securitate naĠională ale SUA úi URSS úi impactul lor asupra României(1945-1965), Cluj-Napoca: Tribuna, 2005, pp. 105-106, 288-293. 29 Ibidem, pp. 269-272. 26

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desperate attempt to preserve points of Western influence in Eastern Europe; …from the standpoint of Roosevelt administration, as well as from that of Truman, a distinction was made between the politico-military arrangements – deemed transitory – and the final regulations, which were to be made in the peace conference”30.

Liviu ğîrău’s conclusions regarding the percentages agreement underline the fact that those who launched accusations of cynicism “ignored – consciously or not – the military map of the moment”31. At the same time, the historian from Cluj-Napoca thinks that for several months the British felt constrained, by the agreement with Moscow, not to be too vocal in relation to Romania, especially that Stalin respected his promise about Greece. But starting with the spring of 1945, with the end of the war in Europe, the constraint disappeared, the tensions between the two countries in the Eastern European countries issue increasing significantly32. Fundamentally, the opinions of the two Romanian historians we have presented above are tributary, in the best sense of the word, to the sources and books they consulted. If in the first case, of LaurenĠiu Constantiniu, the Russian sources prevail, in the second case, of Liviu ğîrău, the Anglo-Saxon sources are the predominant ones. In fact, neither of them exaggerates, but they only focus differently, choosing sometimes divergent elements on which they build their assertions. The historian from Bucharest emphasizes the way in which the Soviets regarded the agreement, considering it a validation, even if a partial one, of their desire to create a security girdle at their western borders. On the other hand, the historian from Cluj-Napoca seems to build a better balanced image of the percentages agreement, without neglecting its importance and also without considering it the decisive element in the establishment of the Soviet domination, for half a century, over the Eastern Europe. We feel closer to this latter presentation of what happened in Moscow on 9 October 1944.

Conclusions We do not believe that one could comment upon the percentages agreement unless by a corroboration to the military situation in the region at that time. By the beginning of October 1944, the Red Army had occupied almost entirely Romania and a major part of Bulgaria, being ready to enter

30

Ibidem, pp. 270-271. Ibidem, p. 293. 32 Ibidem, pp. 294-305. 31

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Hungary, Yugoslavia and Greece33. The British were not in the position to contest, in any way, this reality, they did not have the necessary resources and, above all, they did not benefit by the American support for this, regardless of the reasons for which the US leaders had established their strategic preference. Which were Winston Churchill’s options? Not so many, and the only one that could have offered him some chances to succeed, not obvious at all, was the one that he opted for. He decided that he was interested to the highest extent in the control on Greece and implicitly on the Eastern Mediterranean, and that he had to do everything he could not to lose that control. Consequently, he decided to bluff. He went to Moscow, having nothing to offer, while he had to get from Stalin the non-intervention in Greece, a country that the Greek communists controlled almost entirely, waiting for the Red Army to complete the “liberation”34. The legitimate question that one may ask in relation to the percentages agreement is why Stalin accepted to betray the Greek communists and gave Churchill a free hand at Athens, although it was apparently easy for him to refuse his demand and to occupy Greece. The answer is not easy and we have not identified enlightening documents in this direction. Consequently, we could only suppose that the leader of Kremlin did not wish to push it too hard, fearing, for good reasons, a possible unfavourable reaction of the Americans35; he did not wish to seem intransigent and to force a possible premature dissolution of the United Nations Coalition; he thought he should see how the arrangement, in the form proposed by the British, would function, so that he could decide afterwards about some possible modifications; in Greece, there already were some British troops, so a Soviet occupation could have even led to direct confrontations36, and so on. Churchill’s effort in October 1944 was less cynical and rather pathetic: the United Kingdom had become too dependent on the United States to sustain solitary initiatives. There was a nuance of desperation in the British 33

There is a legitimate question: why Poland (and Czechoslovakia) was missing from the list outlined at Moscow in October 1944? The simplest answer is the following one: the fate of Poland was already sealed and, therefore, there was nothing to do any more (Peter Calvocoressi, Europa de la Bismarck la Gorbaciov, Iaúi: Polirom, 2003, p. 74). 34 Norman Stone, The Atlantic and Its Enemies, A Personal History of the Cold War, New York: Basic Books, 2010, pp. 16-17; José Gotovitch, Pascal Delwit, Jean-Michel De Waele, Europa comuniútilor, Iaúi: Institutul european, 2003, pp. 130-131. 35 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War. A New History, London: Penguin Books, 2007, p. 20. 36 See Jacques de Launay, Mari decizii ale celui de-al doilea război mondial 19421945, vol. II, Bucharest: Ed. ùtiinĠifică úi Enciclopedică, 1988, pp. 258-261.

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Premier’s attempt to rule the “interests” or the “influence” on the basis of percentages, especially that nothing like that had happened before. Moreover, there was no criterion to measure the agreement and no mean to impose it. Everything depended on the presence of the supporting armies. A few months after that, at the Conference of Yalta, there was not much left of the percentages agreement: the Red Army had already come into possession of all the disputable territories, except for Greece, intervening massively in the domestic affairs of all the occupied countries. Even Yugoslavia’s subsequent freedom did not result from the Churchill-Stalin agreement, but from the fact that it liberated by itself from the German occupation37. Greece, willingly or not, was saved for democracy by Winston Churchill’s efforts; but he was not able to save Eastern Europe. Why? He answers himself, in his inimitable style, in a Cabinet minute: “It is beyond the power of this country to prevent all sorts of things crashing at the present time. The responsibility lies with the US and my desire is to give them all the support in our power. If they do not feel able to do anything then we must let matters take their course”38.

Winston Churchill conceded nothing by the percentages agreement. Or he “conceded” something he did not possess did not control and could not influence39. He “counted his chickens before they were hatched”, but he got a good price for them, especially that the expectations were not really high. The good price was determined not only by Winston Churchill’s courage and cleverness, but also by the fact that Stalin “conceded” easily something that did not seem very appealing for him at that time. He was magnanimous, but he felt sorry afterwards. The support he offered the Greek communists during the civil war that they fuelled shows his regret for not having “settled” the issue in 1944. What meanings could have, nowadays, the story of the percentages agreement? First of all, the fact that those who “make” and “write” history deliver us whatever serves their cause or the cause of the posterity they build. The turning points are, most of the times, other than what we are usually offered in terms of evidence. Neither the percentages agreement nor the Yalta Conference in February 1945 deserve the role of milestones, not in the issue of the spheres of influence in post-war Europe, not in the issue of the Eastern Europe’s abandonment in the Soviets’ hands. The essential decision in this 37

Henry Kissinger, DiplomaĠia, Bucharest: All, 1998, pp. 376-377. Apud P. Johnson, op.cit., p. 424. 39 Tony Judt, Postwar. A History of Europe since 1945, London: Penguin Books, 2006, p. 101. 38

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problem was the American leaders’ one not to have their troops present, at the end of the war, in the eastern part of Europe. The British were not capable either to convince the Americans to do it, or to act by themselves. Secondly, the role of the personalities in the decisive moments has been and is an essential one. It is very likely that nine leaders out of ten could not have saved Greece for democracy as Winston Churchill did in October 1944. Furthermore, he did it against the will of many of the Greeks. Recent history has shown us that sometimes one has to do good to the Greeks by force. Thirdly, all the story about the percentages agreement suggests that herein lay one of the greatest flaws of the Allied victory: its principal beneficiary was the totalitarian regime with which the Western democracies had joined the forces in the summer of 1941. The wartime alliance with Stalin, for all its inevitability and strategic rationality, was nevertheless an authentically Faustian pact40. Finally, though at that time the United States did not support Sir Winston’s action, they subsequently reassessed both the facts and the motivations. Eventually, the Americans by the 1947 Truman Doctrine, strengthened and safeguarded what the British Cabinet leader had done in 1944. The moral is that not even the world leaders can avoid errors, but this is what partners and allies (i.e. vassals) are good for: consilium et auxilium.

Bibliography Calvocoressi, Peter (2003), Europa de la Bismarck la Gorbaciov, Iaúi: Polirom. Churchill, Winston (1953), The Second World War, vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy, London: Casell. Constantiniu, LaurenĠiu (2010), Uniunea Sovietică între obsesia securităĠii úi insecurităĠii, Bucharest: Corint. Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste (2006), Istoria relaĠiilor internaĠionale, 1919-1947, vol. I, Bucharest: Ed. ùtiinĠelor Sociale úi Politice. Ferguson, Niall (2007), The War of the World, Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, New York: Penguin Books. Fontaine, André (1992), Istoria războiului rece, De la RevoluĠia din Octombrie la războiul din Coreea, 1917-1950, vol. 1, Bucharest: Ed. Militară. Gaddis, John Lewis (2007), The Cold War. A New History, London: Penguin Books. 40 Niall Ferguson, The War of the World, Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, New York: Penguin Books, 2007, p. 511.

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Gilbert, Martin (2008), Churchill and America, New York: Free Press. Gotovitch, José; Delwit, Pascal; De Waele, Jean-Michel (2003), Europa comuniútilor, Iaúi: Institutul european. Gray, Colin S. (2010), Războiul, pacea úi relaĠiile internaĠionale. O introducere în istoria strategică, Iaúi: Polirom. Iklé, Fred Charles (1967), How Nations Negotiate, New York: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers. Johnson, Paul (2005), O istorie a lumii moderne, 1920-2000, Bucharest: Humanitas. Judt, Tony (2006), Postwar. A History of Europe since 1945, London: Penguin Books. Kissinger, Henry (1998), DiplomaĠia, Bucharest: All. Lafeber, Walter (1980), America, Russia, and the Cold War 1945-1980, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Launay, Jacques de (1988), Mari decizii ale celui de-al doilea război mondial 1942-1945, vol. II, Bucharest: Ed. ùtiinĠifică úi Enciclopedică. Loth, Wilfried (1997), ÎmpărĠirea lumii. Istoria războiului rece 1941-1955, Bucharest: Saeculum I.O.. Parrish, Thomas (2002), Enciclopedia războiului rece, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic. Resis, Albert (1978) “The Churchill-Stalin Secret „Percentages” Agreement on the Balkans, Moscow, October 1944”, in The American Historical Review, vol. 83, no. 2 , pp. 368-387. Resis, Albert (1981), “Spheres of Influence in Soviet Wartime Diplomacy”, in The Journal of Modern History, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 417-439. Reynolds, David (2004), In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War, London: Penguin/Allen Lane. Rieber, Alfred J. (2004), “The Crack in the Plaster: Crisis in Romania and the Origins of the Cold War”, in The Journal of Modern History, vol. 76, no. 1, pp. 62-106. Roberts, Geoffrey (2007), “Stalin at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam Conferences”, in The Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 9, no. 4, p. 6-40. Rose, Norman (1998), Churchill. O viaĠă de rebel, Bucharest: All. Stone, Norman (2010), The Atlantic and Its Enemies, A Personal History of the Cold War, New York: Basic Books. ğîrău, Liviu C. (2005), Între Washington úi Moscova. Politicile de securitate naĠională ale SUA úi URSS úi impactul lor asupra României (1945-1965), Cluj-Napoca: Tribuna. Ulam, Adam B. (1976), Expansion and Coexistence, Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1973, second edition, New York: Praeger Publishers.

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Webb, Adrian (2008), The Routledge Companion to Central and Eastern Europe since 1919, London and New York: Routledge. Wheeler-Bennett, Sir John (ed.) (1968), Action This Day; Working With Churchill. Memoirs by Lord Norman Brook (And Others), London: Macmillan.

CHAPTER TWO THE EUROPEAN UNION AND BEYOND: CRISES, DEMOCRACY, CHANGING POLICIES

THE TREATY OF LISBON, THE COMMON FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICY AND ITS INSTITUTIONAL CONSISTENCY PROBLEM GEORGIANA CICEO

Abstract This article aims to assess the extent to which the Treaty of Lisbon can significantly improve decision-making in the area of the foreign and security policy, so as to strengthen the EU’s crisis management leadership. In order to fulfil this task, we firstly intend to analyse the innovations introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon. Then, we investigate how these changes might correct the well-known consistency problem of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU. The focus will be on appraising the extent to which the duality of the EU decision-making procedures has been maintained. At the same time, we attempt to evaluate whether these new procedures have the potential to add weight to the EU’s prominence on the world stage.

Keywords Common Foreign and Security Policy, institutional consistency, Treaty of Lisbon The EU’s progress in terms of economic prominence has led to an increased demand for strengthening its rather soft power profile. This was regarded as a logical step forward in the evolution of the EU as a sui-generis actor on the world stage. Since the EU’s capacity to act as a full-grown actor in a considerable range of economic policy areas had already been firmly established, it was considered that the time was ripe for the EU to attempt to bring those areas traditionally connected with high politics to follow, suit and contribute to the overall stature of the EU on the world stage. The difficulty of this endeavour was well known to all those involved in taking the necessary decisions. As foreign policy has generally been seen as an exclusive

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prerogative of states, the advances towards establishing a common policy in this field have always proved to be extremely difficult, as they need to overcome a large number of sensitivities. With the entry into force of the Treaty of Maastricht, the EU made unequivocal claims that it would pursue from then on a foreign policy, which was intended to be common, although not necessarily single. Nevertheless, despite the high hopes that the EU’s external action could become more effective and consistent, its main components were distributed among the three pillars. This meant that decision-making in foreign policy at the EU level was sometimes a difficult to comprehend mix of intergovernmental and Community methods. Moreover, despite far-reaching commitments for foreign policy coordination through the newly created common institutional structures at the European level, the Member States managed to preserve their power to pursue their own foreign policy objectives. In addition, this situation remained more or less the same, as the following amending treaties –the treaties of Amsterdam and Nice– did little more than attempt to alleviate these problems without being able to provide clear-cut solutions. The Treaty of Amsterdam created a distinct position of High Representative for CFSP, but the prerogatives assigned to it did not allow its holder to stand out as a vigorous voice of the European foreign policy for the reason that it was stuck between the Council and its Presidency, on the one hand, and the Commission, on the other hand. Ultimately, the day-to-day activity clearly shows that it is extremely difficult to uphold indefinitely a strict separation between the processes of political cooperation and economic integration. The praxis indicates that it was necessary to at least attempt to scale down the existing lines of demarcation, if not to completely tear them down. Otherwise, the replication of work and responsibilities between different European institutions and agencies, the cacophony of voices speaking on behalf of the European Union and the delayed response to international crises posed a considerable risk that would undermine the Union’s credibility as an actor on the world stage. Political scientists have diagnosed this problem of the European Union’s foreign policy in terms of a lack of coherence1. This stems from an absence of proper coordination between different institutions and actors involved and hampers the EU’s ability to improve its credibility as a foreign policy actor, while undermining its performance in defending its interests and values on the world stage. According to Simon Nuttal, we can distinguish between three types of consistency – vertical, related to the way in which national and 1

For a wider discussion on the semantic differences between consistence and coherence, see Simon Duke, “Consistency as Issue in EU External Activities”, European Institute for Public Administration, Working Paper W/06 (1999): 3-5.

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EU actors accommodate to each other, institutional, generated by the fact that various sets of actors, pursuing common objectives, but applying different procedures, could produce outcomes that are not consistent with the intentions that had been initially agreed, and, last but not least, horizontal, pertaining to the extent to which the objectives of the different policies pursued by the European Union are consistent with one another2. For authors like Christopher Hill, the consistency of the EU’s external action can be conceptualized from five different perspectives: (i) the former pillar structure of the European Union, ameliorated now to a certain extent by the Treaty of Lisbon, (ii) the different institutions in Brussels with prerogatives in the area of EU foreign policy, (iii) the articulation and management of various EU policies, (iv) the relations between centre (the headquarters of EU foreign policy) and periphery (the delegations of the EU in various parts of the world) and, last but not least, (v) the relations between the EU and its Member States3. For such a particular kind of international actor as the EU, whose foreign policy design does not fit long-established conceptions and can still be referred to as a work in progress, these idiosyncrasies are all but comprehensible. However, the efforts aimed at conceptualizing the EU as an actor in world affairs have generated extensive academic debates4, whereas the concerns over its external relations have remained under continuous consideration. Most obviously, the lack of consistency appears with increased clarity when the mechanisms of crisis management are brought under screening5. Given the limits imposed on this article, we intend to focus our attention solely on those issues that arise in connection to what C. Hill has defined as

2

Ibid, 96-108. Christopher Hill, “Introduction”, in Institutional Competences in the EU External Action: Actors and Boundaries in CFSP and ESDP, eds. Lisbeth Aggestam, Francesco Anesi, Geoffrey Edwards, Christopher Hill and David Rijks (Stockholm: SIEPS 2008), 11-15. 4 For an overview of the current discussions on how Europe’s international role could be better conceptualized, see Ian Manners, “Global Europe: Mythology of the European Union in World Politics”, Journal of Common Market Studies 48, 1 (2010): 67-68. 5 See, for instance, the rough sketch of the complicated mechanisms of policy options and policy-making methods for articulating a crisis management response in Francesco Anesi and Lisbeth Aggestam, “The Security-Development Nexus”, in Institutional Competences in the EU External Action: Actors and Boundaries in CFSP and ESDP, eds. Lisbeth Aggestam, Francesco Anesi, Geoffrey Edwards, Christopher Hill and David Rijks (Stockholm: SIEPS 2008), 117. 3

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the different visions of various institutions6 in Brussels and S. Nuttal simply referred to as the problem of the institutional consistency of the European Union’s foreign policy. Further on, we will evaluate these ideas against the background of the innovations introduced in this realm by the Treaty of Lisbon. We consider that these aspects are of paramount importance, given the fact that they take into consideration the existing linkage between the Union’s internal processes of integration and policy-making and the development of the Union’s external relations in general. Nevertheless, they have to be scrutinized against the background of the exceedingly bureaucratic nature of the CFSP, involving an outsized number of actors. As already mentioned, the need for a much slenderer institutional arrangement that can avoid the existing overlapping of competences leading over the years to so many turf wars has long been in great demand. The question that we attempt to answer is related to the extent to which the Treaty of Lisbon is able to address at least partially this deeply ingrained problem of the external policy of the European Union. * In answering this question, we intend to assess the Treaty’s contribution to more harmony in the EU’s external representation and to explain how the institutional innovations incorporated into the Treaty of Lisbon can serve as input for solving the consistency problem of the EU’s foreign policy. Against this background, we attempt to examine how and to what degree the consistency problem can be addressed in the institutional framework created by the Treaty of Lisbon. However, in undertaking this task, we intend to stress from the outset that we subscribe to professor S. Duke’s view that the institutional solutions cannot serve as a “panacea for all of the perceived shortcomings of the EU’s current external relations”7. We share the opinion that an appraisal of the potential of these institutional to rationalise the coordination mechanisms of the CFSP can be undertaken only in conjunction with the input they offer to practitioners, so as to overcome the long-lasting problems of the EU’s foreign and security policy. Nonetheless, we consider that the experience of the past few years already offers us indications on the 6

The discussion cannot be strictly limited to the vision of the various EU institutions responsible for the CFSP. It will have to embrace, nonetheless, aspects that C. Hill referred to as being generated by the former pillar-structure and by the articulation and management of these policies. 7 Simon Duke, “Providing for European-Level Diplomacy after Lisbon: The Case of the European External Action Service”, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 4 (2009): 212-213.

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Treaty’s limits and potential to redress the consistency deficit of the EU’s external representation. Bearing in mind these considerations, we intend to organize the research along the following four lines:

(1) an altered institutional setup In the first place, based on the Treaty of Lisbon, we now have a European External Action Service (EEAS), whose main function would be to “assist the High Representative in fulfilling his/her mandate”8. Apart from this, the Treaty does not offer many clues as to how this body is going to function. This has come, to a certain extent, along with the Council Decision concerning the creation of the EEAS. Improving coherence can be regarded as the most obvious raison d’être for this “functionally autonomous body”9. This is supposed to bring together the foreign services of the European Commission (including its delegations in countries and the international organizations around the world, which from now on will have to represent the Union and will have to act in close cooperation with the diplomatic and consular missions of Member States), those of the Council Secretariat, which used to assist the rotating presidencies, and diplomats of the member states. In many respects, the EEAS can be regarded as a major innovation for soothing the tensions between the national and supranational levels of the European foreign policy, which could foster in time the advance towards a “unified diplomatic culture”10. That is why we intend to return to the issues concerning the EEAS at length at a later point. Then, the Treaty redesigns the functions of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. In an effort to bring a “rapprochement between the ‘Community pillar’ over which the European Commission has the upper hand” and the more intergovernmental CFSP pillar11, the holder of the office now combines two formerly existing positions – that of High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, held for ten years by Javier 8

Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union (the Lisbon Treaty). Official Journal of the European Union C115/13, 9 May 2008, Article 27(3). 9 Council of the European Union. Council Decision of 26 July 2010 establishing the organization and functioning of the European External Action Service (2010/427/EU). Official Journal of the European Union L 201/30, 3 August 2010. 10 Thierry Chopin and Maxime Lefebvre, “Three Phone Numbers for Europe: Will the Lisbon Treaty Make the European Union More Effective Abroad?”, Centre on US and Europe at Brookings, US – Europe Analysis Series 43 (2010). 11 Maxine Lefebvre and Christophe Hillion, “The European External Action Service: towards a common diplomacy?”, SIEPS European Policy Analysis 6 (2010): 1-2.

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Solana, and that of Commissioner for External Relations, occupied most recently by Benita Ferrero-Waldner. The move can be regarded as a logical step in the effort of drawing the EU’s various spending and assistance programmes coordinated by the European Commission, such as the Development Cooperation Instrument, the European Development Fund, the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument and the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation12, closer in line with the political objectives set by the European Council. The Treaty states in unequivocal terms the reasons behind this move. According to Article 18, the High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy “shall ensure the coherence of the Union’s external action”13. However, it is obvious that the job involves daunting challenges for the incumbent. Baroness Catherine Ashton, as the current holder of the position, has to chair the quasi-monthly meetings of the Foreign Affairs Council, to coordinate the external policy of the Commission by working in close cooperation with the Trade, Development, Enlargement, and Economic and Monetary Commissioners, plus other Commissioners when agenda items require their presence, to head the newly created European External Action Service, to preside over a number of boards of “domain relevant agencies”14, such as the European Defense Agency (EDA), the European Satellite Centre (EUSC), the European Union Institute for Strategic Studies (EUISS) or the European Security and Defense Studies (ESDC), and, last but not least, to represent the EU in CFSP matters and international organisations. Moreover, she needs to keep a delicate balance between the newly created EU diplomatic structures and the Member States, especially larger ones15.

(2) a revised pattern of external representation From this perspective, the ways in which coherence is to be improved appear less obvious than in the institutional arrangement. According to the 12

Council of the European Union, Council Decision of 26 July 2010, Article 9. Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union. 14 Antonio Missiroli, “EU ‘Foreign Service’: Under Construction”, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Policy Papers RSCAS 04 (2010): 10. See also: Council of the European Union. Council Decision of 26 July 2010. 15 See, for more details, the discussion proposed by Hylke Dijkstra with regard to how the size of the Presidency might influence the relations between this institution and that of the High Representative in upholding the EU’s interests, in Hylke Dijkstra, “EU External Representation in Conflict Resolution: When does the Presidency or the High Representative speak for Europe?”, European Integration online Papers 15, 1 (2011) (1 July 2013). 13

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Treaty, we still have to deal with three EU dignitaries with responsibilities pertaining to the Union’s external representation: the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the President of the Commission and the President of the European Council. According to Article 18(2): “The High Representative shall conduct the Union’s common foreign and security policy. He shall contribute by his proposals to the development of that policy, which he shall carry out as mandated by the Council. The same shall apply to the common security and defence policy”16.

With regard to the Commission, the Treaty states that “with the exception of the common foreign and security policy, and other cases provided for in the Treaties, it shall ensure the Union’s external representation”17.

As established in Article 15(6), “The President of the European Council shall, at his level and in that capacity, ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy, without prejudice to the powers of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy”18.

To abridge, the Union will once again have three voices that will speak on its behalf on the world stage, but at least the Treaty recalibrates their roles so as to avoid unnecessary overlapping and redundancies. Moreover, the Treaty reiterates the idea of coherence in relation to these institutions and the prerogatives conferred to them in Article 21(3): “The Union shall ensure coherence between the different areas of its external action and between these and its other policies. The Council and the Commission, assisted by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, shall ensure that coherence and shall cooperate to that effect”19.

Nevertheless, not even from this perspective does the Treaty bring enough enlightenment for removing the grey areas. One case in point is the situation

16

Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union. Ibid, Article 17(1). 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 17

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of development cooperation.20 This is meant to add value to the moral profile the European Union has assumed on the world stage21, given that its declared objective, according to Article 208, is “the reduction and, in the long term, the eradication of poverty”22. However, its enforcement is to be found not under the highly intergovernmental Title V of the TEU, concerning the general provisions on the Union’s External Action and specific provisions on the CFSP, but in Part V of the TFEU, referring to External action by the Union. On the one hand, it is worth mentioning that it is for the first time that development cooperation has been mentioned as an objective of the EU’s external action23. On the other hand, it is significant that development cooperation is regarded not merely as an accessory to the CFSP, but as a policy in its own right24, whose objectives have to be consistent with those of other EU policies relevant for its external action25.

(3) a modified nexus of decision making procedures It is now time to attempt to apprise how the new decision making procedures can enhance the coherence of the EU’s external relations. Apparently, the answer is once again, for the most part, not very encouraging. When looking at how decisions are taken, it becomes obvious that the changes can be regarded as marginal at best. As far as the political decisions on the CFSP are concerned, they are to be taken in the Foreign Affairs Council (now meeting separately from the General Affairs Council) or in the European Council. As long as such decisions carry an economic dimension, the Commission is also involved and its voice has to be heard. According to Article 22, Paragraph 2, “The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, for the area of common foreign and security policy, and the Commission, for other areas of external action, may submit joint proposals to the Council”. 20

Simon Duke and Steven Blockmans, “The Lisbon Treaty stipulations on Development Cooperation and the Council Decision of 25 March 2010 (Draft) establishing the organization and functioning of the European External Action Service”, European Institute for Public Administration, Working Paper W/01 (2010). 21 Ian Manners, “The normative ethics of the European Union”, International Affairs 84, 1 (2008): 68-75. 22 Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union. 23 Eleonora Koeb, “A More Political EU External Action: Implications of the New Treaty for the EU’s Relations with Developing Countries”, Estratégia 26-27 (2009): 9. 24 Ibid, 11. 25 Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, Article 21(3).

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We may add to this the provisions of Article 30, Paragraph 1, stipulating that: “Any Member State, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, or the High Representative with the Commission’s support, may refer any question relating to the common foreign and security policy to the Council and may submit to it initiatives or proposals as appropriate”

Hence, we have a more comprehensive view of how decision-making is structured in this regard. Firstly, it is obvious that the right to initiative in matters pertaining to the CFSP remains with the Council. The High Representative is able to submit proposals to the Council, for which he/she can request the Commission’s support. At the same time, the Commission can submit proposals in other areas of external action, jointly with the High Representative. This means that the two separate decision-making procedures - the intergovernmental and the community one - are maintained. Again, it becomes apparent that the Member States have remained extremely keen to have their voices clearly heard when it comes to the CFSP, although they have approved a slight intrusion of qualified majority voting in this area and maintained the Commission’s control over a number of policies with a strong impact on the CFSP.

(4) an altered outline of bureaucratic implementation At a closer look, it seems that a chance has arisen for the Treaty of Lisbon to have a longer lasting legacy in the development of the CFSP. As already mentioned, the Treaty gives rise to an entirely new body, the EEAS, which, under the guidance of the High Representative, is in charge of drafting and implementing the EU acquis in the field of foreign policy, consisting of the CFSP-related Presidency conclusions of the European Council meetings and the conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Council26. In essence, we are referring to a hybrid institutional construction. The body benefits from financial autonomy since it has its own budget, which means that it can be regarded as an institution, albeit its status has not been elevated to this level. Moreover, the body is endowed with the “legal capacity necessary to perform its tasks and objectives”27 as it is not subordinated either to the Commission, or to the Council, and placed only under the authority of the High Representative. However, in the negotiations that preceded the setup of this body, its 26 27

Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, Articles 22, 26 and 28. Council of the European Union, Council Decision of 26 July 2010, Article 2.

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autonomy was to a certain extent counter-balanced by Parliament, which managed to indirectly endow itself with greater political control of the EEAS’ actions28 and full budgetary control powers29. In addition, the selection of personnel is to take place according to specific rules in the first phase and with the implication of the Member States, the General Secretariat of the Council and the Commission30, at a later stage. EEAS diplomats are placed in an extremely favourable position, since they are presiding over the working groups in the Council of Ministers where decisions and acts are negotiated, while being in close contact with the Commission, so as to work out the necessary details of the instruments that are to be employed, and having to carry out the execution of the EU’s foreign policy. Moreover, they have an information advantage as they bear responsibility for the reports and analyses that normally offer the necessary input regarding the entire process of negotiation. All these elements suggest that the EEAS can have a real contribution to the development and execution of EU policies not only prior to, but also after the moment when decisions pertaining to them are taken. They can contribute to better cooperation among EU institutions and between the EU and its Member States. In particular, if we take into consideration the fact that national diplomats will be bound to return to their original service after serving temporarily in the EEAS, enriched of course with a European experience, we can expect that this will “reinforce the European dimension of foreign policy at national level”31. Therefore, we can anticipate a series of improvements in terms of coherence in the formulation and execution of EU foreign policy and, accordingly, a more effective and visible CFSP. The most important challenges appear to stem from the vagueness of the Treaty with regard to the ways in which the High Representative should fulfil his/her role of reconciling the two pillars and taking decisions that are realistic in the short term and ambitious in the long term, as he/she is charged with giving the overall direction to this entirely new body. *

28

Chiara Cellerino, “The new External Action Service and the Lisbon call for Coherence of European External Action: Issues of Accountability and Scope”, The Columbia Journal of European Law Online 17 (2010): 24. 29 In this context, it is also worth mentioning that the implementation of the EEAS’ operational expenditure remains part of the Commission’s budget. 30 Council of the European Union, Council Decision of 26 July 2010, Article 6(8). 31 Graham Avery, “Europe’s foreign service: from design to delivery”, European Policy Centre Policy Brief (November 2009).

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In order to sum up the most important findings of this research, we have to state that more than fifteen years after engaging in the endeavours of giving a political and security muscle to the already powerful economic European Union, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. Most of the institutions needed for carrying out security and defence tasks are already at work, but still the European Union is rather shy in undertaking such responsibilities. The Treaty of Lisbon does not come up with ultimate clarifications. It does not alter the intergovernmental character of decision making in foreign and security matters, it does not change significantly its bureaucratic mechanisms, nor does it radically modify the engagement of the European institutions in shaping it. It is more likely perceived as a small step in a succession of other prudent moves that will ultimately lead to a full-fledged European foreign policy and transform its existing fragmented actorhood into a more coherent one. In doing so, the Treaty attempts to address those institutional arrangements that might help induce a catalytic effect on this transformation. It is certain that it does not suffice to scrutinize the institutional changes introduced by the Treaty in order to assess its added value in terms of improving the consistency of the EU’s foreign policy action. As a matter of fact, it will be the people - i.e. they politicians or bureaucrats at both the national and European levels - who will make these institutions work and will have to steer them within the existing legislative format in order to achieve the desired goals. At present, they have to assume that as long as the existing distance between the state level and the Community level persists, it is difficult to forge a more integrated representation of EU interests on the world stage. In one of his first speeches in this capacity, the President of the European Council spoke of a convoy of 27 ships with 27 captains who need strategic orientation32. Apart from this, however, it will also be necessary to achieve a day-by-day common effort, so as to translate into practice this strategic orientation, so that its objectives could be achieved. Nevertheless, we consider that with the creation of the EEAS, an important step was made in the direction of establishing a European diplomacy, whose purpose will not be to replace national diplomacy, but to help foster a genuine EU foreign policy. The new body in itself tends to reinforce a “late sovereign order” at the EU level, in which the purpose of diplomacy shifts from “mediation between states” to “the creation of ‘an ever closer 32

Herman Van Rompuy, “The Challenges For Europe In A Changing World”, Address by the President of the European Council to the Collège d'Europe, Bruges, 25 February 2010 (1 July 2013) .

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union’“33. The enterprise per se is not without risks. It will require Member States to bless it with their confidence and be eager to accept a common body dealing with extremely sensitive issues, such as foreign policy and security. It will compel the EEAS to build trust in its capacity to manage in a European context the problems arising from a rapidly changing global environment. If successful, the EEAS has the potential of launching a functional approach to integration in the sensitive area of foreign and security policy.

Bibliography Documents Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union (the Lisbon Treaty). Official Journal of the European Union C115/13 (9 May 2008). Council of the European Union. Council Decision of 26 July 2010 establishing the organization and functioning of the European External Action Service (2010/427/EU). Official Journal of the European Union L 201/30 (03.08.2010). Council of the European Union. Presidency report to the European Council on the European External Action Service 14930/2009 (23 October 2009). Van Rompuy, Herman. “The Challenges For Europe In A Changing World”. Address by the President of the European Council to the Collège d'Europe, Bruges. 25 February 2010. (1 July 2013).

Secondary sources Adler-Nissen, Rebecca. “Late Sovereign Diplomacy”. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 4 (2009): 121-141. Anesi, Francesco and Lisbeth Aggestam. “The Security-Development Nexus”. In Institutional Competences in the EU External Action: Actors and Boundaries in CFSP and ESDP, edited by Lisbeth Aggestam, Francesco Anesi, Geoffrey Edwards, Christopher Hill and David Rijks, 97-159. Stockholm: SIEPS, 2008. Avery, Graham. “Europe’s foreign service: from design to delivery”. European Policy Centre Policy Brief, (November 2009).

33 Rebecca Adler-Nissen, “Late Sovereign Diplomacy”, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 4 (2009): 140.

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—. “The EU’s External Action Service: new actor on the scene”. In: European Policy Centre Commentary (2011). Bichi, Federica and Caterina Carta. “The Lisbon Treaty and the Common Foreign and Security Policy: A leap forward or more of the same”. European Foreign Policy Unit, Working Paper 2 (2011). Cellerino, Chiara. “The new External Action Service and the Lisbon call for Coherence of European External Action: Issues of Accountability and Scope”. The Columbia Journal of European Law Online 17 (2010): 2226. Chopin, Thierry, and Maxime Lefebvre. “Three Phone Numbers for Europe: Will the Lisbon Treaty Make the European Union More Effective Abroad?”. Centre on US and Europe at Brookings, US – Europe Analysis Series 43 (2010). Dijkstra, Hylke. “EU External Representation in Conflict Resolution: When does the Presidency or the High Representative speak for Europe?”. European Integration online Papers 15 (2011) (1 July 2013). Duke, Simon. “Coherence as Issue in EU External Activities”. European Institute for Public Administration, Working Paper W/06 (1999). Duke, Simon and Steven Blockmans. “The Lisbon Treaty stipulations on Development Cooperation and the Council Decision of 25 March 2010 (Draft) establishing the organization and functioning of the European External Action Service”. European Institute for Public Administration, Working Paper W/01 (2010). Hill, Christopher. “Introduction”. In Institutional Competences in the EU External Action: Actors and Boundaries in CFSP and ESDP, edited by Lisbeth Aggestam, Francesco Anesi, Geoffrey Edwards, Christopher Hill and David Rijks, 11-15. Stockholm: SIEPS, 2008. Hillion, Christophe and Maxine Lefebvre. “The European External Action Service: towards a common diplomacy?”. Robert Schuman Fondation, European Issue 184 (2010). Koeb, Eleonora. “A More Political EU External Action: Implications of the New Treaty for the EU’s Relations with Developing Countries”. Estratégia 26-27 (2009). Lefebvre, Maxine and Christophe Hillion. “The European External Action Service: towards a common diplomacy?”. SIEPS European Policy Analysis 6 (2010). Manners, Ian. “The normative ethics of the European Union”. International Affairs 84, 1 (2008) 65-80. —. “Global Europe: Mythology of the European Union in World Politics”. Journal of Common Market Studies, 48 1 (2010): 67-87.

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Missiroli, Antonio. “EU ‘Foreign Service’: Under Construction”. Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Policy Papers RSCAS 04 (2010). Nuttal, Simon. “Coherence and constituency”. In International Relations and the European Union, edited by Christopher Hill and Michael Smith, 91112. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

CHALLENGES TO THE FUTURE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CRISTINA VOHN

Abstract The economic and financial crisis seems to be the greatest challenge to the European Union today. The EU has failed to find effective and lasting solutions to the debt crisis, which has led to a more profound economic crisis. There are states in the Union that have managed to avoid the crisis, which demonstrates that successful solutions have been national, not at EU level. The study analyses the challenges of the European Union which were left in the background by EU officials and were accentuated by the economic and financial crisis. The democratic deficit and the two-speed or three-speed Europe are two problems which highlight the structural weaknesses of the Union. Frequent changes in Community Treaties indicate that the European Union has not found viable solutions for the functioning of its institutions, in line with the expectations of its citizens. On the other hand, its policies vary amongst Member States, despite documents and official statements. These are significant indications that the integration of Member States, both old and new ones, is far from being achieved.

Keywords European Union, democratic deficit, two-speed Europe, integration, Romania. The EU’s current challenges seem to be entirely economic. The global financial and economic crisis has affected to a very high degree the EU, which can barely find solutions to overcome it. In fact, the crisis has damaged the economies of some member states which have plunged into a sovereign debt crisis, with all its implications on the financial, economic and social dimensions, while other states have never experienced it. Poland and the Nordic states have had economic growth in all the years of the biggest economic crisis after World War II because they have managed to find

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measures leading to national success. This situation indicates the failure of the EU in finding common solutions so as to overcome the crisis, which is attributable only to some member states. This is the reason why the EU has often been accused of delaying and stopping the recovery from the global crisis1. It is a paradox that the community project was based only on the economic dimension, the construction of a single market and an integrated economy. The foundation of the European construction was indeed an economic one, and although in this domain there has been incontestable success, the economy of the EU was seriously affected by the tsunami started in 2007 in the United States of America. If the EU has recorded a resounding failure in the economic domain considered to be its strongest point - what will happen to other structural problems of European construction, unsolved before the beginning of global crisis and even enhanced by it? Is this crisis a good occasion to deal with all these matters? These are some questions that we are trying to answer, by referring to two major problems that the EU has been confronting after the fall of communism and its enlargement towards the East: the democratic deficit and the concept of a two-speed Europe.

The democratic deficit in the EU The concept of democratic deficit is used in specialised literature to describe the lack of legitimacy of the European institutions and, therefore, the lack of democracy in the EU. It was launched by a British Conservative MEP, William Newton Dunn, who used the term in an internal document of its parliamentary group, in 1986.2 Extensive discussions on the concept first emerged in the context of drafting of the Maastricht Treaty, closely related to the discussion on enlarging eastwards after the fall of communism in Europe. They were boosted after the rejection of the draft of the European Constitution by the French and the Dutch. The votes cast in the referenda in both countries have been interpreted merely as a sign that Europe does not suffer from a democratic deficit, as its citizens rejected a project they considered unacceptable. In fact, the French and the Dutch (and perhaps other citizens of EU member states would have rejected the project, but the ratification process was stopped after the negative votes in France and the Netherlands) were not so much concerned about the provisions of the draft 1

See, e.g. IMF forecasts for global economic growth for 2011, 2012, 2013, http://www.imf.org. 2 Diego Varela, Guvernarea Uniunii Europene [The Governance of the European Union], Iaúi: Institutul European, 2008, p. 181.

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constitution, its basic principles and objectives, but with the practical issues they perceived as adversely affecting their lives. “The French were concerned about high unemployment (over 10% at the time of the referendum), thus enlarging Europe was seen as a process with unpleasant consequences in terms of an influx of cheap labour from Eastern Europe and the influx of capital investment to these countries. The Dutch were mainly dissatisfied with the fact that their country was the largest contributor (per capita) to the EU budget.” 3 There are two major currents of opinion in this debate: one predominantly supporting the existence of the democratic deficit within the Union's institutional system, represented in particular by the contributions of Simon Hix and Andreas Follesdal, and the other arguing for the legitimacy of the EU, the main supporters of this current being Andrew Moravcsik and Majone Giandomenico. While the concept of democratic deficit is acceptable and has been a constant preoccupation of European political leaders - it can be found in the EU glossary4 - the second current denies the existence of the democratic deficit and argues that we may have concerns about the future development of policies and procedures in community decision-making structures, thus we can only talk about a crisis of credibility within the European Union.5 Moreover, this current claims there can be no comparison between national political systems and the Community one on many levels, although decision-making rules and procedures are similar in the two cases. The European Union is indeed a unique political system. “Those who assume that economic integration must necessarily lead to political integration tend to apply to the European institutions, seen as the kernel of a future European federation, the same standards of legitimacy which prevail at the national level.”6

According to Andrew Moravcsik, 3 Paul Fudulu (coord.), DirecĠii necesare de dezvoltare instituĠională (adâncire) a UE în raport cu dezvoltarea sa pe orizontală (extindere), [Necessary directions of EU institutional development (deepening) in relation to its horizontal development (enlargement)] http://www.ier.ro/documente/studiideimpactPaisIII_ro/Pais3_studiu_8_ro.pdf, 10 July 2013. 4 See: http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/glossary/democratic_deficit_en.htm 5 Andrew Moravcsik, “In defence of the ‘Democratic Deficit’: Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union” in Journal of Common Market Studies, no. 4, vol. 40, pp. 603-624. 6 Giandomenico Majone, “Europe’s ‘Democratic Deficit’: The Question of Standards”, in European Law Journal, no. 1 vol. 4, 1998, pp. 5-28.

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“Most critics compare the EU to an ideal plebiscitary or parliamentary democracy, standing alone, rather than to the actual functioning of national democracies adjusted for its multi-level context. When we conduct the latter sort of analysis, we see that the EU decision-making procedures, including those that insulate or delegate certain decisions, are very much in line with the general practices of most modern democracies in carrying out similar functions”.7

What is missing from Moravcsik’s reasoning is that the basic principles of any democratic political system are the same, and from this point of view, the EU suffers from numerous distortions caused by the fact that it was built on a mix of national and community principles. As Andreas Follesdal and Simon Hix maintain, “the main features of democracy are: 1) institutionally established procedures that regulate, 2) competition for control over political authority, 3) on the basis of deliberation, 4) where nearly all adult citizens are permitted to participate in 5) an electoral mechanism where their expressed preferences over alternative candidates determine the outcome, 6) in such ways that the government is responsive to the majority or to as many possible.”8

The first and most extensive discussion on the democratic deficit concerns the European Parliament, how it works and the limited powers it has in the decision-making system of the EU. The executive power of the institutional system is disproportionately higher than the legislative one, represented by Parliament, which explains the debate on increasing the power of the latter, in order to reduce the democratic deficit. Parliament is the only EU institution that is directly elected by citizens and should represent their interests at the Community level. Therefore, its powers within the Community institutional system should be similar to those held by national parliaments. It is the direction in which the EU has acted, by gradually increasing the powers of the European Parliament since the Maastricht Treaty, when Parliament obtained increased legislative powers, mainly through the introduction of the co-decision procedure (together with the Council of the European Union) and the approval of the composition of the European Commission. The powers 7

Andrew Moravcsik, op. cit., pp. 603-624. Andreas Follesdal and Simon Hix, “Why There is a Democratic Deficit in the EU: A Response to Majone and Moravcsik”, in Journal of Common Market Studies, no. 3, vol. 44, pp. 533-562.

8

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and duties of Parliament also increased after the Treaties of Amsterdam and Nice. With the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament has been recognized as co-legislator with the Council of the EU, its powers have been extended to areas fundamental to the functioning of the Union, such as budgeting, agricultural policy, home affairs and justice. The Lisbon Treaty has strengthened the political power of Parliament, which now elects the president of the European Commission, taking into account the outcome of the European elections. Moreover, the new President of the European Council has among its tasks the one of presenting before Parliament a report after each meeting of the European Council (Article 9B).9 But are these reforms sufficient to eliminate the democratic deficit in the EU? We will not refer here to the issues that are being disputed by the representatives of the two schools: the lack of a genuine electoral competition (Moravcsik has countered by claiming that we cannot speak of a democratic deficit as long as Parliament deals with a competition between parties in electoral campaigns at the European level and is organised into political groups. This idea can easily be rejected by looking at the main topics of discussion in campaigns for parliamentary elections in the states of the Union, which are dominated by issues pertaining to national interest and not Community-related ones), the EU citizens’ inability to identify a real opposition or to choose between different European political agendas etc. We will focus on issues that have been less or not at all discussed: the division of the legislative power in the EU and the turnout in European elections. The European legislative power exhibits some major deficiencies at present. The first is the fact that it is not exercised only by the European Parliament, which is directly elected by the citizens, but also by the EU Council, whose representation lies on a national basis, meeting in its 10 configurations (after the Treaty of Lisbon) of ministers from each Member State. There is here a duality of legislative power and an inefficient functioning mode with lengthy and sinuous procedures. The Council has actually much greater importance than the European Parliament in shaping EU policies, albeit not all its configurations work as public meetings, unlike Parliament sessions. Moreover, the EU Council has, besides its legislative powers, executive ones, which can be considered a violation of the sacred principle of separation of powers in any democratic political system. Furthermore, the way of electing the European Parliament is a national one and not a community one. A German cannot elect a French MEP, and a Romanian cannot elect a Spaniard, for example. Lists of candidates of political parties participating in the European elections are drafted only at 9

Treaty of Lisbon, europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/full_text.

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national level. The European Parliament elections are held by every Member State, therefore elected representatives must represent primarily the interests of the citizens of the countries that have entrusted them with their mandates. This does not happen in practice because MEPs are organized in Parliament only on doctrinal grounds and not on national ones – the first criterion for conducting elections. There is a discrepancy here between the national and the doctrinal criteria, as the former is completely absent from the composition of the European Parliament. But there is another aspect that is not taken into account when discussing the democratic deficit in the EU: the turnout. At the first European Parliament elections, it was 61.99%, whereas in 2009 it dropped to 43% (see Table 1 below). If this trend continues, in about 30 years the European Parliament will be elected by 20% of EU voters. Most experts consider that we are dealing with a crisis of credibility10 and confidence in the European political system. However, EU leaders are not concerned with this crisis. Moreover, there are voices stating that they try to "blame" citizens who choose not to exercise their right. There are different explanations for this drastic decrease in turnout in the European Parliament elections. One of them is the fact that, for the European citizens, Brussels is too far, it has complicated rules that they hardly understand and they do not see a logical reason for electing a politician without really knowing what he or she can do for them. Another explanation is the lack of confidence in the nominees. But European political elites do not seem to comprehend why the majority of citizens are absent from voting. Are these people aware that decisions taken in Brussels affect their daily lives? Or is there a lack of confidence in the European political system, i.e. in the European political class, and should we speak of a general crisis of politics? One thing is, however, certain: the majority of EU citizens choose not to participate in the European elections and their representatives in the EP are elected by a minority. The democratic principle of the majority that decides is not met in these elections. Suggested solutions such as mandatory voting (as is the case of Belgium) are not viable because they fail to tackle the basic problem: the lack of interest in elections and the mistrust of potential candidates.

10

Andrew Moravcsik, op. cit., pp. 603-624.

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Member States

Belgium Denmark Germany Ireland France Italy Luxembourg Netherlands United Kingdom Greece Spain Portugal Sweden Austria Finland Czech Republic Estonia Cyprus Lithuania Latvia Hungary Malta Poland Slovenia Slovakia Bulgaria Romania Average EU turnout

Challenges to the Future of the European Union

1979 91.36 47.82 65.73 63.61 60.71 85.65 88.91 58.12 32.35

1984 92.09 52.38 56.76 47.56 56.72 82.47 88.79 50.88 32.57

1989 90.73 46.17 62.28 68.28 48.8 81.07 87.39 47.48 36.37

1994 90.66 52.92 60.02 43.98 52.71 73.6 88.55 35.69 36.43

1999 91.05 50.46 45.19 50.21 46.76 69.76 87.27 30.02 24

2004 90.81 47.89 43 58.58 42.76 71.72 91.35 39.26 38.52

2007

80.59

80.03 54.71 51.1

73.18 59.14 35.54

70.25 63.05 39.93 38.84 49.4 30.14

63.22 45.14 38.6 37.85 42.43 39.43 28.3

52.61 44.9 36.78 45.53 45.97 40.3 28.2

26.83 72.5 48.38 41.34 38.5 82.39 20.87 28.35 16.97

43.9 59.4 20.98 53.7 36.31 78.79 24.53 28.33 19.64 38.99 27.67 43

29.22 29.47 61.99

58.98

58.41

56.67

49.51

45.47

Table 1: Turnout at European Parliament elections by years Source: www.europarl.europa.eu

2009 90.39 59.54 43.3 58.64 40.63 65.05 90.75 36.75 34.7

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Jean-Claude Piris identifies, besides the three major challenges facing the European Union today, the decrease in public confidence in the EU, along with the acute crisis of the Eurozone and the failure of EU institutions. “This trust will hardly be regained with an EU programme that, based on the need to solve the euro area crisis, could be characterized as exclusively aimed at producing a reduction in social welfare, an increase in budgetary savings and stricter economic discipline. This will not only risk diminishing the trust of the public in the EU, but also open the way to populism, as elections in a number of the EU countries have already shown. Therefore, one should think about a wider and more ambitious programme, able to give hope for the future.”11

Nevertheless, the author shows no concern for outlining such an ambitious programme, meant to fundamentally change the European political system. It is true that this problem of distrust of the political class is global and certainly not confined solely to the EU. In most democratic systems around the world, we are witnessing a “dramatic collapse leading to a historical minimum, [of] the people's trust in traditional political parties and parliamentarism"12. Majone believes that “delegation is an important strategy for achieving credible policy commitments at both the national and the supranational level. Delegation to politically independent institutions is one method of achieving credible policy commitments. From this perspective, delegation leads to a transfer of political property rights in a given policy area to decision-makers who are one step removed from election returns. The stronger the legal basis for independence, the better defined the rights of the new ‘owners’. The strongest basis for securing political property rights is a constitutional guarantee of independence, as in the case of the European Central Bank; but statutory independence may be sufficient when the policy objective enjoys widespread popular support, as in the case of price stability in post-war Germany.”13

Majone emphasises that the delegation of powers from the national to the Community level is the way the EU should follow, provided it is clearly stated what powers may be delegated. The problem is that such delegation is 11

Jean-Claude Piris, The future of Europe: Towards a Two-Speed Europe?, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 2. 12 Valentin Naumescu, “Dezechilibrele lumii de azi. DemocraĠia fără soluĠii?” [“The imbalances of the world today. Democracy without solutions?”], in Revista de ùtiinĠe Politice úi RelaĠii InternaĠionale, no. 2/2012, tome IX, pp. 7-14. 13 Giandomenico Majone, op. cit., pp. 5-28.

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made at the national level by a political class that is elected, in most EU states, by less than half of the voters and who "enjoys" even less confidence than the European institutions. We can conclude that there is a European political class that decides on behalf of all EU citizens but which is growing ever more distant from them. And the situation will not change unless we envisage a fundamental change of the entire political class across Europe. There are other opinions that support the referendum as a solution for reducing the democratic deficit, according to the Swiss model. The EU “should adopt referenda as a means of electoral reform, swapping representative democracy for direct democracy in relation to issues of major policy change”14.

Referenda can be a solution to legitimize EU policies and to reduce the gap between Brussels and the citizens of the EU. But the current European political class seems to deliberately avoid this means of consulting the people, indicating fear of the citizens and increasing isolation. The best example is the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, which, after the failure of the constitutional project, was conducted in national parliaments with the exception of Ireland, which held a referendum. The democratic deficit within the EU, despite all the changes in the European treaties aimed at increasing the powers of the European Parliament, will remain an unsolved issue as long as people do not find reasons to legitimise the European political class.

How many speeds does the European Union have? In June 2012, Angela Merkel – the informal leader of the European Union – said in an interview during an ARD German public television broadcast, with regard to the necessary measures for overcoming the economic crisis, that: “We need more Europe, we need not only a monetary union, but we also need a so-called fiscal union, in other words more joint budget policy... And we

14

Laura Murphy, “Decreasing ’democratic deficit’ in the EU – increasing the use of referenda?”, in Government and Politics Review, no. 1, March 2010, http://143.239.128.67/en/government/governmentandpoliticsreview/pastissues/issue1v ol1march2010/, 10 June 2013.

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need most of all a political union, which means we have to gradually give competences to Europe and give Europe control.”15

The German Chancellor also said in the same interview that Europe was moving at more than one speed, referring to the Schengen space and the Eurozone, of which Great Britain and Denmark are not members.16 Is this statement the recognition, from the highest level of European leadership, that Europe is working at more than one speed? “Some countries want to distance themselves from the Union (such as Great Britain), other countries are on the edge of bankruptcy (for example Greece), other states are hanging on to Europe, willing to enter the Schengen space and the Eurozone (Romania, Bulgaria) and other states, making up the hard core, are pursuing their own interests (the ‘Franco-German Directorate’)”.17

The idea of a two-speed Europe emerged at the end of the 1980s, when a distinction was made between the states that integrated quickly and the ones that had a slow course of integration in European structures. In 2000, German Foreign Affairs minister Joschka Fischer spoke about making a gravity centre that would act as a “locomotive” for the political process of integration. Similar ideas came from French leaders. The then-President Jacques Chirac and former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin supported the creation of a “core” of the EU or a Europe with a “variable geometry”, in which some member states would develop tighter cooperation in certain areas than the rest of the Union’s members. “Such proposals have always been controversial because they are against the Union’s essence and the principle of unanimity, which has been sacrosanct for too many years.”18

In spite of the above, the EU did evolve towards a “division”, Chancellor Angela Merkel expressing the real status of the Union, to which Germany had significantly contributed. The differences amongst member states became obvious with the signing of the Euro-Plus Pact in March 2011 and the Fiscal 15

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-07/merkel-says-she-supports-twospeed-europe-political-union, 12 June 2013. 16 Ibidem. 17 Veronica Dumitraúcu, “Uniunea Europeană úi imperialismul neoliberal” [“The European Union and the neoliberal imperialism”], in Ilie Bădescu, Lucian Dumitrescu, Veronica Dumitraúcu, Geopolitica noului imperialism [Geopolitics of the new imperialism], Bucharest: Editura Mica Valahie, 2010, p. 238. 18 See: Ulrich Beck, German Europe, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.

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Pact agreed by the European leaders at the European Council in 2012. The economic crisis was an opportunity for institutionalizing the “cracks” that had appeared inside the EU on the basis of the single currency, with consequences on the economies of all member states and a separation of the countries from “the centre of gravity” to those from “the periphery”. The concept of a two-speed Europe has various definitions in the speciality literature. In our opinion, it chiefly refers to a separation of the EU into two kinds of states: those positioned in the centre, i.e. the ones that form the EU’s hard core, and the peripheral states, most of which joined the EU after 2004. This reflects, in fact, an economic separation, but also one in terms of power and influence within the EU and, most importantly, with regard to the power to decide. There are some states in the EU that have limited access to decision-making and others that decide in the name of the Union, whilst taking into account, first of all, their own interests (mainly Germany and France). While some authors highlight the negative connotations of the concept, some attempt to turn it into a functional one for the EU, i.e. one that is accepted by all member states. Jean-Claude Piris believes that: “the hostility towards ‘a two-speed Europe’ is somewhat due to a lack of precision in vocabulary and, therefore, to the confusion between a ‘twospeed’ and a ‘two-class’ (or a ‘two-tier’) Europe”19.

In Piris’ opinion: “a ‘two-speed’ Europe means the development of closer cooperation among some Member States pursuing objectives that are common to all EU Member States, as they are precisely the objectives envisaged by the EU treaties”20.

If we define a two-speed Europe in this manner, we have to answer the following question: if these are common objectives for member states, why do they not all participate in making decisions that have implications for them? Is the principle of delegation introduced into Treaty of Lisbon applicable in any sense, for the decisions taken within the European Council (according to Article 235, a member of the European Council may receive delegation from one member state only)? Will Germany and France delegate their voting rights in the European Council to a state such as Bulgaria or Croatia, or was this article introduced just for the two prominent powers of

19 20

Jean-Claude Piris, op. cit., p. 6. Ibidem.

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the EU to represent other states? In the practice of the European Council summit, this provision of the Treaty of Lisbon has not yet been applied. Another way of decreasing the intensity of discussions referring to the concept of a two-speed Europe is by circumventing this notion and supporting the idea that, in fact, there is a variety of speeds and configurations in the EU. Elizabeth Boomberg, John Peterson and Richard Corbett give some examples to uphold this idea: “- non-participation in defence cooperation: Denmark; - non-participation in all aspects of Schengen: Ireland and the UK (but participation of Norway, Iceland and Switzerland from outside the EU); - no obligation to join the euro: UK and Denmark, no intention to join the euro soon: Sweden, Czech Republic); - right to opt-in (or not) to measures in the field of freedom, security and justice: Denmark, Ireland, UK; - exemption from the single market rules regarding the acquisition of secondary residences on its territory: Denmark; - exemption from the primacy of EU law regarding anything affecting abortion: Ireland.”21

In the opinion of the three authors, these examples prove the fact that we cannot speak about a leading group of states in the EU, but we can consider a variety of configurations which often include a single state. “The general unity of the Union remains largely intact, even if the growing number of special situations regarding the UK is frequently commented upon.”22

There is a decisive nuance: these states have either obtained exceptions to some concrete situations or they did not want to take part in the groups created within the Union. For instance, the restrictions which would impede their access to the Eurozone have not been imposed on them. The best example to see how a two-speed EU works is the case of Romania and Bulgaria and their integration into the Schengen area. This is an obligation stipulated in the Accession Treaty. Romania and Bulgaria must meet some technical requirements in order to insure the security of the Union’s external borders. Technical evaluation missions of the European Commission found between 2009 and December 2010 that the two states had taken all the necessarily measures in order to fulfil the technical 21

Elizabeth Boomberg, John Peterson, Richard Corbett, The European Union: How does it work?, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 236. 22 Ibidem.

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requirements for integrating into the Schengen area. In June 2011, the European Parliament gave its assent to the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area, reconfirmed by a resolution adopted in October 2011. However, the European Parliament is not the decisional forum in this situation, but the Council of Justice and Home Affairs and the European Council. Here, things have remained blocked to date. For two years, the two institutions have been considering the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area, welcoming the implementation of necessary provisions. Nevertheless, there have been voices from other member states requesting some supplementary criteria for the two countries, criteria which have not been previously applied to any state in the Schengen area. There is, in this situation, a double standard within the Union which differentiates Romania and Bulgaria from the rest of the Member States. Of all the Member States that have ever wished to become part of the Schengen area, Romania and Bulgaria are the only ones that have failed to integrate. Thus, Romania and Bulgaria are in the situation of having to respect obligations for integrating into the Schengen area, without benefitting from the advantages of membership. Basic principles of the European Union are thus violated: the principle of equality and the principle of solidarity. The Treaty on European Union provides for the principle of equality, i.e. the EU has to respect the equality of its Member States in relation to the Treaties. The principle of solidarity means that the EU was created for the purpose of mutual benefit of both the Member States and their citizens, the former being committed to act jointly in the equitable distribution of benefits resulting from EU membership. The reality of the two-speed Europe is also visible in the positions of the European Commission, an institution that “represents and upholds the interests of the EU as a whole”23 in cases where there is a violation of fundamental rights of European citizens, such as the situation of the Roma in France. In 2010, the French government adopted an action plan that provided for the expulsion of people who disturbed public order or who failed to prove that they had resources for three months. The Roma, coming mainly from Romania and Bulgaria, were directly targeted, as confirmed by an internal notice of the Ministry of the Interior in Paris which appeared in the French press. International institutions such as the UN Committee on Racial Discrimination (CERD) then accused France of “recrudescence” of racism24, given that several hundreds of Roma people were sent back to their home 23

http://europa.eu/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-commission/index_en.htm, 1 August 2013. 24 http://www.lepoint.fr/politique/discriminations-critiquee-la-france-doit-repondreau-comite-de-l-onu-12-08-2010-1224578_20.php, 1 August 2013.

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countries in August 2010. The European Commissioner for Justice, Viviane Reding, threatened in September 2010 to start an infringement procedure against France.25 The answer came from the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Pierre Lellouche, who stated that France was a “great sovereign country” which would not accept to be treated by the European Commission like “a little boy”.26 Pierre Lellouche's reaction reveals a reality of the European Union: the major powers are not willing to respect the commitments that limit their sovereignty, which they assumed through the EU treaties, when the latter collide with their interests. Subsequently, France sent a document to the European Commission and undertook to amend national legislation for better transposition of the Directive on freedom of movement, after which the Commission decided against the infringement procedure. The changes made by France with regard to the Roma situation, however, were only “cosmetic”, not substantial, and Roma expulsions continued without any other reaction from European institutions. We can compare this situation with the European Commission’s position on the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism imposed on Romania and Bulgaria. The EU Accession Treaty of Romania and Bulgaria stipulates the creation of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, meant to monitor judicial reforms. The Treaty makes it clear that this mechanism will operate for 3 years, starting from the accession date of the two states, i.e. between 2007 and 2010. The mechanism was, however, tacitly renewed each year without any explanation from the European Commission, and it still functions at present. EU institutions thus apply double standards when dealing with Member States. They fail to impose their views and to ensure compliance with treaties in their relations with major powers, whilst smaller and poorer EU states are treated according to particular norms and not to the general rules of the Union. This evolution of the EU towards a clear distinction between major and minor Member States is also noticeable in some provisions of the Lisbon Treaty. The changes introduced by the Lisbon Treaty to the EU decisionmaking process within the Council have extended the use of qualified majority voting to the detriment of simple majority and unanimity. The main argument has been to simplify decision-making procedures in the context of EU-27. However, the formula has strengthened the stance of large EU states. According to the Treaty, qualified majority means that decisions can be taken 25

http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2010/09/14/97001-20100914FILWWW00424roms-procedure-de-l-ue-contre-la-france.php, 1 August 2013. 26 http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/politique/20100913.OBS9774/roms-le-nouveaulaius-de-lellouche-contre-bruxelles.html, 1 August 2013.

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by 55% of the states representing at least 65% of the EU’s population and they can be blocked by at least four countries. The system will be applied from the 1st of January 2014, but every Member State may require the application of the Nice system until 2017. After 2017, the decision-making system set out in the Lisbon Treaty will be implemented, thus decreasing the proportion of the minority that can block a decision. As of 2017, two major EU states will be able to block any decision of the EU Council and no agreement will basically be achieved without the participation of France or Germany.27 These provisions are in accordance with the idea expressed by Joschka Fischer in 2000, of creating a gravity centre of the EU, with Germany and France at its core. The two states can thus decide on all processes within the EU, with an impact on all member countries, while the access of small and medium-sized countries to EU decision-making will be limited. Consequently, after 2017, the “weight of ‘Old Europe’ will be clearly enhanced (in particular the FranceGermany-Italy axis), to the detriment of the ‘New Europe’ (Eastern States)” 28.

Within the European Union there are now numerous cleavages: large states - small states, rich countries - poor countries, North - South, Old Europe - New Europe. But two phenomena - the participation of some states in the decision-making process is limited and the double standards applied by EU institutions in relation to member countries - show that the EU clearly works on the principle of a two-speed Europe. There is a “hard core” of the EU, built around the Franco-German directorate, in which Germany has taken over the role of “first violin”, especially amid the financial crisis, as it has consolidated its power and influence in the EU. This kernel is actually the decision maker on the evolution of the EU. Furthermore, there are the small and medium-sized countries in Eastern Europe, the recent entrants to the EU, which have limited access to decision-making institutions. “It is easy to see that the divisions... all point in the same direction. They all strengthen the leading position of Germany within the EU. At the same time, we can see that this increase in power is rooted in the dynamics of the 27

Cristina Vohn, “Decizia în instituĠiile Uniunii Europene” [“The decision in EU institutions”], in Dan Dungaciu, Cristina Vohn (coord.), Uniunea Europeană după Tratatul de la Lisabona [The European Union after the Lisbon Treaty], Bucharest: Editura Institutului de ùtiinĠe Politice úi RelaĠii InternaĠionale, 2012, pp. 29-31. 28 Dan Dungaciu, “Un Tratat ajuns deja în faza ’post’?” [“A treaty already reaching the ‘post’ phase?”], in Dan Dungaciu, Cristina Vohn (coord.), Uniunea Europeană după Tratatul de la Lisabona [The European Union after the Lisbon Treaty], Bucharest: Editura Institutului de ùtiinĠe Politice úi RelaĠii InternaĠionale, 2012, p. 10.

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political situation itself and may be said to have occurred ‘behind the back’ of the actors concerned and the public in general.”29

Conclusions The European Union was created based on liberal principles that have contributed to the development of Western Europe after the Second World War. But today, when the EU has no fewer than 28 member states, we are witnessing the amplification of some phenomena that are the result of an increasingly obvious separation from the principles of equality and solidarity. There is a gap between citizens and the European political class, which emphasizes the democratic deficit in the EU. On the other hand, we are facing a differentiation between member states, through the application of double standards by Community institutions in relation to them. The two phenomena, amplified during the financial crisis, indicate that the EU is heading down the wrong path. The isolation of European politicians from the citizens they are supposed to represent will lead to the questioning of the democratic legitimacy of the Union. Moreover, dividing the Member States into at least two categories will create frustration among East-European countries, which, in their majority, are part of the “second-speed” EU. The memory of the "Iron Curtain" is still alive in this part of Europe and the absence of the prosperity and welfare that the citizens of these countries believed they would get after the entry into the EU can generate social phenomena and populist political movements which will be difficult to manage.

Bibliography Bădescu, Ilie, Lucian Dumitrescu, Veronica Dumitraúcu, Geopolitica noului imperialism [Geopolitics of the new imperialism], Bucharest: Editura Mica Valahie, 2010. Beck, Ulrich, German Europe, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013. Boomberg, Elizabeth, John Peterson, Richard Corbett, The European Union: How does it work?, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Dungaciu, Dan, Cristina Vohn (coord.), Uniunea Europeană după Tratatul de la Lisabona [The European Union after the Lisbon Treaty], Bucharest: Editura Institutului de ùtiinĠe Politice úi RelaĠii InternaĠionale, 2012.

29

See Ulrich Beck, German Europe, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.

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Follesdal, Andreas and Simon Hix, “Why There is a Democratic Deficit in the EU: A Response to Majone and Moravcsik” in Journal of Common Market Studies, no. 3, vol. 44. Ghica, Luciana-Alexandra (coord.), Enciclopedia Uniunii Europene [Encyclopaedia of the European Union] Bucharest: Editura Meronia, 2006. Majone, Giandomenico, “Europe’s ‘Democratic Deficit’: The Question of Standards” in European Law Journal, no. 1, vol. 4, 1998. Moravcsik, Andrew, “In defence of the ‘Democratic Deficit’: Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union”, in Journal of Common Market Studies, no. 4, vol. 40. Murphy, Laura, “Decreasing ‘democratic deficit’ in the EU – increasing the use of referenda?”, in Government and Politics Review, no. 1, March 2010. Naumescu, Valentin, “Dezechilibrele lumii de azi. DemocraĠia fără soluĠii?” [“The imbalances of the world today. Democracy without solutions?”], in Revista de ùtiinĠe Politice úi RelaĠii InternaĠionale, no. 2/2012, tome IX. Piris, Jean-Claude, The future of Europe: Towards a Two-Speed Europe?, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012. Varela, Diego, Guvernarea Uniunii Europene [The Goverance of the European Union], Iaúi: Institutul European, 2008.

THE CFSP OF POST-LISBON EU: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE SANDA CINCĂ

Abstract By using the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the European Union (EU) aims to coordinate the foreign policies of the Member States in order to speak with one voice when dealing with foreign partners. This study will attempt to show the way in which the European Union is defined as a political entity on the international stage and how it can handle, in a unitary fashion, matters of foreign policy and security issues arising internationally. This endeavour will attempt to reveal the interests that prevail in common EU actions (either the community ones or the national interests of Member States), how “common” the CFSP really is, the expectations and promises, as well as the possibilities and actions in the area of CFSP.

Keywords Lisbon Treaty, CFSP, CSDP, political integration, foreign policy representation, liberal intergovernmentalism

Introduction The European Union’s relations within the international system become active in the framework established by the Common Foreign and Security Policy - CFSP. The CFSP seeks to coordinate the foreign policies of the Member States of the European Union, enabling them to speak with one voice when dealing with foreign partners. This is a policy that is becoming increasingly important in the European design, due to the EU's willingness to make a stand as a strong actor in the international system and to the global threats of the 21st century. The Common Foreign and Security Policy is a pillar belonging to the axis of cooperation. While economic integration has been successful, the collaboration leading to the communitarization of a

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The CFSP of Post-Lisbon EU: From Theory to Practice

foreign and security policy of the EU has advanced at a slow pace, still remaining in the area of intergovernmental cooperation. The CFSP remains one of the most controversial issues in the EU, long perceived as a threat to national sovereignty. The reason why the CFSP still belongs to the cooperation framework between the Governments of the Member States is that they have not been willing to transfer sovereignty in an area that has traditionally been regarded as one of national competence. Thus, although individual states have agreed on a framework for a common foreign policy, they have frequently showed that national interests prevail over Community ones. There is urgency in the current status of international relations, which requires this pillar to become part of the integration process, in order to achieve a unitary voice in the field, but this tendency is strongly rejected by the states that do not want to give up this essential component of their sovereignty. Although European leaders have often acknowledged the need for the EU to redefine its role in the international system by creating a more effective and coherent foreign policy, these ambitious goals remained unfulfilled and merely reaffirmed from time to time. Taking into account the failures which have been recorded in this area so far, the Lisbon Treaty is a step forward, bringing change to the architecture of the CFSP. Innovations which have been achieved by this treaty are meant to be a qualitative leap towards communitarization. To demonstrate the cooperation in the field of CFSP, we will first present the evolution of this policy in the treaties, focusing especially on the changes and innovations which the Lisbon Treaty has brought to the architecture of the CFSP/ESDP, and then will attempt to assess the extent to which a practical political reality corresponds to some declarative principles, knowing that the foreign and security policy is organised in the framework of intergovernmental cooperation and that Member States are the main actors in the EU’s foreign policy. We will also provide examples of the idea that Member States may have a different position on external issues than the official stance of the European Union. The research assumption on which we base this study is that the European Union's CFSP is dominated by national interests and its development will not lead to communitarization. In order to argue the validity of this claim, we intend to present the evolution of the CFSP in the treaties and to make a comparison with its practical evolution, so as to argue that Member States have failed to meet even the agreements pertaining to intergovernmental negotiations.

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Theoretical Framework The theoretical framework that supports this assumption is liberal intergovernmentalism, i.e. the reformulated version of traditional intergovernmentalism. In what follows, we will show that the difficult development of both foreign policy and security policy confirms the liberal intergovernmental theories regarding integration and suggests the primacy of liberal Member States' interests in policy making. To demonstrate this, we will pinpoint some basic theoretical landmarks of the liberal intergovernmentalist prospects on European integration and show how the validity of this theory is reflected in key moments of the historical development of political cooperation within the EU. Liberal intergovernmentalism was proposed as a prospective aid to European integration along with the communitarization progress beginning in the 1980s. After the 1990s, liberal intergovernmentalism became the most influential approach to European integration, earning the status of "theory of reference" in the study of regional integration. This approach was furthered and developed by Andrew Moravcsik, who gave liberal intergovernmentalism the form of a theoretical synthesis or of a framework and not of a theory restricted to a single political activity. His argument relies on the fact that integration cannot be explained only by a particular factor, but by the gathering several theories and factors around a single coherent approach, capable of explaining the path of integration in time.1 This revised form of the intergovernmental model emphasises the role of the EU’s Member States in terms of preferences and relations of power between them in the recovery process of European integration. From this perspective, sovereign states will remain the key factors in the development of the EU, a process which Moravcsik has divided into three stages. The first refers to the aggregation of national preferences by political leaders, as a result of the interaction of numerous internal factors, such as institutions, the economy or political parties. The second stage is represented by the negotiations between states according to the intergovernmental model, agreements reflecting the relative strength of each nation. The final stage refers to the emergence of supranational institutions with the function of providing credible commitments of Member States’ governments to increase the credibility of mutual obligations. In order to prevent states from cheating or failing to respect the mutual/reciprocal responsibilities assumed through 1

A. Moravcsik, F. Schimmelfennig, “Liberal Intergovermentalism” in: Antje Wiener and Thomas Diez (coords.), European Integration Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 68.

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cooperation, part of their sovereignty is jointly transferred to supranational institutions, but only if that process is necessary and profitable for the states.2 On the whole, the development of the CFSP appears to have followed the abovementioned path, as a result of the intergovernmental bargains in which EU states have tried to impose their own national interests. Relevant powers across Europe have supported the development of common security and defence policies to the extent that this instrument could counterbalance American power, whilst increasing their own influence internationally. The position of the major powers in Europe towards the development of a common policy in foreign relations and defence has always depended on the ratio between the interest in preserving national sovereignty and the rewards fostered by a unique policy that will represent in a more powerful manner the common European interests, as opposed to the USA’s. The problems encountered in the development of the CFSP can be placed squarely on account of a divergence of interests amongst EU powers on major international policies. Of course, there were theoreticians that have challenged the explanatory power of European integration by liberal intergovernmentalism, but we believe that due to the characteristics the latter possesses, this is the most suitable framework, which, when applied to the EU’s CFSP, explains its evolution and the process of integration in this area. The foreign and defence policy has been maintained within the framework of intergovernmental cooperation, in which national leaders in the Council have the opportunity to lead the integration of this policy. It is not a communitarised policy, as in this case supranational institutions hold limited powers or none whatsoever. This cooperation framework is different from that of other EU policies; therefore, it cannot be compared with other policies of its kind, or with the cooperation of military-oriented and peacekeeping organisations. This is inappropriate because it is based on different procedures of cooperation.

CFSP Intergovernmental Development Since the establishment of the first European Community, there have been some changes in terms of foreign policy. If at first the main objective in this respect was to maintain a climate of peace between Member States, it soon evolved by increasing the role of the EU abroad and changing the Union into a global actor, powerful enough to influence international decision-making. 2

H. Wallace, W. Wallace and M. A. Pollack (coords.), Elaborarea politicilor în Uniunea Europeană, ediĠia a V-a (Policy Making in the European Union, Fifth Edition), Bucharest: European Institute of Romania, 2005, pp. 17-18.

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We believe that the frequency of political crises in Europe has had a positive impact on the development of the CFSP as, at the end of each crisis, European leaders concluded that they needed to foster cooperation in the political field. Not being an inherently important actor, worthy of attention on the international stage, the EU had to develop a coherent and effective foreign policy. Thus, after every major crisis that jeopardised the relations between Member States, there was a reform of the CFSP in theory, through the treaties, but on a practical level, crises continued to occur because Member States pursued their own interests. Confirming the theory of liberal intergovernmentalism, they are willing to put institutions in common and surrender some of their sovereignty so as to create credible arrangements, i.e. a multilateral framework that fosters more opportunities for cooperation. This may very well mean that there is an illusion of cooperation between EU Member States in the area of security, as they rarely agree on major issues of foreign policy and they are not willing to cooperate in areas such as military forces and the production of arms. The still undefined nature of the EU and the Member States' different views regarding its future have made it difficult for the EU to act coherently and consistently in the field of international relations. This issue was raised amid the negotiations for the Maastricht Treaty, which created the CFSP. The evolution of the external dimension pertaining to the development of an intergovernmental EU illustrates its essential orientation, and the progress of the CFSP can be analysed through the changes brought by the treaties. The EU’s goal of defining a political identity on the international stage led to the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty3, which made "the leap from economic to political"4. This treaty (taking effect in 1993) designated the CFSP as a system of cooperation among the Member States of the EU in foreign and security policy, thus becoming the second pillar of the EU’s structure, a domain within the intergovernmental area granting limited powers to supranational institutions (European Parliament and European Commission), which decide only on common actions by qualified majority. The objective of this policy was to protect the fundamental interests of the Member States' foreign policy, EU independence its and security policy, with the prospect of achieving a defence policy leading to a genuine common defence (Article J.4). The instruments available for the CFSP were common positions and actions, harmonising Member States' prominence in 3 Treaty of Maastricht, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/treaties/dat/11992M/htm/11992M.html, consulted on 7.07.2013. 4 Iordan Ghe. Bărbulescu, Uniunea Europeană: politicile extinderii (European Union: policies of enlargement), Bucharest: Triton Publishing, 2006, p. 416.

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international organisations, common approaches and exploratory missions, the combination of economic and diplomatic instruments and the permanent exchange of information between Member States in matters of international politics. The CFSP Secretary operated within the Council Secretariat. Imposing CFSP objectives and creating a legal and institutional framework was a step forward, but the CFSP was not a policy in the real sense of the word, but rather a "catalogue of intentions"5. This was not a communitarised policy, but merely one defined and implemented jointly by the Member States and the Union. This policy was designed to be “common to the Union and its Member States, comprehensive and progressive, but not Communitary”, being located between exclusive Community policies and the intergovernmental pillar. The foreign relations of the Union were part of a dual system in which there was, on the one hand, an external Community component, managed by the European Commission, and on the other hand, a part of the intergovernmental EU, i.e. the CFSP being handled by the European Council, where there was a subordination of the external action of the EU to the CFSP, in terms of defining foreign affairs, as well as through the general orientation of the European Council. This ambiguous form of CFSP was reflected in the slow reaction of European military forces to the war in former Yugoslavia, due to the differences between the main poles of power (Germany, at one point, even threatened to resort to the unilateral recognition of Croatia), thus reflecting the limits set by the intergovernmental procedures to CFSP activities. The Treaty of Amsterdam6 (taking effect in 1999) introduced the position of High Representative for CFSP, which was filled by the Secretary General of the Council, making the Union speak with one voice. The High Representative was appointed by the Council and operated under the mandate of this intergovernmental institution of the EU. The High Representative for the CFSP had a particular role in shaping the image of the European foreign policy, providing it with strategic planning and early warning systems, thus ensuring the early recognition of relevant international statements for the CFSP. This approach has had effects on the reactive nature of the European foreign policy. The Treaty established the European Security and Defence Policy - ESDP, creating the military arm of the CFSP. The Kosovo War and American unilateralism in managing the conflict gave new impetus to European powers to overcome their differences and hesitations regarding the sharing of sovereignty and the strengthening of the 5

I. Ghe. Bărbulescu, 2006, op. cit., pp. 418-419. Treaty of Amterdam, http://europa.eu/about-eu/basic-information/decision-making /treaties/index_en.htm, consulted on 7.07.2013.

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CFSP/ESDP, leading to the ESDP performing its first military operation in Bosnia, in 2003, namely the EU Police Mission. However, the US invasion of Iraq overshadowed these advancements, resulting in a strong rift within the CFSP and illustrating that the policy was still merely a fragile form of consensus amongst EU governments. The Union was divided between the British position to support the US (even by sending troops) and FrancoGerman opposition to the intervention. The game of negotiations between the representatives of national governments was to be noticed once again within the European Council, along with the apparent vulnerability of the CFSP as an institution. If we consider the third stage of European construction theorised by Moravcsik (building institutions that guarantee the respect of states for mutual commitments), we may conclude that the commitments made and sanctioned by the CFSP are so ambiguous and diffuse that they enable European powers to benefit from an extremely extensive independence of action. Cooperation is accomplished only in situations where the national interests of relevant powers or those acting against the latter are tackled by other incentives.7 The Treaty of Nice8 (taking effect in 2003) brought in turn a number of changes to the CFSP and ESDP, by mainly altering the competences of institutions in this field. The Treaty included humanitarian and rescue endeavours, peacekeeping tasks and actions of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking missions. It also introduced the concept of “structured co-operation” and specified the methodology by which Member States may accede to structured cooperation in the field of CFSP. A significant political document on European security is the EU Security Strategy adopted in 2003. “A Secure Europe in a Better World” - the European Security Strategy - reflects the common will of Member States to identify the main risks and threats to European security, strategic environmental characteristics and appropriate measures to reduce the EU’s vulnerabilities.9 European politicians adopted this strategy for several reasons, including: the awareness of the EU's vulnerability to asymmetric risks (such as terrorism), especially after September 11, 2001; the desire to appear before the US as a reliable and valuable partner in building the new safer 7

H. Wallace, op. cit., p. 422. Treaty of Nice, http://europa.eu/about-eu/basic-information/decision making/ treaties/ index_en.htm, consulted on 07.07.2013. 9 A Secure Europe in a Better World - European Security Strategy, Brussels, 12 December 2003, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/librairie/PDF/QC7809568ROC.pdf, consulted on 10.07.2013. 8

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international environment; the relatively weak cohesion and solidarity among Member States in terms of foreign and security policy; the adverse implications of the crisis in Iraq on the transatlantic cohesion and solidarity of EU Member States. Thus, the nature of the challenges the Union faced after the end of the Cold War led to the creation of this strategy. The wars in the Balkans could not foster such a perspective and the war in Kosovo highlighted the EU's military weakness in contrast to NATO. On the other hand, let us not forget the political and diplomatic power to launch regional cooperation initiatives such as the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe. By default it is accepted that stabilising neighbourhoods so as to gradually integrate them presented a major strategic interest to united Europeans. The decisions made at the Nice Summit, the embryo of a future European constitution, were needed so that the EU's strategic interests would gain a clearer, less controversial outline.

The impact of the Lisbon Treaty on the CFSP The Treaty of Lisbon10 (taking effect in 2009) brought about an evolution of the EU’s image in the world regarding its political integration and consolidation, as it manifested a unitary and more coherent position in relation to other international actors. The Lisbon Treaty (the Treaty on the EU - TEU and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - TFEU) does not replace the constitutive treaties, but it amends them. The most significant reform in the area that interests us consists of establishing the way in which the foreign policy is applied at the European level and reinforcing the EU’s role at the global level through coherence, consistency, efficiency and visibility, in terms of foreign actions and policies and through cooperation between Member States. Nevertheless, “the new architecture does not replace the national policies with a common European policy (…) it will not affect the existing legal basis or the responsibilities and powers of each country (…) it will not give new powers to the Commission in order to make decisions and it will not increase the role of Parliament”11. Thus, the Lisbon Treaty represents an important phase for the EU, especially due to the main changes and innovations in CFSP and CSDP (Common Security and Defence Policy, formerly ESDP). These two policies mentioned in the Lisbon Treaty reveal the new level which the EU has 10

Treaty of Lisbon, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/treaties/index.htm, consulted on 25.07.2013. 11 G. Avery, “Europe’s Future Foreign Service”, in The International Spectator, 2008, p. 29.

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reached in the dynamics of communitarization. As a result, the logical organisation of the pillars has been surpassed, as the EU formulates policies which are more coherently defined, based on closer cooperation. At first glance, the new CFSP status within the EU framework might have a connection with the migration towards the communitarization of the second pillar. However, according to the treaties, the CFSP will remain dependent on intergovernmental competences, although there are innovations that might contradict, or better said, limit the attributions of the Member States, even if this is not specified in a categorical manner. As a result of the latest institutions and positions that have been created (the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the European Council President, the European External Action Service and embassies), the Union has revised its tasks regarding foreign policy, diplomacy and security. The European Council, together with the EU Council, are the primordial bodies with regard to the CFSP, their role being, on the whole, to establish the directions that need to be followed by this policy. In the 70’s, Henry Kissinger asked an essential question: “Who am I going to call if I want to get in touch with Europe?” After more than three decades, the Lisbon Treaty tried to answer this question on foreign policy, asked by the American Secretary. The structure entrusted with the executive power of the CFSP is the institution of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (replacing the High Representative for the CFSP). The Iraqi crisis revealed the need for a common position and coherence of the Union abroad, which is why the Lisbon Treaty mentions that a single person should occupy the positions of High Representative and Commissioner for Foreign Relations. Regarding these aspects, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing stated: “Creating the position of High Representative for foreign policy (…) would be a major change in comparison with the current situation (…) Only one person can deal with the problems and answer Henry Kissinger’s telephone call: I want to speak to Europe”12.

The High Representative combines three essential positions: he runs the CFSP (art. 24 TEU), he is the President of the Foreign Affairs Council (art. 9E.3) and the Vice-president of the Commission (art. 9E.4). In addition to that, the High Representative participates in the elaboration of the CSDP, convenes extraordinary meetings, facilitates dialogue with third parties and expresses the EU’s position in international organisations and intergovernmental 12

http://www.highrepresentative.eu/, consulted on 30.07.2013.

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conferences. The High Representative’s role is to promote EU policies worldwide and to enforce the Union’s position as a global actor of the highest rank. As President of the Foreign Affairs Council, he is assisted in his actions by the European External Action Service, which serves as a Foreign Ministry of the Union. How will such a combination of functions evolve so as to make decisions more efficiently? Does it aim to achieve broader communitarization? Strictly institutionally, it seems so, because in addition to the multitude of skills acquired, the emergence of the European External Action Service and EU embassies is added, which will also operate under the coordination of the High Representative. Thus, we can speak informally about creating an EU foreign ministry. Such a body has to support a concerted position of Member States, which is in fact the EU’s common position, as stipulated in the Treaty of Lisbon. Of course, the states maintain the “hard power” element, by being able to vote by unanimity where the national interest is at stake and, at the same time, any member may abstain from voting without being forced to adopt the decision later. In other words, a different kind of paradoxical element appears because, in spite of the lack of obligation regarding the respect of the decision itself, the state in question has to respect the fact that the decision becomes binding for the Union. The Treaty replaces unanimity with qualified majority when voting on foreign and security policies and assigns a new role in external relations to the Commission. The European External Action Service - EEAS (Art. 13a.3) consists of employees of the General Secretariat of the Council, as well as the European Commission staff, along with the personnel sent by the diplomatic services of the Member States. According to some analysts, “institutionally, EEAS is a hybrid: it works in the intergovernmental dimension, but it incorporates elements of the Commission’s policy with the help of the High Representative”13 and it is about to become the main actor in foreign relations, being a “forum with a comprehensive view of foreign relations”14. There are technical and legal issues regarding the EEAS, albeit there is no common vision regarding its structure. These problems may create tensions between European institutions, which can have repercussions on worldwide representation. Another reform introduced by the Lisbon Treaty refers to the European Council, which has become an EU institution and has a permanent President. But, in fact, does this not mean an increase in the intergovernmental dimension? Do we want a strong EU, a single voice, a distinct entity, or certain EU states to take control on behalf of all, in a more effective 13

O. Osica, “Taming Chaos: The Future of EU External Relations in Light of the Treaty of Lisbon”, in The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs, no. 1, 2010, p. 91. 14 Ibid, p. 88.

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institution, which is now the European Council? The formal denomination of institution entitles the Council to define the objectives of the EU’s foreign strategy (art. 10B.1). In addition to this, the decision to have a President elected for a fixed period of time has positive consequences on the continuity of foreign policy, as well as on the coherence and cohesion between member states. The establishment of this new function has direct implications on the institutional balance; therefore, the powers of the President of the European Council are meant to ensure the external representation of the Union, but “without prejudicing the powers of the High Representative” (art. 15 TEU). An important innovation mentioned in the Treaty is the introduction of the solidarity clause, involving mutual aid among members in the event of a security threat. In the Lisbon Treaty, it is specified for the first time that “the Union has legal personality” (art. 46 TEU). The consequences of imposing a legal personality are likely to strengthen the role of the Union at the international level: the EU as an actor is subjected to international law; it can have diplomatic representation - an actor which operates through the CFSP. The EU may act in its own name without the consent of the member states, but “it will not authorise in any way the Union to pass laws or act beyond the competences conferred to it by the Member States or the Treaties”15. The Lisbon Treaty may be regarded as one of the most revolutionary EU treaties, in terms of fostering opportunities to create new functions or institutions designed to help strengthen the position and single external representation of the EU. Albeit the Treaty has created a wave of optimism expressed by those who perceive the Union as “an entity that speaks with one voice and implements consistent policies in foreign problems”16, there are authors who believe that the new Treaty can be regarded as a source of tension between the newly created positions. Although faced with serious difficulties at the economic, political and strategic levels, the EU does not give up its vocation as a global actor. In November 2012, at the request of the High Representative for CFSP, the debate regarding the European Global Strategy17 was launched, representing a project which involves open consultations of the civil society in EU countries on drafting a document meant to express the EU’s strategic profile 15

Declaration on the legal personality of the European Union, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/st06655-re01.en08.pdf, consulted on 25.07.2013. 16 Ingolf Pernice, “The Treaty of Lisbon: Multilevel Constitutionalism in Action”, in Columbia Journal of European Law, vol. 15: 3, 2009, p. 399. 17 Towards a European Global Strategy 2013, http://www.euglobalstrategy.eu/, consulted on 10.07.2013.

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in the long term, especially the main directions of foreign policy. The future European Global Strategy will be undertaken by the EU’s institutions, the Member States, the High Representative and the EEAS.

CFSP and factual evidence We will further explain the EU’s common position and the position of Member States towards certain international crises or international political events (such as the Iran missile crisis of 2003, the Kosovo conflict of 2009, or the conflict in Libya of 2011) which arose at different stages of EU construction (pre- and post-Lisbon), in order to show the practical development of the CFSP. These examples support the idea that the Member States may have different positions regarding external issues which differ from the official stance of the EU, which demonstrates the intergovernmental nature of the foreign policy. The Iran missile crisis erupted in 2003 as a consequence of the revelations made in 2002, claiming that Iran was engaged in activities indicating the existence of a secret nuclear programme in violation of the agreement with the International Nuclear Energy Authority. The Iranian nuclear programme began to capture the full attention of the international community, as it was considered the worst case of nuclear proliferation along with that of North Korea. Like the US, the EU had developed commercial relations with the Iranian state, Iran’s main European trading partners being the United Kingdom, France and Italy. The good relations were due, on the one hand, to the Iranians’ desire to reduce their dependence on the US, as the Union was considered a possible saviour against American hostilities, and, on the other hand, to the importance given by Europeans to Iran for its rich energy resources.18 The EU’s experience regarding good relations with Iran, as well as the interests of the large Member States, demanded that the Union become the main negotiator in resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis. This is a case of foreign policy in which the interests of the large Member States had paramount importance in shaping a unitary EU intervention. The interests of the three prominent European powers - Germany, France and Britain prompting them to intervene in solving the Iranian nuclear file are extremely diverse: from trade relations to the desire to preserve the international nonproliferation regime, from concerns about the credibility of the Union as an important actor in the international arena, to the desire to avoid another split 18

http://www.payvand.com/news/03/oct/1015.html, consulted on 11.08.2013.

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among its Member States. Following the visit of the Foreign Ministers of the three largest powers in the EU, Iran agreed to suspend its uranium enriching activities pledging to do so by signing an Additional Protocol to the NonProliferation Treaty. Since 2005, Iran has been isolated on the international stage, as a consequence of its nuclear policy, resumed when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected. If the US took into account a possible military intervention against Iran, the EU’s position would be a more moderate one, adopting a strategy based on diplomacy and further economic sanctions. This common position can be explained not so much by the existence of an integrated CFSP, but by the fact that France and Germany share economic interests in Iran, which would be threatened by a potential military conflict. Germany continues to be the main business partner of this state with the already rooted presence of Krupp industrial giants Daimler and Siemens. France has also got important economic relations with Iran, as French exports in 2003 had a value of over two billion euros, from companies like Renault, Citroën, Peugeot, Alcatel and Total Group, which are present in Iran. In this context, given that two of the three major EU powers share the national interest to protect investments in Iran, it is clear that the orientation of the CFSP in this matter through the work of the High Representative at the time, Javier Solana, was more peaceful than that of the US. The EU position seems to be once again shaped by the interests of the major powers’ game. In early 2012, the US and the EU strengthened their measures through unilateral economic sanctions against the oil and banking sectors, which caused problems to the Iranian economy. Despite Iran’s diplomatic attempts to demonstrate that the programme has peaceful purposes, it is under an international economic embargo imposed by the UN Security Council.19 Regardless of the power of large Member States, the Union would not have been able to speak with one voice if there had not been any interests in resolving the Iranian case throughout the EU. The uniform approach of the Union was mainly driven by economic, geopolitical and security interests, but probably, the most crucial aspect to be taken into account is the opportunity Iran presented for the revitalization of the CFSP. The unitary action of the Union in this international crisis is due to the convergence of the interests of Member States, but another factor must be taken into consideration, namely the relative power of the actors, since the large Member States may alter the preferences of the others.

19

http://www.ziare.com/articole/iran+construire+arme+nucleare, consulted on 11 august 2013.

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Starting from the idea that Members States benefit from the right to have a different position on foreign affairs, opposed to the official one of the Union, we will present how the concept of common foreign policy works, with the support of the High Representative, in the Kosovo case. In 2009, ethnic Albanians in Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed their independence. Faced with this situation, the European states acted differently: countries like Britain, France and Germany recognized its independence, while others such as Spain, Cyprus, Romania, Slovenia and Greece (citing reasons pertaining to either national or economic interests) declared themselves against it. What was, however, the position of the EU? Can we identify a common vision? Or, even more, was it achieved? According to art.19 of TEU Lisbon, the responsibility of sustaining the position of the EU in the UN Security Council belongs to the High Representative. In this crisis, the solution found by the EU was the decision to send the Mission of Support focused on the rule of law in Kosovo (the first concrete action of EU foreign policy post-Lisbon). The decision was taken unanimously by the Member States, including the ones which had refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence. The fundamental interest of the EU is that the Western Balkans should be a stable area with a clear perspective on joining the Union, therefore it would not accept any solution that would maintain tension in the area and it would not encourage any further territorial division. However, the fact that Kosovo was not recognized by some states strengthened Russia’s position in the Balkans, something the EU does not approve of. The EU made its position clear, expressing its support of Kosovo’s future EU membership, but for this, a mutual agreement among Member States was needed, regarding the recognition of Kosovo, as this was the only way for an EU-Kosovo contractual relationship to start. Following Kosovo’s progress towards European integration, the European Parliament adopted two resolutions in the spring of 2013: one urging EU Member States that had not recognized Kosovo’s independence to do so as soon as possible, and the second referring to Serbia’s situation, prompting the European Council to give a clear deadline for the commencement of negotiations for European accession. The two resolutions appeared amid negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo under the auspices of the EU regarding the normalisation of their stagnating relations. In 2009 it was difficult to predict what would happen, but one thing was certain: the way the EU positioned itself in this situation was a test for its common foreign policy. The EU’s stance regarding the Libyan conflict is an example of a mutually coherent action, belonging to two institutions responsible for the CFSP: the High Representative and the President of the European Council.

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The European Council President declared, on the occasion of the Council summit which took place on the 11th of March 2011, that the EU would provide support for Gaddafi’s removal from power, in order to ensure transition to democracy and dialogue, and also for the protection of civilians. It requested at the same time that military operations should cease as soon as the population was safe and an assurance that Libya was provided with humanitarian and economic aid. In this regard, the High Representative expressed the EU’s support and willingness to find solutions to the problems of the people of this country, by strengthening the dialogue between the EU and Libya, whilst providing the necessary assistance for a democratic future. On the 17th of March 2011, the President of the European Council and the High Representative gave a mutual statement, welcoming Resolution 1973 approved by the UN Security Council, which provided the use of any means to protect civilians from armed attacks, excluding a foreign occupation force20. On the 21st of March 2011, the Foreign Affairs Council adopted a decision to extend restrictive measures against Libya, including forbidding flying in the Libyan air space and an embargo on arms. On the 1st of April 2011, the Council adopted a decision regarding humanitarian assistance in Libya and support at the request at the United Nations. Like in other situations, the EU did not have a united position on the matter of military intervention in the Libyan conflict, proving that it was divided. Most EU leaders refused to sanction military intervention in support of the rebels and civilians targeted by Gaddafi’s troops, with the exception of France and Britain. The European leaders gathered on the 11th of March at the Extraordinary European Council asked Gaddafi to relinquish power and stressed that any military intervention in the Libyan conflict was not appropriate at that time.21 NATO initially intervened in Libya through surveillance missions and later became involved in operations in order to enforce the arms embargo and the no-fly zone, as well as to protect civilians. In October 2011, NATO troops withdrew. Interestingly, out of the 28 NATO countries, only 14 contributed effectively with military capacity to the air strike, of which only 5 were European countries: Britain, France, Italy, Norway and Denmark. On the other hand, this was the first NATO campaign in which Britain and France, 20

http://geopolitics.ro/criza-libiei-si-reactia-organizatiei-natiunilor-unite/, consulted on 08.08.2013. 21 “Londra úi Parisul susĠin o intervenĠie militară în Libia, UE se opune” (“London and Paris support military intervention in Libya, the EU opposes”), http://www.evz.ro/detalii/stiri/gaddafi-zdrobeste-revolta-ue-se-fereste-sa-intervina923813.html#ixzz2bwaUbW5Y, consulted on 30.07.2013.

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and not the US, took the lead. Thus, France and Britain left the impression that European countries should mobilise and take some responsibility. From the political point of view, the case of Libya showed how missions might affect national vetoes on the use of military assets and how European countries can have different opinions. Germany, for example, which is a European power with superior military capacities on the continent, did not get involved in Libya. If Germany refused to provide its military capacities to an operation, the degree of specialisation of the latter automatically became lower.22 Strengthening the EU’s external security and the establishment of a European army are not new subjects on the agenda of European talks. However, the accomplishment of this project, at least in the current global context, is unlikely to occur. Indeed, there is evidence that the EU intends to develop self-defence policies. Building the Galileo navigation system is a signal that it wishes to reduce its dependence on the US GPS system23. Nevertheless, the progress in the CSDP is just theoretical, as the reaction of Europe to the North African crisis was mostly individual, or NATO’s. The EU does not exist at the level of a common defence force, at least not yet. Defence budgets vary considerably from one state to another. This is an obstacle in the way of the EU’s attempt to formulate a coherent mutual foreign policy and a functional one. The lack of interest from European governments to supplement defence expenses, an attitude which is the consequence of the absence of a real threat that would justify such an expense, a European culture which focuses more on diplomacy and less on force and also the prevalence of a social policy tradition prove to be the guidelines of a paradoxical attitude nowadays, which is fostered precisely because of the security guarantees offered by the US.

How “common” is the Common Foreign and Security Policy? By creating the CFSP and imposing ambitious objectives, the EU engendered some expectations pertaining to collective diplomacy beyond its institutional capacities, tools and resources. This aspect was described by

22

“NATO în relaĠie cu UE. LecĠia oferită de războiul din Libia.” (“NATO's relationship with the EU. The lesson offered by the war in Libya.”), http://geopolitics.ro/n-a-t-o-in-relatie-cu-ue-lectia-oferita-de-razboiul-din-libia/, consulted on 30.07.2013. 23 Idem.

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Christopher Hill as the “capability-expectations gap”24. The gap between promises and actions has been emphasised several times in the history of the CFSP, starting with the events in Yugoslavia, in the early ’90’s, the war in Bosnia (’91-’95) and then, in response to the crises in Albania (1997), Kosovo and Iraq25. Applying a liberal intergovernmentalism framework to the EU foreign security policy means that integration will occur when there is a convergence of the Member States’ interests in pursuing a credible presence on the international stage. Liberal intergovernmentalism considers that economic interests are by far the most important, which explains why the development of a foreign policy on security and defence was a more difficult process than the one of creating a common economic policy in foreign relations26. The question that arises is: are there any European collective interests in the field that transcend the ones of the Member States? The critics of the CFSP consider that there are no such collective interests to be protected and to which all the Europeans should subscribe. The Member States’ governments would rather use the CFSP in order to pursue their own interests27. For Germany, the EU’s CFSP is a helpful mechanism which is used to assert and pursue its own foreign policy interests in a multilateral framework, without leaving the impression of unilateral assertion. For France and other member states, the CFSP is an important means to counter the German policy (Ostpolitik) and its power. The different interests of the Member States intervene in the application of principles of foreign policy, specifically with regard to the territories over which these principles should be extended. These interests are reflected in the colonial past of various EU Member States. It could be said that this integration is accompanied by a process of Europeanization of these interests, but the practice so far has shown that it is difficult to reach a convergence of interests in a field led by national states and dominated by consensus. Even if governments share certain values, they still disagree on important issues and have different perceptions of threat and

24

C. Hill, “The Capability Expectations Gap, or Conceptualising Europe’s International Role”, Journal of Common Market Studies, 31/3, 1993. 25 Roy H. Ginsberg, “Conceptualizing the European Union as an International Actor: Narrowing the Theoretical capability-expectations gap”, in Wyn Rees and Michael Smith (eds.), International relations of the European Union, London: Sage Publications, 2008, p. 272. 26 S. Hix, The Political System of the European Union, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, p. 387. 27 R. H. Ginsberg, op. cit., p. 280.

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the use of force as a means of preventing conflicts.28 There are certain factors which have led to the development of a CFSP practice, for example the establishment of the Franco-German alliance, joined by Britain, these being the states with the largest military capacities and the ones which can support EU external action. The relations between these three countries have varied from one situation to another. France and Britain agreed on St. Malo in 1998, but in the case of the crisis in Iraq, they became divided. Another important factor that has influenced the EU’s foreign policy is the cooperation between NATO and the EU, which in turn is hampered due to problems related to the fact that some EU member states are members of NATO as well. On the other hand, the troops and equipment assigned to ESDP missions are more or less the same as those assigned to NATO operations, which makes it difficult to coordinate the Member States, so that they would fulfil their tasks as members of the two organizations. On the other hand, there are few chances of prejudicing the actions of other organisations. In other words, if there are interests of Member States, the EU will intervene in international crises, but it will only use safety tools from a set of options defined by the security network developed at European level. If in theory there is a trend towards creating a common framework for cooperation in the CFSP of the EU, “the EU foreign policy is not build in Brussels”29. Even though decisions are made at a formal level, within the framework of cooperation between states, the main actors of the EU’s foreign policy are the national governments, which pursue the national interest through different positions from the ones taken at the mutual level. The institutions created are used to give credibility to common endeavours and to increase the visibility of the EU, but they have no power to act against the Member States or without their consent. In addition to this, institutions in the area of CFSP have no power to enforce sanctions against the states that have a different position from the common one. There are authors who consider that it would be more appropriate to speak of “a European policy on security, rather than a common policy for the European Union”30.

Final considerations The CFSP is the institutional framework that allows the EU to speak on unitary foreign policy issues, enhancing the legitimacy of this organisation at 28

Ibidem. Fraser Cameron, An introduction to European Foreign Policy, London: Routledge, 2007, p. 59. 30 Walter Carlsnaes, Helene Sjursen, Brian White (eds.), Contemporary European Foreign Policy, London: Sage Publications, 2004, p. 11. 29

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the global level. The application of the CFSP does not affect the right of Member States to apply their own foreign and security policies, but it provides them with an additional means of action. Until now, governments have not appeared to be too willing to delegate powers to supranational institutions. Nevertheless, beyond the opposition of national factors to the transfer of sovereignty, the development of a common security and defence policy in the EU has constantly been influenced by the existence of NATO and US power within the organisation. Therefore, the development of the EU as a civilian power is based on the fact that “defence and diplomacy are at the core of national sovereignty”31 and European security through NATO, with US guarantees. The EU has exhibited an accelerated pace of defining and implementing a coherent CFSP in the last 10 years, but it still has a winding road ahead, until the CFSP and ESDP become united and credible. Despite the optimistic priorities set out in policy documents, or launched at summits, and despite the success recorded by the CFSP, the EU fails to be a unitary actor in foreign and security policy. The scepticism manifests itself even more in the capacity of the Union to manage serious external political crises involving armed conflicts. The EU Member States (and NATO members) decreased the investments in defence and reduced by 2,5% the aggregate expenditure on defence in 2011 and by 1,64% in 2012, which led to large reductions in the armed forces of many states. In 2010-2011, only five NATO member states allocated for defence at least 2% of GDP, while France, Germany and the UK contributed with about 65% of the total EU defence expenditure.32 The inability of the EU to conduct an effective foreign policy is the result of the divergent interests of its Member States, a weak institutionalisation of supranational decision-making structures and the lack of strategic capacity of the EU to tackle new threats in a proactive manner. If the developments in the recent years in the field of CFSP continue and prove to be more unitary, with a capacity for common action, and if they use a uniform strategic culture, in other words, if they exhibit more coherence, commitment and cooperation, the EU may be able to further and go beyond its economic power status. In conclusion, EU Member States will act together in future international crises only when they have an interest to do so and will maintain their preference for the use of only the non-military and soft power, i.e. political and diplomatic means, to solve the problems affecting the international community. 31

H. Wallace, op. cit., p. 405. The Military Balance 2013, IISS, London: Routledge, 2013, pp. 5-6, http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/military%20balance/issues/the-military-balance2013-2003, consulted on 10.08.2013. 32

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Bibliography Avery, Graham (2008), “Europe’s Future Foreign Service”, The International Spectator, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 29-40. Bărbulescu, Iordan Gheorghe (2005), Uniunea Europeană: de la naĠional la federal (The European Union: from national to federal), Bucharest: Triton Publishing. —. (2006), Uniunea Europeană: politicile extinderii (European Union: policies of enlargement), Bucharest: Triton Publishing. Boari, Vasile (2009), Noua Europă în căutarea identităĠii (New Europe in search of identity), Cluj-Napoca: Risoprint Publishing. Cameron, Fraser (2007), An Introduction to European Foreign Policy, London: Routledge. Carlsnaes Walter, Sjursen Helene, White Brian (eds.) (2004), Contemporary European Foreign Policy, London: Sage Publications. Ginsberg, Roy H. (2008), “Conceptualizing the European Union as an International Actor: Narrowing the Theoretical capability-expectations gap”, in Rees, Wyn and Smith, Michael (eds.), International relations of the European Union, vol.1, London: Sage Publications. Hill, Christophe (1993), “The Capability Expectations Gap, or Conceptualising Europe’s International Role”, Journal of Common Market Studies, no. 31/3, pp. 305-328. Hix, Simon (2005), The Political System of the European Union, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Koehler, Kateryna (2010), “European Foreign Policy after Lisbon: Strengthening the EU as an International Actor”, Caucasian Review of International Affairs, vol. 4 (1), pp. 57-72. McGiffen, Steven P. (2005), The European Union. A critical Guide. London: Pluto Press. Moravcsik, Andrew and Schimmelfennig, Frank (2009), “Liberal Intergovermentalism” in Wiener Antje and Thomas Diez (coords.), European Integration Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 67-87. Moravcsik, Andrew and Vachudova, Anna Milada (2003), “National Interests, State Power, and EU Enlargement”, in East European Politics and Societies, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 42-57. Osica, Olaf (2010), “Taming Chaos: The Future of EU External Relations in Light of the Treaty of Lisbon”, in The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs, no. 1, pp. 79-95. Pernice, Ingolf (2009), “The Treaty of Lisbon: Multilevel Constitutionalism in Action”, in Columbia Journal of European Law, vol. 15.

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Peterson, John and Sjursen, Helene (eds.) (2005), A Common Foreign Policy for Europe? Competing visions of the CFSP, New York: Routledge. Schimmelfennig, Frank (2004), “Liberal Intergovernmentalism”, in Wiener, Antje and Diez, Thomas (eds.), European Integration Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 75-94. Wallace, Helen, William Wallace and Mark. A. Pollack (coords.) (2005), Elaborarea politicilor in Uniunea Europeană (Policy Making in the European Union), Bucharest: Publisher European Institute of Romania. A Secure Europe in a Better World-European Security Strategy, Brussels, 12 December 2003, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/librairie/PDF/QC7809 568ROC.pdf, consulted on 10.07.2013. Declaration on the legal personality of the European Union, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/st06655re01.en08.pdf, consulted on 25.07.2013. “Londra úi Parisul susĠin o intervenĠie militară în Libia, UE se opune” (“London and Paris support military intervention in Libya, the EU opposes”), http://www.evz.ro/detalii/stiri/gaddafi-zdrobeste-revolta-ue-sefereste-sa-intervina-923813.html#ixzz2bwaUbW5Y, consulted on 30.07.2013. “NATO în relaĠie cu UE. LecĠia oferită de războiul din Libia” (“NATO's relationship with the EU. The lesson offered by the war in Libya”), http://geopolitics.ro/n-a-t-o-in-relatie-cu-ue-lectia-oferita-de-razboiul-dinlibia/, consulted on 30.07.2013. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (2013), The Military Balance 2013, London: Routledge, pp. 5-6, http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/military%20balance/issues/themilitary-balance-2013-2003, consulted on 10.08.2013. Towards a European Global Strategy 2013, http://www.euglobalstrategy.eu/, consulted on 10.07.2013.

Websites http://europa.eu/about-eu/basic-information/decisionmaking/treaties/index_en.htm, consulted on 7.07.2013. http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/report s/104630.pdf, consulted on 10.07.2013. http://www.eeas.europa.eu/top_stories/2011/010411_libya_en.htm, consulted on 30.07.2013. http://euobserver.com/9/32262, consulted on 30.07.2013.

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http://geopolitics.ro/criza-libiei-si-reactia-organizatiei-natiunilor-unite/, consulted on 8.08.2013. http://www.highrepresentative.eu/, consulted on 11.08.2013. http://www.payvand.com/news/03/oct/1015.html, consulted on 11.07.2013. http://www.ziare.com/articole/iran+construire+arme+nucleare, consulted on 11.08.2013.

THE CULTURE OF EUROPEAN SECURITY LIVIU-PETRU ZĂPÂR‫܉‬AN

Abstract Amid the richness of senses of concepts pertaining to this area, we have chosen to correlate the system of values of European security with its possible security options, in order to answer the following question: what does the united Europe have to secure and how does it achieve this objective? The answer revolves around the spiritual identity of Europe expressed in its organisational culture and in its ability to enter this strategic game with its own set of options, and especially with its own security instruments.

Keywords Culture, security, European identity, strategic game, system of values, organisational culture The concept of security may be encountered in several themes of reflection located in the research field of international relations and, lately, set against the background of the process of globalisation, as well as in that of political science, especially when we speak about social security or the environment. To these we must add the concerns of the European Union about the development of an area of freedom, security and justice, recently redefined as a cultural space, which means that the problem of security is related to a certain system of values. These perspectives are limited because the problem of security has philosophical dimensions and it deals with human condition both under the sign of the individuality that it expresses and that of its collective meaning. The latter are facets of man, one in which he is a person and the other in which he is a social being, and both have, in the contemporary world, a meaning which receives paramount importance amid the multiplication of interpersonal relationships. It is about the search and the affirmation of identity, of the chance to stand out in relation to other identities from which

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one borrows characteristics and to which one offers, in return, components of life, knowledge, goods and spiritual values. The identification of a social-political actor is a historical process in which he manifests his own traits, his own database, and also all relationships in which he is involved, from the point of view of history and of the present. But at the same time, there is also the ability to predict his future, in the sense that he must weigh the role of not only the factors that can strengthen his identity, but also those that may threaten it1. These risk factors can come from his identity structures (individual or collective diseases that trigger identity crises) and the relations with the surrounding world in which identity threats manifest themselves (peacefully, by attacking his system of values or non-peacefully, from threats and aggression to the use of force, or war). The risks that threaten the manifestation of identity have lately received various forms, some of which benefitting from refined (manipulative) or visible, direct expressions, such as outside interventions (punitive systems for individuals and social groups in a society, humanitarian interventions or politico-military missions from outside a society). Unfortunately, the writings devoted to security issues consider only the defence aspect of a system or of an organization that protects its sensitive and critical resources by means of rules and practices which regulate and implement security policies2. We have reported in a previous paper this determination of security envisaged by the realist school of international relations, pertaining to the external policies of a state, to the need for their construction on a strategic dimension based on the idea of national interest. Since 2001, we have considered security to be a complex concept, related to the national and state identity, and, therefore, to the quality of the actors on the international stage. But according to the new interpretative trends, we may focus not only on external threats (aggressions), but also on internal ones (subversion). The analysis of security was performed in terms of institutionalism and realism, in the sense that security was assumed by state power institutions endowed with the instruments through which security may be protected against any threats3. Since then, the study of security has become more complex and even though it is still an important field of the analysis of international relations - it has been extended to social, food, energy, environment, value and even personal security, from the street climate to the one of the workplace, 1 Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan, RelaĠiile internaĠionale, Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Studia, 2001, pp. 41-45. 2 In C. L. Cooper (ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management, vol. VI, International Mangement, Oxford: Blackwell Publ., 2006. 3 Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan, op. cit., pp. 177-184.

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from transport safety to human rights, from human rights to moral anarchy and then, to collective security. Ken Booth proposed a list of key terms which intervene in the new discourse on security: contingent states and institutions; human suffering prioritised within the theorising of the world order; consideration of individuality not in an atomised manner, but in a constitutive relationship with societies and communities; the role of the state is more likely a problem than a solution to overcoming major global issues; the Orthodox appearance of the national interest (as a maximisation of state property and its security) must be reconsidered in terms of presenting human needs; the emphasis on political power related to the political conflict must be reoriented towards significant interactions, including cooperation networks; the promotion of global order values calls for the agents across the state to act as agents of change, albeit social sciences must be sceptical; power must not be reduced to material factors, but it should be understood in relation to ideas, ideologies, images and religious preferences; concentrated and centralised power must be viewed with suspicion, the promotion of human life in a multicultural world should not succumb to ethnocentrism, having harmony as a purpose with the sense of common destiny, along with attention to a problematic future which would ensure human survival, the promotion of non-violence, of the care for the environment, for good governance, economic justice, human rights and the Culture of Peace4. In such a problematic framework which characterises the contemporary world, the concept of security ceases to be operational and expressive only in the study of international relations and only in terms of conservative thinking. It becomes endowed with rich meanings providing a way to subsume the contents of human life in which there is the question of natural development, of manifesting identity without dangers, freely and protected from threats. Surpassing the content offered by concrete situations such as the ones evoked by politics and international relations, philosophical determination of security highlights the requirement of capturing the elements that give consistency to an identity (its ontological aspect), through their homeostatic structure. In an in-depth understanding of what gives consistency to a social identity, one must evoke the system of values that expresses the ontic datum at a subjective level and submits it to an act of deliberation, enrolled in history. What was once the security of the person, in ancient times, does not have the same meaning in the subsequent periods, until today, because each person, generation or social group has looked at it from their own perspective. 4 Ken Booth, Theory of World Security, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 63-64.

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A. Wolfers is the one who pointed out the double valence of security: the absence of threats, as well as a psychological presence, related to a system of values (it is the gnoseological and psychological aspects of security that determine the subject to gain or lack the awareness of its own identity, as well as the one of the presence or absence of threats).5 To this one can add the elements of context pertaining to the relations between the subject of security and the object that threatens it, because in this framework, one is entitled to raise the question of the solidity of this relationship: is it causal, is it circumstantial, is it long-lasting, does it employ the sides of the subject or its essential components etc.? In this case, we are referring to the degrees of identity and the dimension of the threats that lurk beneath security, and also to the degrees of vulnerability of the subject. In fact, in the spirit of the realist doctrine, it is considered that certain relations of power receive an ideological expression which makes security become, to a large extent, relative to the general state of the relations in a society (local, national, European, global). This explains the fact that security becomes a political problem, and its philosophical foundation meets the way in which a subject understands to support it. And here, the discussion opens up to the real means which are available to a subject for safely manifesting his identity: a legal-institutional framework, a civil society and a consolidated morality, a set of ample and multiple relationships between people, i.e. a guarantee of security for all. We are currently witnessing what Monica Gariup names a reconceptualisation of security pursuits: a) a horizontal dimension through which the concept is expanded from the military component to the economic, environmental, of social one; b) a vertical dimension, by including some new levels of analysis (from the individual one to the local, regional, national, European, global one); c) a dense dimension, by enriching the methodology of analysis and by transforming security from a mere definition into a concept of great significance; d) a vector dimension, through which one may indicate the relativity of the relations of power encompassing the actors who are building security both as a concept and as a set of practices6. Hence, the tinting of security determination is expressed in the light of its complexity, highlighting the fact that the identity of a subject is assumed by him, but also by the environment in which he manifests himself, which leads to the idea that security must be correlated with subjective, cultural data of the social-political agent, and also with the perception that he generates in his own environment. On these coordinates, the subject can establish a security strategy in which he may take into consideration the preservation and affirmation of 5

A Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration, Baltimore: J. Hopkins University Press, 1962. 6 M. Gariup, European Security Culture, Burlington: Ashgate, 2009.

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his identity within a framework of dynamic relationships. The establishment of the elements that contribute to maintaining security (its so-called determinants) is made through an act of knowledge, and also through an act of choice, of selection of the ones which are considered to be important and of the ones which are deemed secondary.7 It is a choice based on a philosophical vision of the conditions of identification: if we refer to an individual, his security must be seen as a feature of his entire life, from birth to death, with everything that implies the management of material resources, education, building the social State, health, maintaining the active and creative character of his entire life. If we refer to a nation, its security means a set of internal and international conditions favourable to the manifestation of its own identity: a nonconvulsive historical evolution expressing a social capital highlighted in economic production, in ensuring the prosperity of its members, in the management without any waste of materials and human resources, in a set of values centred on the human being, on his personality, in a decision-making process, political in its essence, open to the needs of society, acting responsibly. Among the external determinants we may evoke: the international situation, the structure of international relations and the rules that govern them, the international institutions which assume the organisation of some components of the relationships, including the ones which are related to international security.8 Duffield considers that this framework of analysis was exploited by three theoretical directions. In his opinion, the first orientation is represented by realism, which considers that the role of external factors is decisive in determining the options of an actor because there lie the sources of the different types of threats. To the extent that each country pursues its own interests, in an anarchic state of international relations, security is permanently threatened, so that a race involving the available security resources would emerge, referring first of all to the military and political ones. The second orientation is inspired by liberalism and focuses on sustaining security by mobilizing one’s own resources, while finding some specific solutions to international defiance. In this case, a security strategy implies the internal mobilisation of the decision-making factors directly related to society. In the logic of things, if society bears the costs of security, it must also choose the objectives, the means and the possibilities involved so as to materialise its options.

7

Luciana Alexandra Ghica, Marian Zulean, Politica de securitate naĠională, Concepte, instituĠii, procese, Iaúi: Polirom, 2007, pp. 90-97. 8 J. S. Duffield, World Power Forsaken, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.

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The concept of governmentality, launched by Foucault, expresses precisely this (functional or dysfunctional) connection between an internal domestic order and the security decision-making factors.9 A third orientation, also supported by M. Gariup, considers that any decision referring to security belongs to the individual actor who, as a behavioural unit, makes decisions according to his own ideas, values and perceptions concerning the situation in which he lies. In other words, decisions on security have a cultural support. They have their foundation in the way of being of a people, which, according to Hegel, also has the ruling class it deserves, because the latter reflects its identity, its system of values, and ultimately its culture. It can be said that every human community has a culture of its own security, in the sense that it knows and it turns to profit, from the point of view of security, its own identification data, but it also has a specific way of relating to other communities, and, respectively, to international relations. From this angle, folk manifestations are expressive, most often in a humorous note, towards another people, with mutual attendance. It is the expression of the fact that no human community is pure from the ethnic angle, and so, meetings of this kind can highlight either adversity or common appreciations. And the experience of the modern era, which has emphasised the role of the nation and the state, shows that from the interethnic relations that have accumulated in time contradictory components, security fears can be born and strategies can be built, based on tension maintenance. A “culture” of intolerance can be institutionally propagated, passed on from generation to generation and converted into a foundation of the security scenario. Illustrative in this sense is the relationship between the Luxembourgers and the Belgians, the French and the Germans, or the Hungarians and the Romanians. This popular culture of security has also got components that relate to personal security (May God defend me from my friends, as I can defend myself from my enemies; tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are; don’t give away sparrow on the hand for the crow on the fence; Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow), which can express a philosophy of what it means to place the relations between people on a security scale on which mutual changes occur only if there is a matter of safety in terms of identity preservation. We should add the fact that to a large extent, in European culture, the Latin dictum “si vis pacem para bellum” was respected as the expression of preserving security which, in the spirit of political realism, required paying 9 M. Foucault, “Governmentality”, in G. Burchell, C. Gordon (eds.), The Foucauld Effect, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

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attention to those partners who are likely to cheat anytime. Thus, cultural tradition fixes security experiences accumulated by history, becoming a foundation of the specialised reflection to which it is attached. Let us not forget the fact that any political regime, regardless of its nature, resorts to history, mystifies it under the command of the ones who lead it, so as to legitimise itself amid great historical periods. Within socialisation processes there are symbols of collective identity, especially in the ones dealing with political socialisation, to which all members are required to adhere so that any attack directed towards them would be considered a threat to collective identity.10 Thus, the concept of security becomes ideological and transforms itself into the object of political disputes: through it different things can be understood from different ideological positions, so that its basic constructs would generally subsume to the political forces holding the reins of power. Hence, the importance we place on the quality of political life in a country: where the battle of ideas is given with knowledge tools of social realities, it operates on a historically consolidated scale of values and there is a culture of reasoned dialogue, the chances of establishing a univocal doctrine of security increase, an aspect which is available in any human group, large or small. A two-way relationship is born: the collective culture of security, with its historical degree, with daily feelings and behaviours, meets the specialised determination proposed by the elites. Hence, the idea of Der Derian, according to whom the concepts of security and culture are “sponges”, in the sense that they spread a variety of operational senses, but when approaching saturation they start having a logical and functional content.11 In this sense, culture is an identification factor in which it can be a framework for behaviour or a part of the structure of that behaviour. M. Gariup considers that in the first case, culture has a regulating role because the behaviour is not necessarily predictable and measurable; security is, in this case, conceived from distinct cultural positions, of the masses and the elite, but which can sometimes have significant convergences. In the second case, ideas and values are components of the behaviour and so, security will emanate from the way of being of an actor. There are many authors who insist on the role of language in the creation of a secondary spiritual universe, this being a basic component of the culture and so, a disseminator of senses, ideals and sources of community behaviour. But the most significant aspect of language is offered by its symbolic capacity, used to transform a reality either under the auspices of a correct image or 10

M. Edelman, Politica úi utilizarea simbolurilor, Iaúi: Polirom, 1999. J. Der Derian, “The Value of Security”, in R. Lipschutz (ed.), On Security, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, p. 31.

11

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those of a manipulative one. Therefore, the relationship between identity, culture and security discourse was plentifully analysed either in relation to concrete situations (exploited in art, literature, cinema), or in order to establish a theoretical model of secondary language grammar12, in which the relation between texts, between the latter and contexts, between all of the above and the system of values of a society proves the mobilising capacity of language. It establishes the attributes of threats, their direction and intensity, their degree of danger, and also the ones related to the subject’s ability to cope with them, being in interaction with the problems of society and assuming the role of politics provider, on the basis of which society mobilises itself. Gaffney wrote in 1999 about political discourse as being the verbal equivalent of political action, a form of expressing enthusiasm, positive mobilisation or hostility, or the desire for defence or attack. For him, discourse and action put together equal political practice.13

Figure 2-2 - The Reality-Action Path in Policy-Making14

Hence, we may extract the idea that the force of a discourse lies within its connectivity with the real problems of society or with what B. Buzan named 12

T. A. Van Dijk, “Discourse as Interaction in Society”, in T. A. Van Dijk (ed.), Discourse as Social Interaction, vol. 2, London: Sage Publ., 1997. 13 J. Gaffney, “The Discourse of Legitimacy”, in T. Banchoff (ed.), Legitimacy and the European Union, London: Routledge, 1999, p. 200. 14 See M. Gariup, op. cit., p. 63.

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the degree of acceptance by the audience and of foundation of a security policy.15 These considerations help us understand the way in which a vision of security was born at the European Union level, along with the way in which it can be put into practice, given that the Union is a peculiar actor on the global stage. The premise of our approach stems from the idea that within the European space, a specific culture was built by a millenary historical process, one that is structured on a set of values emanating from a unitary spirituality. At its core lies the result of the original winding of the three spiritual roots of Europe stemming from the Antiquity: the Greek, the Latin and the JudeoChristian, which propagated anthropocentrism, the trust in the force of reason, of truth, in the capacity of a society to organise and lead itself, in the plurality of creativity fields, in the supremacy of some values such as Good, Justice, Beauty, in a certain appreciation of space and time.16 The entire European construction was rendered possible precisely on the basis of this set of common values, of a type of spirituality endowed with a clear identity, so, naturally, they found their materialisation in the purposes, institutions, norms and policies that were put into practice. It is known that the first institution of this construction, the ECSC, was born form the need expressed by a number of European states to unite their economic efforts in some areas which ensure development, namely the coal and steel industries, in order to restore production and ensure the prosperity of their people. It was a solution to the great problems of the six founding countries which, at that historic moment, was favoured by the solidarity culture of the time, in other words what could be the materialisation of a spirit of confidence in the ability to secure human condition by satisfying the human need for life. The idea had always been present in European culture, as illustrated across the centuries by the ambition of the King of France, François I, to govern in a way that would enable each French citizen to have every Sunday a chicken in the pot. This objective could not be converted into politics because the public opinion was not prepared for a formula advocating the unification of the political actions of each partner. Although Jean Monnet proposed the creation of a European Defence Community, the project was rejected in 1953. A year later, the project aiming to create a European Political Community was also rejected. European security was marked by two basic ideas: the main threat to security was, for Western Europe, the Communist world, an aspect which was translated into a culture of solidarity and into a proper ideology, and then the idea that Western security could only be maintained through transatlantic 15

B. Buzan, Popoarele, Statele úi teama, Chiúinău: Cartier, 2000, p. 25. See Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan, RefecĠii despre Europa unită, Cluj-Napoca: EIKON, 2011. 16

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solidarity, materialised by NATO, with rapid reactive military structures and American nuclear protection. On a broader scale, international security was promoted by the UN, in its turn marked by the presence of the two politicomilitary and ideological blocks and of a so-called third world in which development trends were inevitably related to one of the blocks. In this context, the problem of security was related to what may be called “high politics”, according to which the state is responsible for the security of a community because it is necessarily invested with the attributes of independence and security, which it defends, first of all, with military instruments. The latter part of the 20th century proved that the attributes of security of a state could be threatened from both outside and inside, in which case guns were rendered useless. Political, economic, social, religious, cultural and national crises require intelligent solutions which can be obtained by “horizontal policies”. As we have underlined on another occasion, the problem of security is becoming multidimensional, engaging “horizontally” all the components of the life of a society, and “vertically” all organisational structures, from their individualised, personalised foundation, to the “international” level, from the deep level of personal security to the high one, of international politics. The security of an actor is achieved through the security of all its partners.17 As a component of the European philosophy of security, this idea has generated the belief that if the union of Europeans at economic-financial, cultural and military levels becomes steady, if relationships between European societies multiply, and the structures in which people are included become more profound, if a European civil society is born and develops, then the Union will manifest itself as a stability, peace and democracy factor, and so it will become a security community.18 Once more, we should highlight the fact that the multiple interdependences cannot develop merely on the basis of a common culture, of a fundamental system of values that all Europeans must share. This is the reason why when the Treaty on European Union of Maastricht was adopted, with its famous pillar structure, one of those pillars was attributed to the Foreign and Security Policy and its objectives were: the safeguard of the Union’s common values, fundamental interests and independence; maintaining peace and international security; the promotion of cooperation; the development of democracy and the rule of law; the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; the inclusion of all actions related to the Union’s security into an integrative vision. What is important is the principle, present in the documents of the Union, according to which each state supports the 17

Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan, ConstrucĠia europeană, Oradea: Oradea University Publishing House, 2000, pp. 75-188. 18 M. Dillon, Politics of Security: Towards a Political Philosophy of Continental Thought, London: Routledge, 1996.

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Union’s policy, in a spirit of mutual loyalty and solidarity, thus abstaining from any action which may be contrary to the interests of the latter. As it can be noticed, it all boils down to perceiving European security in relation to a series of fundamental values of the European spirit, so that its defence would become, first of all, a quality of the relationship between people and European States. Only then is it a politico-military issue. Maybe this is why the foreign and security policy has not had any decisive practical effects, being deprived of the military material and human means meant to support it. The ambition of transforming it into a policy in which common defence would be included (especially after the spread of terrorism over the last years) has not even found a coherent manner of conceptualisation, let alone material forms of achievement. In exchange, the Union has opted to become a security agent on the international stage, assuming a series of initiatives which also have their roots in its cultural background, in the fundamental orientations of its axiology. Through the Lisbon Treaty, the political dimension of the Union was furthered, the integration of some states that had evaded socialism was validated and so, new themes pertaining to European security were asserted. The structures and the concepts which founded a union of states in Western Europe were remodelled in order for them to adapt to the new realities, thus creating a space for which the security motto became: “to common problems, common solutions”.19 What is significant in this context is the fact that, by giving up the pillar structure of the Union, it was able to identify itself as an area of freedom, security and justice, which means that the security idea relies on a cultural concept par excellence. From this moment on, we can make the distinction between the internal space of the Union, where security problems are related to the entire human condition, to its identity at European level expressed in terms of life, labour, environment, safety etc., and the external level, at which the Union proposes a foreign defence policy. Assuming a geopolitical role, as a unitary actor on the European stage, the Union maintains the cultural dimension at the basis for its philosophy, proving to be a promoter of the values which fostered its existence. The clearest proof of this vision is provided by the European Neighbourhood Policy, conceived as an ensemble of politics oriented towards the Union’s neighbouring countries which will not be part of the Union, but to which the Union offers a privileged relationship meant to cultivate common European values (democracy and human rights, the rule of law, good 19 Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan, Geopolitica în actualitate, Cluj- Napoca: EIKON, 2009, pp. 226-254.

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governance, the principles of a market economy and sustainable development). The most relevant cultural aspect is related to the fact that through the European Neighbourhood Policy, one aims to bring neighbours closer to the Union’s values, to place the life of the people in these states under the auspices of a type of spirituality which is close to the one of Europeans. This proves the fact that the European Union, promoting the relationship between security and the world of values, is faithful to its own spirituality and, at the same time, is based on a long term project.

Bibliography Booth, Ken (2007), Theory of World Security, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buzan, B. (2000), Popoarele, Statele úi teama, Chiúinău: Cartier. Derian, J. Der (1995), “The Value of Security”, in R. Lipschutz (ed.), On Security, New York: Columbia University Press. Dillon, M. (1996), Politics of Security: Towards a Political Philosophy of Continental Thought, London: Routledge. Dijk, Teun A. Van (1997), “Discourse as Interaction in Society”, in T. A. Van Dijk (ed.), Discourse as Social Interaction, vol. 2, London: Sage Publ. Duffield, J. S. (1998), World Power Forsaken, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Edelman, M. (1999), Politica úi utilizarea simbolurilor, Iaúi: Polirom. Foucault, M. (1995), “Governmentality” in G. Burchell, C. Gordon (eds.), The Foucauld Effect, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gaffney, J. (1999), “The Discourse of Legitimacy”, in T. Banchoff (ed.), Legitimacy and the European Union, London: Routledge. Gariup, Monica (2009), European Security Culture, Burlington: Ashgate. Ghica, Luciana Alexandra, Zulean, Marian (2007), Politica de securitate naĠională, Concepte, instituĠii, procese, Iaúi: Polirom. Liem, Khoen, Hiller, Daniel, Castex, Christoph (2011), “A European Perspective on Security Research”, in Klaus Thoma (ed.), European Perspectives on Security Research, Berlin: Springer. Ricker, Pernille (2006), Europeanization of national security identity, London: Routledge. C. L. Cooper (ed.) (2006), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management, vol. VI, International Management, Oxford: Blackwell Publ. Watanabe, Lisa (2010), Security Europe, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Wolfers, A. (1962), Discord and Collaboration, Baltimore: J. Hopkins University Press.

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ZăpârĠan, Liviu-Petru (2000), ConstrucĠia europeană, Oradea: Oradea University Publishing House. —. (2001), RelaĠiile internaĠionale, Cluj- Napoca: Studia. —. (2009), Geopolitica în actualitate, Cluj-Napoca: EIKON. —. (2011), ReflecĠii despre Europa unită, Cluj-Napoca: EIKON.

“IN THE GUARDIAN WE TRUST!” NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE 2012 FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IOANA-CRISTINA HRIğCU AND SERGIU MIùCOIU Abstract Because of the overwhelming salience of the domestic topics throughout the presidential elections of the French Fifth Republic – such as growth, unemployment, education or social help – security has generally been considered a secondary topic. Nevertheless, recent researches show that in combination with other themes (and especially with immigration and identity), security has been significantly relevant for several categories of voters in their effort to decide who to elect. In this article, by using the methodology of discourse theory, we will try to investigate the ways in which the topic of national security impacted on the decision-making processes of voters during the most recent presidential elections in France (2012).

Keywords Key-words: security, elections, discourses, immigration, identity The presence of crescent-and pentagram-bearing flags in the Place de la Bastille on 6 May 2012–the night when the results of the French presidential elections were announced–exceeded the ingenuous elation of voters celebrating the victory of their favourite candidate. If the hoisted flags were, in the eyes of François Hollande’s (Socialist Party/PS) supporters1, a manifestation of a diversity finally able to freely express itself and, what is 1

See, for instance, the interview with Manuel Valls (PS) on Europe 1 [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqnazq_valls-merci-a-francois-hollande_news], 14 September 2013.

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more, of the pride of being French despite different backgrounds, the burned vehicles, the veiled women in the streets and the children caring foreign flags seemed, at least at first glance, to support the opinion of Nicolas Sarkozy’s (Union for a Popular Movement/UMP) partisans2, who perceived the events as the beginning of the communitisation of the French society and the weakening of the Republic under a President often nicknamed “Flanby”3. The proposal to grant non-EU foreigners the right to vote and to run in municipal elections–which probably triggered the events of 6 May–is not new and François Hollande is not the first Socialist candidate to win the elections despite putting forward such an idea: Mitterrand also made this promise during the 1981 presidential campaign. If this proposal is unlikely to pose serious threats to the integrity of the Republic4 or, as a matter of fact, to actually get to be implemented5, Nicolas Sarkozy’s opposition to it during the presidential campaign reflected a more general effort of maintaining the focus of the debate on security-related issues, whereas the reaction of the UMP partisans on the 6th May was perceived as a strategy designed to ensure them a head start in the legislative elections6. By using the methodology of discourse theory, we will try to investigate the ways in which this argument and, more generally, the association between issues such as immigration, identity, financial and economic crisis, welfare, delinquency or education and the larger topic of national security were reflected in the discourses and campaign strategies of the two run-off election candidates and impacted on the voters’ decision-making processes. To this end, we will first shortly present the theoretical and methodological framework of discourse theory. Then, we will apply some of its main methodological tools to explore the main positions adopted by the two 2

See, for instance, the reactions of Nadine Morano (UMP) on Europe 1 [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqn9sj_morano-pas-un-blanc-seing-a-lagauche_news], 14 September 2013. 3 Flanby is a trademark of French caramel custard. Arnaud Montebourg (a member of the Socialist Party!) was the first to suggestively associate this wobbly yet selfcorrecting desert with François Hollande, with the purpose of mocking his hesitations and lack of firmness. For Hollande’s (many) other nicknames see [http://www.lepoint.fr/politique/de-flanby-a-pepere-tous-les-surnoms-d-hollande-1004-2013-1653042_20.php], 24 September 2013. 4 Non-EU foreigners would only be eligible for the position of councillor, not being able to run for mayor or for the Senate. 5 [http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2012/09/17/le-droit-de-vote-des-etrangers-larlesienne-de-la-gauche-au-pouvoir_1761170_823448.html], 18 September 2013. 6 [http://leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/547501-nadine-morano-les-drapeauxetrangers-place-de-la-bastille-et-la-menace-rouge.html],18 September 2013.

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candidates on national security. Finally, we will concentrate on weighing the impact of national security on the voters’ decisions and, consequently, on the 2012 elections outcome.

Methodological Framework: Guiding Principles of Discourse Theory The convulsions that occurred in the scientific community in the seventies allowed the emergence of the postmodern and poststructuralist approaches. Discourse theory belongs to the family of these alternative approaches, in the sense that it contributed, in successive stages, to the dismantlement of the great convictions upheld by the previous scientific paradigm. While the starting point of discourse theory was the work of Michel Foucault7 and Jacques Derrida8, it is generally acknowledged that there are three generations of this school of thought. The first two generations were rather tributary to the previous paradigms and concentrated on the linguistic, semantic and vaguely ideological aspects of discourse.9 By contrast, prompted by the weakening of the classical ideologies after the end of the Cold War, the approach of the third generation has been intimately related with the political phenomenon. Two of the most salient representatives of this generation, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe10,have concentrated on the study of the discursive representation of power relations, more specifically on the constitution, confrontation, destruction and restructuring of the dominant networks of power through the dynamics of discursive placements, displacements and replacements. Grosso modo, discourse theory is based on an anti-essentialist ontology and anti-foundationalist epistemology.11 In the first place, the adepts of 7 For a synthesis of Foucault’s view on discourse, see Michel Foucault, “L’Ordre du Discours” in Michel Foucault, Philosophie. Anthologie, (Anthologie établie et présentée par Arnold I. Davidson et Frédéric Gros), Paris: Gallimard, 1999, pp. 61-79. 8 Jacques Derrida, L’écriture et la différence, Paris: Seuil, 1967, especially the chapter « L’écriture, le signe et le jeu dans le discours des sciences humaines », pp. 409-428. 9 Norman Fairclough, the founder of Critical Discourse Analysis, is one of the most salient representatives of the second generation. His main concern was related to the ideological framework of discursively inscribed social actions and representations. See Norman Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis, London, Longman: 1995. 10 See, especially, Ernesto Laclau, Grammaire de l’émancipation, Paris: La Découverte, 2000 and Chantal Mouffe (ed.), Deconstruction and Pragmatism, New York: Routledge, 1996. 11 See David Howarth, Jacob Torfing (ed.), Discourse Theory in European Politics. Identity, Policy and Governance, Palgrave: Macmillan, 2005, p. 13.

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discourse theory consider that there is no pre-existing and self-determining essence of the world. Religion, capitalism, class struggle, rationality or, more recently, the global warming theory are as many false essences that pretend to offer a final explanation of mankind’s destiny. Following Foucault and Lyotard, the discourse theorists consider that any efforts deployed to achieve a unique and final representation of the world are driven by the desire to establish a political hegemony. The purpose of discourse theory is to search for the deepest consequences of the absence of a Centre capable of structuring and managing the world. Secondly, the epistemology of discourse theory is rather relativist. Its starting point seems to be Richard Rorty’s idea according to which the existence of reality does not guarantee the existence of truth.12 Truth seems to be conditioned by a truth regime, which, as Foucault put it, is co-extensive with power itself. The claim of an absolute truth has to be abandoned once and for all. Discourse theorists show that truth is elastic and ephemeral and depends on the truth regime that holds the rules for assessing the truth claim of a certain sentence. That is why we cannot have the necessary means to declare that a statement is true per se, but we can only have the possibility to measure its alleged truth consistency in relation to a certain context and to our own perception of the outer world. For discourse theorists, the application of these two premises necessarily results into a polymorphous system of relations, within which the identities of the actors are always established via interaction. Thus, identity construction through discursively analysable social interactions becomes the essential object of discourse theorists. The central idea of discourse theory is that identity is constituted by the subject’s self-determination in relation to its non-identities, or, in other words, to the identities of the others. This operation is quasi-discursive, meaning that we produce (and we consciously or unconsciously reproduce) descriptions and analyses which allow us to identify ourselves in relation to the outer world. This way, discourse is both the creator and the alterator of identity, as, through the mechanisms of representation, it invisibly and temporarily establishes the social positions and places occupied by individuals and groups. The domain of politics is the first to be concerned by this discursive constraint, as its way of functioning is based on the permanent negotiation of the principles of government.

12

See Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Cambridge: University Press, 1989.

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According to Jacob Torfing13, the approach of discourse theory may be synthesised in five key-points. 1. The first point is that social practices take place in an environment dominated by specific discourses that have their own historical background. What it is said today bears the burden of what was said yesterday and determines what will be said tomorrow. The evolution from one dominant discourse to another takes place through the liberation of signifiers; as they become free, these signifiers are to be chained in a series of new logical continuums. In this context, some of the free signifiers become nodal points, gathering the various representations of reality into a coherent ensemble, but bearing the legacy of their prior meaning and configurations. 2. The second point of discourse theory holds that discourse is constituted via hegemonic struggles for imposing a political leadership and for articulating the meaning and the identities thereof. Hegemonic combats are far from taking place in neutral, conscious and isolated battlefields. Rather they are the results of an everlasting series of sequential and chaotic efforts. The success of these efforts depends of the individuals’ propensity to opt for those identity yardsticks that are sufficiently strong to maintain and reinforce some articulations of meaning and, above all, the temporarily dominant articulation. Discourse theory posits that the articulations that succeed in offering a believable reading key for the interpretation of major events become hegemonic. For creating and maintaining such articulations, we use ideological totalisation, a process through which discourse is structured in several nodal points. 3. Thirdly, discourse theory explains that hegemonic articulations of meanings and identities are based on the emergence of social antagonisms. All the doctrines based on ideological totalisation assume the idea of the existence of the Other, as a yardstick for structuring the identity and the principles of the inner group. Thus, alteration (or, in other words, the invention of the Other) entails, by itself, the identification of a non-Us, which, in the context of social and political competition, becomes an adversary whose nature and dimensions are representable through discourse. In order to give a sense to our own identity, the Otheris excluded and, through social antagonism, confronted. His identity structures our identity but at the same time opens the way for the dismantlement of Our-selves, as it offers an alternative to our identity. The determination of what is contained and what is not contained in our identity becomes, in this way, essential for our perspective on the world and 13

Jacob Torfing, “Discourse Theory: Achievements, Arguments, and Challenges” in David Howarth, Jacob Torfing (ed.), Discourse Theory in European Politics. Identity, Policy and Governance, Palgrave: Macmillan, 2005, pp. 14-17.

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for our manner of perceiving the political. This determination becomes understandable through the imaginary construction of political frontiers, which are barely or not at all trans-passable in the case of extremist and radical collective identities. 4. The fourth assertion of discourse theory regards the dismantlement of the discursive orders. A discursive system becomes dislocated when it unsuccessfully tries to bring credible explanations to the new developments that happen in the actual world. Dislocation takes place under the “destructive” action of the other discursive systems which aspire to hegemony, by attempting to capture the signifiers freed by the formerly dominant and currently agonising system. The apprehension of a set of publicly vocal free signifiers and their coherent ideological totalisation give a certain discursive system decisive chances to win over the others. 5. Finally, discourse theory holds that the dislocation of a certain discursive horizon is strongly connected with the emergence of the split subject. As a consequence of the subject’s failure to achieve a fully integrated identity, he or she is always in a process of searching for an identification that offers the illusion of complete integration. Politics is a field where the promises concerning the realisation of a common welfare may be widely understood as a perspective for acquiring a full identity. According to Slavoj Žižek, the failure of the final identification generates the dramatisation of the search for identity.14 It may lead to a choice in favour of some of the most radical discourses, which promise the immediate achievement of a full identity. But as these radical discursive systems fail, in their turn, to accomplish this promise, they feed the dislocation of responsibility: the Others are always responsible for the failure of achieving a full identity. This way, the perpetual creation and recreation of discourses in which those excluded from the inner group are guilty for the absence of a fully integrated identity become indispensable. Further on, we will use the principles of discourse theory described above in order to build an analytical map of the 2012 presidential elections: this approach will enable us to identify and compare the significance and relevance of “national security” within the discursive strategies of the two main candidates.

14 See Slavoj Žižek, “Invisible Ideology: Political Violence Between Fiction and Fantasy” in Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol. 1, Issue 1, February 1996, pp. 16-18.

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The 2012 French Presidential Elections: Identity and Strategy Construction. The Place of Security in the Discourse of the Two Candidates Presidential elections, a vital democratic process during which political actors implement well-defined strategies to reach hegemony, are the perfect time to observe the construction, interaction and dismantlement of identities and discursive orders. A deeper understanding of the mechanical factors taken into account during the 2012 presidential campaign is required in order to fully grasp these processes. One of these factors was the spectrum of 21 April (2002), the day on which Jean-Marie Le Pen, President of the Front National, managed to overcome Lionel Jospin, the Socialist candidate, by two hundred thousand votes, thus becoming the first far-rightwing candidate to ever make it to the run-off election in the history of the 5th Republic. In 2012, 21April continued to haunt the French political landscape by posing, this time, a bigger threat for the right-wing candidate. Facing the risk of a reversed 21April and the anger of the Front National, determined to avenge the defeat suffered in 2007, for which he was considered to be the main culprit, Nicolas Sarkozy had to rise to the very difficult challenge of limiting the reach of Marine Le Pen during the first round of the elections and wooing the FN voters to win the run-off, a strategy which would not pay off like it did in 200715. This partly explains the radicalisation of Sarkozy’s discourse concerning immigration, identity and national security. Another less obvious cause for this radicalisation had to do with his high unpopularity, triggered not only by his excesses16, but also by his failure to keep the promises made during the 2007 presidential campaign: the record high unemployment rate, the worsening of the public debt and the tax increases could not be fully justified by the economic and financial crisis. In an attempt to divert attention from his disputable record, Nicolas Sarkozy thus chose to transform security into a central theme of his campaign. The two factors described hereinbefore explain the distancing of the UMP candidate from the centrist axis and his more and more obvious shift towards the far-rightwing. This tendency, coupled with the absence of a threatening 15 According to IPSOS [opinion polling institute], the percentage of FN voters to choose Sarkozy during the run-off election of 2012 was 12 points lower than in 2007. [http://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/election-presidentielle-2012/qui-a-vote-hollande-et-quis-est-detourne-de-sarkozy_293527.html] September 24, 2013. 16 The celebration of his 2007 victory at Fouquet’s (a famous high-end restaurant on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées) marked the beginning of five years that went down in history as the bling-bling presidency.

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centrist candidate, greatly comforted by surveys and by the legitimation of François Hollande through the open socialist elections, enabled the PS candidate to opt for a rather moderate policy, more genuine within the leftwing matrix, hence inscribing the run-off election candidates in the classical one-on-one confrontation logic. Although this article focuses on the investigation of the way in which security and security-related topics were reflected in the discourse of Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande and contributed to the construction of their identity and legitimacy, outlining the main features of the two referential strategies is essential to better understand the positioning of the two candidates. To this end, we will analyse three speeches using the previously described methodological framework of discourse theory: the first and last speech of the presidential campaign and one of the most representative speeches delivered during the same campaign17.

17 The first speech of any presidential campaign is crucial because it announces the positioning of the candidates and the main features of their political program, whereas the last speech is a final opportunity for candidates to prove their legitimacy in front of the citizens. An analysis of the two allows us to assess the evolution of the candidates’ stances throughout the electoral campaign. The choice of a representative speech is motivated by the will to highlight a relevant change in the strategy of the candidates.

- incoherent - imitation of Thatcher, Mitterrand or myself - weak/cowards/play safe/ helplessness/immobilism - illusion sellers - want to lead the French to believe that their fears are not real

- coherent

- true to myself

- bold / courageous/ risk-taking / acting

- realistic

- fears are well-founded

- truthful

Nicolas Sarkozy Marseille (19.02.2012)1/ Nantes (27.03.2012)2/ Toulon (03.05.2012)3 WE/I THEM - liars

2

- supported by the left and Europe - can restore the French dream, embody hope

- can lead France to victory

- govern by fear to maintain grip on power

- incapable of bringing credible solutions; - isolated - pessimism, failure

François Hollande Bourget (22.01.2012)4/ Bercy (29.04.2012)5/ Toulouse (03.05.2012)6 I/WE THEM - embody change, alternation - continuity required, the = opportunity left-wing would bring chaos - coherent - incoherent, zigzag presidency - simple, normal man close to - love money and luxury, the people, aware of their responsible for the difficulties degradation of the country

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[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrYUkXdU89Y], 22 September 2013. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct_kUa9mSc0], 31 August 2013. 3 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5TgjTsRHhM], 22 September 2013. 4 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up62HaC6cFI], 23 August 2013. 5 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hY93vKlsD0], 22 September 2013. 6 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j092z0h2Cc], 22 September 2013.

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R E F E R E N T I A L

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S T R A T E G I E S

- thoughtless - PRESIDE

- submitted to unions - defend partisan interests - advocate the return to the 4th Republic

- want to erase frontiers, so they do not understand social malaise -supporters of communitarianism, sectarians ready to compromise on Republican values; laxity on legal immigration

- responsible;

- GOVERN

- free of any influence

- protect and respect general interest

- protect the 5th Republic

- want to set safe, protected and delimitated frontiers, not Ligne Maginot

- the Republic and the French people are indivisible, NO compromise on Republican values must be made

- want to gather, bring together all offspring of the Republic without impinging on the Republican values

- need a boundary between general and private interests, between money and politics, between Republican values and those questioning these values - need a boundary to reject injustice

- ensure the independence of justice

- defend general interest

- respect the prerogatives of the PM/Parliament, involve social partners

- serve the people

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- use anger and distress to question the Republic, the European construction and human rights

- stimulate stigmatisation, division, suspicion, clashes among the French

- the right-wing contributed to the erasure of frontiers by supporting market liberalisation and globalisation

- favour friends and the rich and abandon the people - use justice for personal purposes

- grip on power

- manipulate the people

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- the seriousness of the crisis is proportional with their errors (division of labour, contestation of authority, dilution of responsibility, support of impunity); incapable of saying NO to the demands of the various actors - believe that enough is done to protect the French; for 10 years they have been refusing all reforms

- drastic measures were needed to correct their errors; the beneficial effects of the reforms were unperceivable because of the crisis

- fight crime, terrorism, improve justice, reduce delinquency

- opposed to our reforms, they support recession, not growth; they spend money they don’t have

- laws will be respected and implemented; reforms are required

- structural reforms to undo the harm are required; the left-wing has always been capable of re-establishing growth and reducing deficits - the crisis caused insecurity and social injustice, which affected the poor, the elderly, the young and the most vulnerable, to whom the leftwing will do justice

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- undertook reforms thanks to which France made it through the crisis

Table 2-3 Referential strategies

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- their excesses aggravated the crisis

- the right-wing took apart, in 10 years, everything we had built;

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We note two distinctive features of François Hollande’s discourse. The first has to do with the importance of the place held by the referential strategy in his speeches. The socialist candidate claimed to embody “change”, a signifier which could no longer be used by Nicolas Sarkozy, given his failure to incarnate the “rupture” promised in 2007 and his preaching of “continuity” during the 2012 campaign. Hollande integrated this important signifier into a new discursive logic and transformed it into a nodal point, thus allowing the identification of various socio-economic claims with his identity. Since he incarnated change, he constantly needed to refer to his opponent and to dismantle his identity by creating a series of antagonisms which targeted him, his record and the right-wing ideology. Nonetheless, the weight of the referential strategy may also reveal a less obvious intention, i.e. of staying away as much as possible from the security-related topics, considered to be the field of expertise of Sarkozy and Le Pen. His strategy was, in fact, very cunning, because he turned this disadvantage into an advantage by accusing Sarkozy of excessively approaching these topics to find scapegoats and avoid admitting to the French that his own excesses and bad decisions had led to his failure. This is not completely untrue, as Sarkozy outdid, using rhetorical amplifications, the consequences of the crisis, of globalisation, of delocalisation, of all sorts of dumping, of financial deregulation and of a borderless Europe exposed to exterior threats, such as unfair competition or uncontrolled immigration1. The radicalisation of his speech reflected the behaviour of a split subject, adopting somewhat anti-materialistic, nationalist and borderline racist positions to achieve a fully integrated identity. By contrast, Hollande’s speech was more grounded, offering concrete solutions to the day-to-day social and economic problems which concerned citizens the most. This is the second important feature of Hollande’s discourse and, as shown above, it greatly contributed to his legitimisation before the citizens. We will now try to identify the place of security in the discourse of the two candidates and its intertwining with other related topics:

1

See his speech in Toulouse [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTx6NHKZOWQ], 31 August 2013.

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National Security in the 2012 French Presidential Elections Nicolas Sarkozy SECURITY–IMMIGRATION–WELFARE SYSTEM–UNEMPLOYMENT

Marseille (19.02.2012) - Sarkozy: an integrated immigrant who loves France; - The Nation is the only rampart of the French; it must be seen as a whole; - refusal to approach immigration on an ideological basis alone; - uncontrolled immigration leads to the suffering of the most vulnerable; UNEMPLOYMENT + UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION = collapse of the social welfare system and social pact; - massive regularisation is a mistake, the French nationality cannot be reduced to an address; - selective immigration is a need; - granting voting rights to immigrants = pressure on elected representatives.

Nantes (27.03.2012) - uncontrolled immigration adds difficulties and explains the malfunction of the legal, educational and social welfare systems; - 10 years on French soil required to receive the minimum old-age pension and 10 years out of which 5 should be spent working to receive welfare benefits; - immigration flows must take into account France’s integration and assimilation capacity; - need to set BOUNDARIES to PROTECT civilisation, identity and values: France has the right to choose whom it wants to receive on its territory and according to which criteria; - in the absence of satisfactory measures at European level, the Schengen agreement will be suspended; - differences are enriching if they respect our values and lifestyle; - preaching terrorism must be banned in France; -knowing French contributes to women’s emancipation and integration; -French language test required BEFORE entering the country.

Toulon (03.05.2012) - the sovereignty of the Republic and of the people must be preserved; - there are integrated immigrants, offspring of the Republic; defended Muslims on the occasion of the Montauban and Toulouse tragedies; - the repatriated and victims of genocides must be supported; - France acknowledges its mistakes in Algeria; - France is open and welcoming if its values are respected; immigrants cannot impose exterior values or ways of life; - must reduce immigration flows because France’s integration and assimilation system no longer works; - France must be strong and resist dissolution in the mosaic of tribes and minority interests; - cannot tolerate laxity, there are rights and responsibilities; - state handouts must not burden honest, hardworking Frenchmen.

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Bourget (22.01.2012) -presiding over the Republic means protecting the State, its neutrality, its integrity against communitarianism; - will to GATHER, BRING TOGETHER, UNITE all offspring of the Republic who, despite a different background, belong to the same Nation, share the same values, principles, culture, language, institutions and aspire to the same future; - the French dream = melting pot; diversity; - preserve cultural diversity without impinging on the Republican values; - treat legal immigrants with dignity and use objective criteria to analyse the admissibility of immigration requests; - democracy is stronger than religions or beliefs, so equal rights and obligations are required; - the right of immigrants to vote during the municipal elections will not affect citizenship or state cohesion; - firmness against illegal immigration; - free movement of foreign students, scientists, artists must be ensured; - an end must be put to social secession; however, equality is not egalitarianism;

François Hollande Bercy (29.04.2012) - security is a fundamental right; - will to GATHER around the Republican values, national independence and refusal of alignment; - the French citizens are equal, irrespective of their colour, origin or social status; it is belonging, not appearance that matters; - there are no true and false French citizens; - France is not built on the fear of the other, on isolation; - BREAKS, FRACTURES = DANGER; - religions must not be used as an argument in the public debate, because it would mean that religion interferes with politics; - religions must freely express themselves within the framework set by secularism, which must be scrupulously abided by; - the right to vote for foreigners is applied in more than half of the European countries; it will not submit the Republic to religion; it will not impinge on secularism; - it has rather to do with the integration and respect of those who pay taxes in France. Citizens should have the same rights and duties (including the respect of public places, the freedom of worship, gender equality and dignity). - must go beyond boundaries, not install new ones;

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Toulouse (03.05.2012) - refusal to place immigration, foreigners at the centre of the campaign, because they are not a true threat to the French; - immigrants are not reduced to Muslims and do not promote communitarianism; grating them the right to vote will not pose any threat; secularism will be preserved; - there are not true and false French citizens; - will to gather, not to divide; - immigrants suffer from job or housing discriminations; - need to gather, reconcile, unite free citizens with different backgrounds, with a certain idea of the humanist values;

Table 2-4 Intertwining of Security with Immigration, Welfare and Unemployment

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The speeches primarily prove the connection between the topic of immigration and the wider subject of security. The stances of the two candidates are rather clear. Hollande had a moderate discourse, in line with the left-wing ideology. He advocated that solidarity and equality were possible with the rigorous respect of the Republican values. For the Socialist candidate, security was to be ensured by gathering, not by dividing, any fracture within the French society being a danger. His discourse was structured around “GATHERING”, a strong signifier which transformed itself into a nodal point, Hollande thus bringing together not only the immigrants and the Frenchmen, but also the various actors of the left-wing, the voters of the right and those of the left, the rich and the poor, the elderly and the young. Nevertheless, towards the end of the campaign, one could have noticed a tendency to make firmer statements concerning the need to preserve the French values and lifestyle and to cut illegal immigration, especially during the presidential debate1. This new firmness could be explained by his will to prove that, far from having an angelic view on the matter, he was capable of defending the integrity and identity of the Republic. The incumbent President’s strategy was consistent with his 2007 campaign, but firmer. His speech in Nantes marked a new stage in the radicalisation of his position on immigration and security, by the introduction of a strong signifier: “BOUNDARY”. This signifier became a nodal point which summed up Sarkozy’s position: a boundary needed to be drawn between illegal immigrants and Frenchmen, between state handout-seekers and hardworking Frenchmen. “Boundary” structured the ideas of the candidate not only at national, but also at international level, its purpose being that of insulating France from financial drifts, the levelling impact of globalisation, uncontrollable immigration, unfair competition etc. Sarkozy’s threats to hinder the proper functioning of the European Union by applying unilateral measures2 were thus unsurprising. He also used Freudian denegation3 to advocate a return to national sovereignty. Despite these blunt proposals, Sarkozy maintained that no linkage existed between his stance and that of the Front National, highlighting that integrated differences were useful to society and that far from preaching hatred, he

1

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhv1VVCRrJY], 31 August 2013. Sarkozy threatened with the suspension of the Schengen agreement and with the adoption of unilateral fiscal measures. 3 In psychoanalytic language, denegation is the expression of a repressed wish under the form of refusal. See Eric Hazan, LQR La propaganda du quotidien, Éditions Raisons d’agir, Paris, 2006, p. 44. 2

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defended openness4.It must be said that he was opposed in the renegotiation of the European Stability and Growth Pact–mainly adopted due to the efforts of the Franco-German couple, still deemed relevant–which highlighted the need to continue the implementation of austerity measures, thus supporting his viewpoint at national level. Hollande maintained his commitment to Europe (although some requests, like the targeting of growth and employment by a reviewed European Stability and Growth Pact, were made). He also claimed that although austerity measures were undoubtedly required, alternative ways to stimulate growth needed to be identified, to simultaneously revive confidence and the French dream. At international level, both candidates acknowledged the role of the French nation in spreading democracy and fighting terrorism. Sarkozy proclaimed the superiority of France’s civilisation, whereas Hollande refused to rank civilisations. Still, both candidates underlined the importance granted by other international actors to the French nation and the need to promote the Republican humanist values all over the world. They also agreed that measures were to be taken immediately to protect the French nation against the harmful effects of globalisation and economic and financial drifts. Indeed, economic and financial security was a major goal for both candidates, being intertwined with topics such as crisis, globalisation, delocalisation, unemployment, delinquency or education. If the economic and financial measures put forward to protect France at international level were rather convergent, the two approaches largely differed at national level. Indeed, despite the community of signifiers such as “work”, “justice”, “responsibility” or “merit”, the two discursive logics were motivated by entirely different truth regimes, as illustrated by the referential strategies detailed above. While constantly referring to his contender’s record, Hollande identified the stake of the elections in a more realistic way and suggested concrete measures to put an end to the imbalances and excesses he had caused, promising to ensure stability and stimulate growth. Solidarity, unity, redistribution, generation contract, investments in education, training and research, fiscal, financial and housing reforms were just some of the measures put forward by the Socialist candidate in order to attain his goal5. Unlike his contender, the incumbent President chose to focus on the past rather than on the future. Assuming the role of an omniscient and omnipotent saviour, he explained that despite the fact that he had not kept his campaign 4

See his speech in Nantes, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct_kUa9mSc0], 31August 2013. 5 See, for instance, his speech in Bourget, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up62HaC6cFI], 25 September 2013.

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promises, he had managed to avoid the worst by having the courage to make tough decisions when required. He justified his bad record by the gravity of the crisis and the endless mistakes made by his left-wing predecessors. His referential strategy also focused on the comparison with other European countries, such as Greece, Italy, Spain or Portugal, where the scope of the economic and financial crisis was explained by the cowardice and incompetency of the left-wing elites. Each of his speeches highlighted his role as the protector of the people. For him, the only way to overcome the crisis was by hard work, effort, responsibility and tough measures, as illustrated below:

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Nicolas Sarkozy SECURITY–ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRISIS–GLOBALISATIONDELOCALISATION Marseille (19.02.2012) Nantes (27.03.2012) Toulon (03.05.2012) ECONOMIC AND ECONOMIC AND ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRISIS FINANCIAL CRISIS FINANCIAL CRISIS - a weak France cannot - the French society was - telling the truth about the protect the French; shaken by repeated crises; economic and financial crisis - hiding the - France withstood the crisis; was a DUTY; it was the DUTY of the Head consequences of the - France escaped disaster by of the State to withstand it; crisis is dangerous, WORK and EFFORT, but - BOUNDARIES are irresponsible and also by the tough reforms required (to protect, not to morally unacceptable; undertaken, which avoided - things could have gone insulate);unilateral measures humiliation and the faith of better. Not all promises to protect from public other European countries; markets; - the stimulus package was were kept, but France escaped disaster; based on investments rather DELOCALISATION - the tough reforms - the French economy is put than expenditures; undertaken helped to - protected banks, savings, at risk by delocalisation; jobs, maintained salary and avoid the faith of the - fiscal exiles must pay taxes pension levels and saved the Greek workers, the Italian in France; a connection must Eurozone; pensioners, the Spanish be re-established between - the left in power would unemployed or the taxes and citizenship; reverse the beneficial reforms Portuguese civil servants; GLOBALISATION/ and bring chaos and debacle; - the destinies of France EUROPE - the Republic is synonymous and its citizens are - the French economy is with DUTY, intertwined; exposed to the unfair RESPONSIBILITY, MERIT - during the crisis, banks competition carried out by and savings were countries which do not GLOBALISATION/ protected, salary and implement the same rules; EUROPE - France played an important pension levels were Europe’s borders must role in the measures adopted maintained and the protect against this type of at European level in terms of Eurozone was saved; competition, must preserve market regularisation and - WORK, EFFORT and our social model and our economic policy convergence; identity; otherwise, RESPONSIBILITY are it managed to persuade its the only ways to Euroscepticism and partners of the need to create preserve lifestyle, isolation–DISASTER; an economic Government; purchasing power and to - restrictions need to be - France has a leading role in imposed in an ultraliberal avoid severe Europe and worldwide, but to Europe (for immigration and consequences for future maintain its credibility, it must public markets); generations; respect its international -the division of labour - it is by feeling protected commitments and pay its impoverishes; that France will further open debts; to the world; - positioned against financial - reciprocity is required! markets and speculation; - tax evaders and tax havens are immoral and must be fought against;

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Bourget (22.01.2012) ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRISIS - the role of the President is to protect the state against the power of money; money and markets must serve, not rule; - “my true enemy does not have a name, a face or a party, it will never be elected and yet it rules: it is the financial world” which can easily threaten States; - the financial crisis questions the sovereignty of the Republic; - confidence and the French dream must be restored; there are always several possible approaches, irrespective of the gravity of the crisis; - it won’t be easy: financial (need to separate speculative transactions from current credit operations, exclude banks from tax havens, ban toxic financial products, tax financial transactions, suppress stock options, create a European rating agency), fiscal (increase taxes for the rich to counter the tax cap, reduce them for SMB), economic, industrial, energetic and pension reforms are required to revive growth and ensure stability; - a decrease by 30% of the President and ministers’ remuneration will be operated immediately as a sign of solidarity with the people; equality must be restored; GLOBALISATION/ EUROPE - helplessness of the G20 and European summits; - France is exposed to the global markets;

François Hollande Bercy (29.04.2012) ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRISIS - change is compulsory; - the main stakes of the presidential elections are the socio-economic problems; - citizens have established their priorities list: employment, purchasing power, housing. - France was hit economically, socially, morally; - decisiveness to restore the French dream, confidence, equality and solidarity for all, to fight inequalities and stop favouring the rich; - problems will not simply go away, tough times are yet ahead, but History has shown that the left is always capable of solving economic and financial issues; - in order to do so, credible proposals targeting fiscal, bank, labour, housing and health reforms were required; measures included the productive strengthening at corporate and industrial levels, the reduction of unemployment through generation contracts; the generation of wealth through a public investment bank, the support of SMB through lower taxes and more social housing; - investments in research, innovation, renewable energies will improve competitiveness and support growth; - focus on the youth;

Toulouse (03.05.2012) ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRISIS - the left-wing is capable and ready to lead the country; beneficial reforms in the past include: parity, PACS, the 35-hour working week; job creation; - the right-wing removed boundaries and now wants them back; boundaries are needed against the financial, economic and social injustices it created; - duty to win, to bring back confidence; however, problems won’t just go away; - bold choices need to be made; bank, housing, labour, health reforms are required; production needs to be restored; - support employees, producers, farmers, the youth; the rich must pay more taxes; - investments must be made in research and innovation; GLOBALISATION/ EUROPE - managed to reorient Europe towards growth and employment;

Ioana-Cristina HriĠcu and Sergiu Miúcoiu - measures to fight unfair competition, to protect, to ensure the respect of the environment and reciprocity are required; - France must preserve its openness at European level but must impose its reorientation towards growth and employment; the European treaty must be renegotiated; - the Franco-German pact must be renewed; DELOCALISATION - delocalising companies must immediately return state aid;

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GLOBALISATION/ EUROPE - fair competition and reciprocity need to regulate public markets; - proposal of a tax on financial transactions to fight speculation; - France must change the orientation of Europe; the European treaty must be renegotiated to focus on growth; - France must remain open to the world;

Table 2-5. Intertwining of Security with the Economic and Financial Crisis, Globalisation and Delocalisation The economic and financial topics best reflect the gradual increase in aggressiveness which characterised Hollande’s discourses as the campaign drew to a close. The presidential debate and his discourse from Toulouse are a case in point. During the 2012 presidential elections, security was also linked to education, delinquency and justice. The stances of the two contenders respected the logic of difference and their general campaign strategies. Nicolas Sarkozy thus established a direct linkage between insecurity, lack of education, immigration and delinquency. For Hollande, delinquency and insecurity were rather a result of the disparities accentuated by the crisis and by his contender’s mistakes and incompetency. The positions of the UMP and PS candidates on these topics are detailed below:

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Nicolas Sarkozy SECURITY–EDUCATION–DELINQUENCY-JUSTICE Marseille (19.02.2012) Nantes (27.03.2012) Toulon (03.05.2012) JUSTICE/ EDUCATION EDUCATION - corporatist debates are - school must teach EDUCATION/ - there is a contradiction unacceptable when talking about politeness, respect; between wanting to national education; authority; the left is punish gangsters and - school must teach authority, responsible for the laxity suppressing the law on and malfunctioning of the duty, politeness, respect, duty, repeat offence and educational system; effort, merit, excellence; minimum sentences; otherwise, social cohesion and - school embodies the - must ensure the equal opportunities will be lost; refusal of levelling and independence of justice - measures must be taken at all the belief in excellence; and the punishment of levels to support children - education is a priceless those who commit experiencing social, family or gift; going to school is crimes; personal difficulties, who often COMPULSORY; - the authority of the fall behind; they will become a DELINQUENCY master, policeman, law burden for the society and will - hardworking or moral are essential; be educated by the streets; Frenchmen are not - authority and freedom - measures include: 25 instead of responsible for the are complementary; 18 working hours’ week for violence in the French high-school teachers, suspension society; of the non-replacement rule for - ghettos and areas of kindergarten and primary school; lawlessness represent a credits for support groups; threat. - parents who do not ensure the - delinquency thrived due assiduousness of their children to the left-wing’s will not receive family permissiveness and allowances ; refusal of authority; - the lack of proper education JUSTICE - the verdicts returned by causes delinquency, hate, courts must be respected; violence; -there is no education without - justice must not interfere punishment; impunity is the with politics; contrary of education, it is synonym with excess, violence, drifting. DELINQUENCY -children must be punished, otherwise their future is compromised; - closed education centres are finally supported by the left; - school and customised help are most needed in impoverished and violencedominated districts; - the tragedies of Montauban and Toulouse were not caused by anti-Semitic and racist Frenchmen;

Ioana-Cristina HriĠcu and Sergiu Miúcoiu - permissiveness increases violence. JUSTICE - the justice system must handle underage offenders differently; - suppressing the law on repeat offence and minimum sentences would mean increasing violence; - to fight crimes and terrorism, the shortfalls of the legal system must be identified; -any person preaching terrorism or fanaticism will be banned from the French soil; - terrorism will be considered a crime and punished accordingly; - juries of peers must be created; - FIRMNESS is required in sentence execution (at least 2/3 of the sentence);

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Bourget (22.01.2012) EDUCATION: - the right-wing has demolished educational institutions, its reforms must be reversed: jobs must be created; - priority will be given to kindergarten and primary school; in high-schools, customised support will be ensured for teenagers in difficulty; - education and jobs (by generation contracts) for the young = autonomy; - guarantee the freedom of movement of foreign students, scientists, artists; - access to culture must be guaranteed to all; forgotten neighbourhoods will be involved in cultural projects; DELINQUENCY: - security is a right; -priority security areas must be created by increasing police forces; -unemployment, austerity measures, the indecency of the rich and the helplessness of the ruling elites degenerate in domestic, social and urban violence; - housing and living conditions in the suburbs must be improved to reduce violence; JUSTICE: - laws must be respected by all; - the independence of justice must be guaranteed; the reform of the justice system is required;

François Hollande Bercy (29.04.2012) EDUCATION - education prepares the future–a priority; culture–a common good; - education, weakened during the last five years, will become the first budgetary priority; jobs will be created, not suppressed; JUSTICE - security is an essential right; police strength must be increased to reduce violence; - a reform of the justice system is required; - social, fiscal and territorial justice needed; -laws will be implemented and abided by;

Toulouse (03.05.2012) EDUCATION - all employees expect a different policy; job and training suppression must be reversed; - culture: big priority; each child must be granted access; JUSTICE - a priority, reform needed;

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The 2012 French presidential elections revolved around the economic and financial crisis, a social consequence of which was the deepening of the identity crisis and of the gap between the citizens and the political elites. This important reason adds to the ones discussed above and explains why the nation and its safeguarding from various threats played such important a role in the discourse of the two candidates, the intertwining of the national security topic with other themes being particularly salient in the discourse of the UMP candidate. The more complex grid mapping Sarkozy’s speeches is mainly explained by the traversal character of the topic of security in his campaign strategy. Since Hollande refused to place security at the centre of his campaign, the connection between security and other subjects is highlighted to a lesser extent. If this second part of the article has focused on the place of securityrelated issues in the discourse of the two candidates, we will further investigate the weight held by the candidates’ approach to these topics in the outcome of the 2012 presidential elections.

The Weight of Security-Related Topics in the Outcome of the 2012 Presidential Elections According to the voting intentions for the run-off election, highlighted by an Ipsos/Logica Business survey conducted in April 20121, the French deemed Sarkozy to be more competent in handling the economic and financial crisis, reducing the public deficit and tackling immigration and insecurity, whereas Hollande was trusted in managing matters such as unemployment, purchasing power, retirement schemes, housing and the reduction of social inequalities. Sarkozy’s experience and presidential stature thus built confidence around his capacity of bringing sustainable solutions to the economic and financial problems of the country. Moreover, his stance on immigration and security was perceived as more natural and legitimate within the right-wing matrix than Hollande’s strategy, especially as regards the re-activation of the open/closed divide introduced by Pascal Perrineau in the context of the 1992 referendum2. 1

[http://www.ipsos.fr/presidentielle-2012/PDF/preoccupations.pdf], 15 September 2013. 2 [http://www.ipsos.fr/ipsos-public-affairs/paroles-experts/2011-11-09-2012-scrutinsans-precedent], 15 September 2013. Mitterrand was the one who imposed the nonnegotiability of the treaty introducing the European currency, the convergence criteria and the three pillars of the European Union, thus transforming the debate which preceded the referendum into a for or against Europe debate. Strong divisions

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Consequently, the reasons for Sarkozy’s defeat could appear to be paradoxical. One possible general explanation lays in the fact that Nicolas Sarkozy was considered to be more relevant at the macro-social and economic level, while Hollande was perceived as more efficient at the micro level. People tended to make their choices contingent on the latter criterion. Indeed, unemployment, purchasing power, retirement schemes, housing and the reduction of social inequalities are all issues that directly affect the daily life of citizens and the polls showed that the voters intended to cast their ballots mainly in accordance with these concerns3. A first hypothesis would thus be that the French needed a break from the austerity measures and the gloomy picture painted by Sarkozy, who had maintained throughout his electoral campaign his insistence on the need to pursue the governmental policies implemented during his tenure in office, which was now coming to an end. However, the explanation for Sarkozy’s failure is far more complex. The 2012 elections resembled more the 2002 elections than the 2007 ones4, if we look, for instance, at the votes cumulated by the far-right (Jean-Marie Le Pen and, respectively, Marine Le Pen). Reflecting a profound malaise of the French society and the deepening of the distrust in the parties of the establishment, the votes gathered by the Front National were, like in 2002, the proof of a need for a major change-an altogether anti-system stance, clearly aggravated by the decline triggered by the economic and financial crisis. This vote was also the result of the high unpopularity of the incumbent President and can be understood as a will to punish him for his inability to keep many of his 2007 campaign promises, for his excesses, for favouring and continuing to want to favour the rich, in a world where the media made differences more visible and, therefore, more frustrating5. Undeniably, the gap between the promises made during the 2007 campaign and his 2012 record is quite significant, as we have seen in the previous section, and the crisis, as deep as it may have been, only partly explains these discrepancies. It is clear that the philosophy of the will, which appeared not only between the left-wing and the right-wing, but also within these blocks. The open/closed divide referred to the willingness of the French to transfer part of the national sovereignty in the context of a rather high scepticism concerning the European Union’s capacity to protect its citizens. 3 [http://www.ipsos.fr/presidentielle-2012/PDF/preoccupations.pdf], 15 September 2013. 4 [http://www.ipsos.fr/ipsos-public-affairs/paroles-experts/2011-09-28-mobilisationpar-antagonisme-mobilisation-soutien], 18 September 2013. 5 http://www.inegalites.fr/spip.php?article674&id_mot=43, 26 September 2013.

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was deeply engraved in Sarkozy’s discourse and which made all goals seem achievable, created great expectations but failed to transform itself into a palpable reality. As Kerbrat-Orecchioni puts it, the downside of a performative speech is that it is sooner or later exposed to its condition of felicity6. These aspects certainly had a significant weight in the decision-making process. Nevertheless, it is their association with an even deeper reason that seems to have driven the French to vote for Hollande. This reason has to do with his strategy in the field of security and security-related issues. Hollande’s major asset was that of having gone far enough towards the right end of the spectrum in his security policy, yet not to extremist lengths, to be considered a sufficiently believable alternative to Sarkozy. The latter, even though deemed the more legitimate candidate to approach and tackle this type of issues, had the major drawback of an unflattering record. The association between this intelligently right-oriented strategy and the fact that Hollande had a clean slate and embodied the long-awaited change, coupled with his adoption of a more optimistic and people-oriented approach, seems to have tipped the scale in favour of the Socialist candidate. Appointing Manuel Valls as his communication manager may have been one of his wisest decisions, given that security became, like in 2007, a transversal topic of the presidential campaign. However, if he was the one to inspire a firmer speech on security-related matters, it was Ségolène Royal who, by the strategy she adopted during the 2007 presidential campaign, had broken the ice and opened the way towards a naturalisation of securityrelated themes on the left side of the political continuum. In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy was not the only candidate to embody change. Mainly for mechanical purposes, Ségolène Royal tried to outdistance herself from the other Socialists, during the primary elections, by adopting an unorthodox strategy, sprinkled, among others, with unprecedented nondoctrinarian ideas on citizenship, immigration or delinquency. Later, bold decisions were required to differentiate herself from François Bayrou (Modem)–the strong, threatening candidate of the centre. She also tried to avoid the mistake committed in 2002 by Lionel Jospin, who made the widely inappropriate remark of being naïve in security matters, which thus contributed to his defeat by Le Pen. In 2007, Royal adopted a more aggressive approach, targeting the defeat of her contenders on their own territory, by adopting precisely the identity and security-related themes

6 Daymon Mayaffre, Nicolas Sarkozy: Mesure et démesure du discours 2007/2012,Presses de Science Po, Paris, 2012, p. 151.

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mentioned hereinbefore, despite the fact that they formerly belonged to her opponents’ ideological field7. Confining our analysis to the 2007 campaign would prevent us from fully understanding the deep implications of her choice. Ségolène Royal’s inconsistent approach was deemed artificial, purely strategic and very unusual for a candidate representing the left wing. This is probably one of the reasons why she lost, for most of her contenders used this slippage to delegitimise her. However, in the long run, her bold decision brought a plus value to the left by the precedent it created: the integration of security and identity-related issues in the strategy of the Socialists was definitely going to be perceived as more natural and legitimate from that point on. This hypothesis was confirmed in 2012. For instance, according to JeanLouis Bianco (Royal’s former presidential campaign manager), the ideas she stood up for back in 2007, which were often rejected and sometimes mocked, were finally accepted and even integrated in the Socialist project.8Hollande was no exception. Even though he seemed, during the first round of the elections, to distance himself from his predecessor’s style by adopting a less oscillating and rather moderate approach, more in line with the tradition of the left, he was soon bound to switch to a firmer strategy. This firmness was, first of all, a mechanical consequence of the pressure imposed by the score obtained by Marine le Pen during the first round of the elections and by Nicolas Sarkozy’s resolution to turn security-related matters into a central point of the presidential debate9. Still, this is not the only factor explaining such a determined stance: as mentioned before, the integration of Manuel Valls10 in his campaign staff also needs to be taken into account.

7

Segiu Miúcoiu, Citoyenneté et identité nationale : les limites du retour au clivage gauche/droite en France lors de l’élection présidentielle de 2007, in Identités politiques et dynamiques partisanes en France, Cluj-Napoca, EFES 2009, p.193. 8 [http://www.20minutes.fr/ledirect/803906/primaires-ps-pas-tout-fait-certain-royaldonne-consigne-vote-selon-bianco], 14 September 2013. 9 [http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2012/03/04/ou-est-le-karcher-marine-lepen-promet-la-tolerance-zero_1651711_823448.html], 20 September 2013. 10 A member of the “right-wing” of the Socialist Party, Manuel Valls is often depicted as a careerist, unconventional, ruthless politician who, although being himself the son of Catalan immigrants, has a rather blunt stance on the immigration-related issues. Economy-wise, his views are characterised by pragmatism. As Mayor of Evry, he was perceived as efficient and intransigent, managing to restore the city’s image after he was elected. He is currently Minister of the Interior in the Government of Jean-Marc Ayrault. [http://www.challenges.fr/economie/20121220.CHA4515/portrait-manuel-vallsministre-de-l-interieur-carre.html], 25 September 2013.

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The first open Socialist primary election11 represented an opportunity to express a plurality of opinions which, although criticised by some, strengthened the image and credibility of the Socialist Party.12 Given that the results of the first round did not enable Hollande to set himself as an absolute winner who could impose his views, the occasionally centrist candidate decided to harden his discourse in order to refute the softness of which he was being accused by his former Socialist challenger, Martine Aubry; he also chose to depict himself as capable of rallying not only the left-by taking into account his contenders’ views-but entire France. A more individualistic strategy would have shattered the newly built credibility of the party to pieces. While two of his other former Socialist challengers, Ségolène Royal and Arnaud Montebourg both announced that they needed time to think about whom they were going to support during the second round, the first to join up with Hollande was Manuel Valls. Although he seemed to be surprisingly in line with Sarkozy’s proposals (the need to reform the 35-hour working week, the refusal to lower the age of retirement13 or the will to continue escorting

11 Following the proposal of Arnaud Montebourg, the open Socialist primary elections organised in 2011 were the first elections of the kind in French political history to allow supporters (of the PS and Radical Socialist Party, in this case) to cast their ballots in favour of the candidate whom they trusted to represent their interests in the 2012 presidential elections. The first round opposed six candidates: Ségolène Royal (the 2007 catch-all populist contender of Sarkozy, who campaigned for the reform of the PS), Martine Aubry (prime-secretary of the PS, incarnating traditional socialism), Arnaud Montebourg (covering the radical socialist left), Manuel Valls (an antiestablishment candidate, representing the right wing of the Socialist Party), JeanMichel Baylet (leader of the Radical Socialist Party, centrist) and François Hollande (prime-secretary under Lionel Jospin and then, reformist-centrist). The run-off opposed Aubry (30% during the first round) to Hollande (39%). After having obtained a very deceiving score (7%), Royal decided to support Hollande in the run-off, just like Manuel Valls (5.6%), who was soon to be rewarded for his promptness. Arnaud Montebourg, who obtained 17% in the first round (the second most surprising result) did not offer any official voting indications for the second ballot. It was François Hollande, considered a compromise between Social Democracy and Reformist Socialism, who won the run-off and had the difficult task of gathering the left for the 2012 presidential elections. 12 [http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/l-observateur-dessondages/20111019.OBS2834/hollande-et-l-effet-primaire.html], 23 September 2013. 13 [http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/election-presidentielle2012/20120420.OBS6689/manuel-valls-le-premier-violon-de-francois-hollande.html], 23 September 2013.

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illegal immigrants to the border14, for instance) and had formerly criticised Hollande’s project for its lack of clarity, the tensions existing between him and Aubry, the rivalry with Hamon and Montebourg and the coldness installed between him and Royal15 were sufficiently strong incentives for him to support Hollande, who did not hesitate to reward him for his promptness by appointing him his communications manager. Nonetheless, more than a political communicator, Valls turned out to be politically communicating, by managing to complete some of the views of the soon to be president16. We will never know for sure to what extent the firmness displayed by Hollande during the presidential debate and the radicalisation of his position on security-related issues–spotted and blamed by Sarkozy17 and highlighted in the second section of this article–were the result of Valls’s influence. Whether he played a decisive role in convincing Hollande to radicalise his stance or this new firmness was brought about by his awareness that the only way to win the elections was to offer more relevant solutions on security-related topics, in tune with the concerns of the French, it is clear that this decision had a significant impact on the outcome of the 2012 presidential elections. It must be said that Hollande was influenced by-without ever finding himself under the influence of-the former enfant rebelle of the Socialist Party. This is proved by the fact that no drastic measures in terms of immigration, delinquency or other security-related topics were put forward during the presidential campaign, despite Valls’s more radical views. The various frictions that emerged between the two after his appointment as Minister of the Interior also prove this point.18 All in all, both Socialists thrived from their cooperation during the presidential campaign and its aftermath. Despite their misunderstandings, Manuel Valls has been an invaluable tool for François Hollande, allowing the latter to externalise some of his more unconventional ideas and offering him 14

[http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/idees-primaire-socialiste/20110928.OBS1321 /primaire-ps-comparez-les-projets-des-candidats-sur-l-immigration.html], 23 September 2013. 15 [http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/primaire-ps-l-enigme-valls_1033328.html] 22 September 2013. 16 [http://leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/545583-manuel-valls-le-politiquecommunicant-qui-manquera-a-l-equipe-hollande.html], 20 September 2013. 17 During the presidential debate, Sarkozy referred, for instance, to the letter sent by Hollande to France Terre d’Asile [http://www.france-terre-asile.org/toute-lactualitechoisie/item/6963-francois-hollande-repond-aux-propositions-de-france-terre-dasile], 23 September 2013. 18 [http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/france-monde/reforme-penale-port-du-voileregroupement-familial-ia0b0n1505568], 23 September 2013.

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more viable solutions in the fight against the Front National or in light of Sarkozy’s potential comeback. Indeed, according to a survey carried out by Harris Interactive and published in the Marianne magazine, in the event of a run-off opposing him to the former President, Manuel Valls would outdistance him by 5 points, whereas Jean-Luc Mélenchon would largely be overtaken by the UMP candidate19. More and more compared with Sarkozy for his intransigent stance on security-related issues, Valls dares to believe what the moderate left does not seem ready to formally accept yet, namely that a firmer approach of this type would secure the left in power. What remains to be seen is whether Hollande will know how to stimulate the loyalty of his former communications manager or his now more popular minister will turn against him in 2017.

Conclusions Albeit rather schematic and synthetic, the current research allows us to draw some relevant conclusions concerning the role of security as a topic in the 2012 French presidential elections. First, as opposed to 2007, when security, national identity and the international stature of France were the most salient issues of almost the entire electoral campaign, in 2012, the social and economic topics were not only far more abundantly present, but also constantly and consistently addressed by the two main candidates, in an effort to appear as champions of anti-crisis solutions. But as this field seemed to be increasingly unfavourable to the incumbent UMP candidate, following his disputable record in terms of social and economic crisis management, the last fortnight of the campaign revealed a reorientation of Nicolas Sarkozy towards a (re-)radicalisation of his stances on security and identity-related issues. To some extent, this move re-boosted his campaign and the very close result of the second round seems to have been its direct consequence. However, as some of the observers remarked, the prominence of the socio-economic issues in the voters’ preferences was still too strong to be overshadowed by security-related topics, despite the ability of the right-wing candidate to perform in the “regalian” field. Secondly, our research reveals François Hollande’s discursive capacity to strategically alter his political identity in such a way that his initial association with unproductive features such as innate indecisiveness, softness or lack of determination in decision-making was progressively dismantled during the pre-campaign and the campaign period. By analysing some 19 [http://www.lepoint.fr/politique/valls-battrait-sarkozy-au-second-tour-d-unepresidentielle-02-08-2013-1710801_20.php], 24 September 2013.

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relevant campaign speeches, we pointed out the fact that Hollande’s “transformation” had reached a pinnacle precisely when needed, meaning during the last face-to-face debate with his opponent, when his attitude came closer to over-determination and, unexpectedly, to aggressiveness. This change destabilised Sarkozy and, to a very high extent, cut the suspense with regard to the elections’ outcome. Finally, 2012 was not so much about sidestepping security issues as about disconnecting security, on one hand, and immigration and identity, on the other. In other words, Hollande succeeded in separating security protection– which still had to be considered a priority, but in a more consensual and less emphatic way than under Sarkozy–from immigration and identity, which seemed to be false campaign issues, over-emphasised by the right and the far-right. In this way, Hollande avoided both the risk of being perceived as the pure product of the “angelic” left, which had no interest in security issues, but also as a mimetic follower of the classical policies revolving around national pride and identity preservation, as it had been the case of his 2007 Socialist predecessor, Ségolène Royal. To sum up, if analysed in discourse theory terms, the 2012 campaign emphasised the existence of a complex combination of strategic moves and mechanic effects of the prior campaigns, which finally produced a rather expected result of change at the top of the political pyramid. Notwithstanding all this, we must join those observers who read 2012 as just one (perhaps less characteristic) stage in the ideological and discursive restructuring of the French political spectrum.

Bibliography Delsol, Chantal, (2009), Être français dans Miúcoiu, Sergiu, Delsol, Chantal, Alliot, Bertrand (ed.) Identités politiques et dynamiques partisanes en France, Cluj-Napoca : EFES. Derrida, Jacques (1967), L’écriture et la différence, Paris: Seuil. Fairclough, Norman (1995), Critical Discourse Analysis, London: Longman. Foucault, Michel (1999), “L’Ordre du Discours” in Foucault, Michel (ed.) Philosophie. Anthologie, (Anthologie établie et présentée par Arnold I. Davidson et Frédéric Gros), Paris: Gallimard. Hazan, Eric (2006), LQR La propaganda du quotidien, Paris : Éditions Raisons d’agir. Howarth, David, Torfing, Jacob (2005), Discourse Theory in European Politics. Identity, Policy and Governance, Palgrave: Macmillan Laclau, Ernesto (2000), Grammaire de l’émancipation, Paris: La Découverte.

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Mayaffre, Daymon (2012), Nicolas Sarkozy: Mesure et démesure du discours 2007/2012, Paris: Presses de Science Po. Miúcoiu, Sergiu (2009), “Citoyenneté et identité nationale : les limites du retour au clivage gauche/droite en France lors de l’élection présidentielle de 2007”, in Miúcoiu, Sergiu, Delsol, Chantal, Alliot, Bertrand (ed.) Identités politiques et dynamiques partisanes en France, Cluj-Napoca, EFES, pp. 184-200. Mouffe, Chantal (1996), Deconstruction and Pragmatism, New York: Routledge. Rorty, Richard (1989), Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Cambridge: University Press. Saussez, Thierry, (2013), Les deux corps du Président, Paris : Robert Laffont Torfing, Jacob (2005), “Discourse Theory: Achievements, Arguments, and Challenges” in Howarth, David Torfing, Jacob (ed.), Discourse Theory in European Politics. Identity, Policy and Governance, Palgrave: Macmillan, 1-40. Žižek, Slavoj (1996), “Invisible Ideology: Political Violence between Fiction and Fantasy” in Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol. 1, Issue 1, February, 16-18.

Websites http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqnazq_valls-merci-a-francoishollande_news http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqn9sj_morano-pas-un-blanc-seing-a-lagauche_news http://www.lepoint.fr/politique/de-flanby-a-pepere-tous-les-surnoms-dhollande-10-04-2013-1653042_20.php http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2012/09/17/le-droit-de-vote-desetrangers-l-arlesienne-de-la-gauche-au-pouvoir_1761170_823448.html http://leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/547501-nadine-morano-lesdrapeaux-etrangers-place-de-la-bastille-et-la-menace-rouge.html] 18 September 2013. http://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/election-presidentielle-2012/qui-a-vote-hollandeet-qui-s-est-detourne-de-sarkozy_293527.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrYUkXdU89Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct_kUa9mSc0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5TgjTsRHhM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up62HaC6cFI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hY93vKlsD0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j092z0h2Cc

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTx6NHKZOWQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhv1VVCRrJY http://www.ipsos.fr/presidentielle-2012/PDF/preoccupations.pdf http://www.ipsos.fr/ipsos-public-affairs/paroles-experts/2011-11-09-2012scrutin-sans-precedent http://www.ipsos.fr/ipsos-public-affairs/paroles-experts/2011-09-28mobilisation-par-antagonisme-mobilisation-soutien http://www.20minutes.fr/ledirect/803906/primaires-ps-pas-tout-fait-certainroyal-donne-consigne-vote-selon-bianco http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2012/03/04/ou-est-le-karcher-marinele-pen-promet-la-tolerance-zero_1651711_823448.html http://www.challenges.fr/economie/20121220.CHA4515/portrait-manuelvalls-ministre-de-l-interieur-carre.html http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/l-observateur-dessondages/20111019.OBS2834/hollande-et-l-effet-primaire.html http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/election-presidentielle2012/20120420.OBS6689/manuel-valls-le-premier-violon-de-francoishollande.html http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/idees-primairesocialiste/20110928.OBS1321/primaire-ps-comparez-les-projets-descandidats-sur-l-immigration.html http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/primaire-ps-l-enigmevalls_1033328.html], 22 September 2013. http://leplus.nouvelobs.com/contribution/545583-manuel-valls-le-politiquecommunicant-qui-manquera-a-l-equipe-hollande.html http://www.france-terre-asile.org/toute-lactualite-choisie/item/6963-francoishollande-repond-aux-propositions-de-france-terre-dasile http://www.lepoint.fr/politique/valls-battrait-sarkozy-au-second-tour-d-unepresidentielle-02-08-2013-1710801_20.php

EUROPEAN UNION’S ACTION IN THE FIELD OF NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION AND DISARMAMENT MIHAELA VASIU

Abstract The role of the European Union in the security field continues to develop. As the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) remains a key threat to both the European and global security, the EU has strengthened its engagement in fighting such proliferation. It has been striving to make best use of its full range of instruments and resources to be able to ensure maximum impact. It has been a decade since the EU WMD Strategy was adopted in 2003, implementation of which is still to be comprehensively assessed. This paper focuses on EU action in the field of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, also taking into account that two of its members are nuclear-weapon states. Following the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, new institutional developments, including the establishment of the European External Action Service, have played a role in shaping the EU’s adjustment to current realities. A new Special Envoy for Non-Proliferation and Disarmament has been in place since mid-February 2013; he will engage with international partners and build on the work previously conducted by the Personal Representative on WMD non-proliferation to the former EU High Representative Javier Solana. The content of this publication does not reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Responsibility for the information and views expressed therein lies entirely with the author.

Keywords European, security, threat, nuclear, non-proliferation, disarmament

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The fundamentals of the EU action in the area of non-proliferation and disarmament The beginning of the 21st century was extremely challenging in security terms. In the post-9/11 world the potential for catastrophic nuclear terrorism has been seen by many as a serious threat1. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in general, was identified in the European Security Strategy2 (ESS) adopted by the European Council in 2003 as one of the “key threats” to the EU's and international security. The EU addressed explicitly the threat posed by the weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including nuclear weapons, in its specific WMD Strategy3 (adopted by the European Council based on the ESS, in 2003), which contains a fully-fledged action plan for short- and long-termaction in the fight against proliferation of such weapons. The EU WMD Strategy has been the basis of the EU’s work for the past ten years, and is based on the principles of support for effective multilateralism, preventive action and cooperation with key partners. Progress reports4 on the implementation of the WMD Strategy have been drafted every six months, as established when the Strategy was adopted.

Support to effective multilateralism The guiding principle and overall aim of the EU in the area of nonproliferation and disarmament has always been the promotion of the universality of international treaties, conventions and other instruments as well as their national implementation, in accordance with the objectives of the EU WMD Strategy. To underpin this principle, the EU has provided political support to the pertinent multilateral instruments and financial assistance to the relevant international agencies active in the area, with the general objective of

1

Also see the assessments made by the Nuclear Threat Initiative available on-line at http://www.nti.org/threats/nuclear. 2 Document entitled “A Secure Europe in a Better World”, adopted in December 2013 (http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf). 3 Document 15708/03 entitled “Fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction – EU strategy against proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction” adopted in December 2003. (http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/03/st15/st15708.en03.pdf) 4 http://eeas.europa.eu/non-proliferation-and-disarmament/documentation/documents/ index_en.htm#Bookmark4.

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enhancing the credibility of the multilateral WMD non-proliferation and disarmament regime. An important priority of the EU WMD Strategy has been to foster the role of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and to promote compliance with the UNSC Resolutions, in particular UNSCR 15405 adopted in 2004 (and UNSCR 19776 adopted in 2011), by all UN Member States and appropriate implementation within the EU. The UNSCR 1540 establishes the obligations under Chapter VII of the UN Charter for all UN Member States to develop and enforce appropriate legal and regulatory measures against the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons and their means of delivery, in particular to prevent the spread of WMD to non-state actors. The main international treaties, conventions and other instruments pertinent in the nuclear area promoted by the EU are the Treaty on the NonProliferation of Nuclear Weapons7 (NPT), the Comprehensive Nuclear-TestBan Treaty8 (CTBT), the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials9 (CPPNM), the International Convention10 for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, and the International Convention11 for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. The EU WMD Strategy stresses that the integrity of the NPT must be preserved. The NPT has helped to slow and, in some cases, reverse the spread of military nuclear capability, but it has not been able to prevent it completely. In the meantime, possession of nuclear weapons by states outside the NPT and non-compliance with the Treaty’s provisions by states parties to the Treaty risk undermining non-proliferation 5

http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/328/43/PDF/N0432843.pdf? Open Element. 6 UNSCR 1977, adopted unanimously in April 2011, extends the mandate of the 1540 Committee (established based on UNSCR 1540) which monitors efforts to prevent WMD from being acquired by terrorists or other non-state actors. 7 The NPT entered into force in 1970 and is based on three pillars: non-proliferation, disarmament and the right to peacefully use nuclear technology. 8 The CTBT was adopted by the UNGA on 10 September 1996 and is not yet in force. It will only enter into force 180 days after the 44 states listed in Annex 2 of the Treaty have ratified it. Once in force, the CTBT would ban all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes. 9 The CPPNM entered into force in 1987. The Convention is the only international legally binding undertaking in the area of physical protection of nuclear material. It establishes measures related to the prevention, detection and punishment of offenses relating to nuclear material. In 2005, an Amendment to strengthen the provisions of the Convention was adopted. 10 Entered into force in 2002. 11 Entered into force in 2007.

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and disarmament efforts. As part of the action aimed at promoting the universality of the NPT, the EU has also been conducting dynamic activities in order to promote the universality of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements (CSA) and the Additional Protocols (AP) that – in the EU’s view – all countries should conclude with the International Atomic Energy Agency12 (IAEA). The EU has also been encouraging actions aimed at starting negotiations of an international agreement on the prohibition of the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons (Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty – FMCT) in the Conference on Disarmament (CD).

Preventive action Through its initiatives, the EU has made a considerable contribution to preventing WMD proliferation, in particular by expanding the implementation of international norms, securing sensitive materials and sensitive facilities, enhancing the national capabilities in the area of border controls against illicit trafficking, strengthening the control of WMD-related equipment and materials in transit and/or in transhipment, and re-directing former WMD scientists to peaceful activities. The EU has also been active in the export control regimes. Within the EU, continuous efforts have been made to improve the exchange of information, in particular with regard to denials of export authorisations, the “catch all” clause13 implementation, and sensitive end-users. Outside its borders, the EU remains committed to promoting the strengthening of export control regimes and adherence to their guidelines. The EU's substantial package of regulations in the area of export controls, the lessons learned and the best practices identified during peer reviews give the 12

Safeguards are activities by which the IAEA can verify that a State is living up to its international commitments not to use nuclear programmes for nuclear-weapons purposes. The NPT and other treaties against the spread of nuclear weapons entrust the IAEA as the nuclear inspectorate. Within the world’s nuclear non-proliferation regime, the IAEA’s safeguards system functions as a confidence-building measure, an early warning mechanism, and the trigger that sets in motion other responses by the international community if and when the need arises. Based on the CSA, the IAEA verifies state reports of declared nuclear material and activities. The AP enables the IAEA not only to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material but also to provide assurances as to the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in a state. Further details are available on the IAEA website (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/ Factsheets/English/sg_overview.html). 13 Permits the control of items that are not listed on the EU Control List.

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EU a good background to support14 third countries in the development of effective export controls. Support to such countries (provided through the coordination and/or participation of experts from the EU Member States and EU institutions) includes assistance in drafting and implementing export control legislation. The EU Member States are further contributing to promoting the strengthening of export control regimes by raising awareness on the importance of export controls in third countries. With regard to nuclear issues, the relevant export control regime is the Nuclear Suppliers Group15 (NSG). Both the Zangger Committee16 and the NSG continue to be important fora to share experience and work effectively towards efficient export controls, thus contributing concretely to fighting proliferation. Controlling the transit of WMD-related equipment and materials remains a major challenge for the implementation of an effective non-proliferation policy. The EU has legal provisions in place on brokering activities and transit under Council Regulation (EU) 428/200917, which are implemented throughout the whole EU. Further means continue to be explored in order to strengthen the ability of the EU Member States to inspect and, where 14

The implementation of the EU outreach programme for dual use items is be carried out by the German Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA). This cooperation programme aims at enhancing the effectiveness of export control systems of dual-use items, thus contributing to the fight against the proliferation of WMD and related materials, equipment and technologies. The EU’s cooperation programme on export control of dual-use items, originally started in 2004 with a group of only four countries from South East Europe, has now grown over the years to 28 countries in 6 different regions (South East Europe; Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia; the Middle East; North Africa; South East Asia; Asia). The programme itself is funded under the EU’s Instrument for Stability. The EU’s cooperation programme continues to cooperate with partner countries with the aim to further develop and enhance export control systems for dual-use goods (including nuclear items controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group) in line with the trade control obligations set out under UNSCR 1540. In addition to support the development of networks among partner countries, the programme also gives much attention to strengthening links with other donors and organisations which are involved in the area of counter-proliferation. 15 NSG is a multinational body concerned with reducing nuclear proliferation by controlling the export and re-transfer of materials that may be applicable to nuclear weapon development and by improving safeguards and protection on existing materials. The European Commission holds an observer status in the NSG. 16 The Zangger Committee (Nuclear Exporters Committee) sprang from Article III.2 of the NPT. Under the terms of the NPT, IAEA safeguards must be applied to nuclear exports. 17 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:134:0001: 0269: en: PDF.

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appropriate, to intercept cargoes which are in transit through their territory and which allegedly may carry WMD-related equipment and materials. The EU believes that, given the real risk posed by the nuclear proliferation, the Proliferation Security Initiative18 (PSI) must be as effective as it can possibly be, and this can only be accomplished if all relevant actors are involved. That is why EU Member States have repeatedly called for participation of the EU in the PSI in its own right. Within the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the EU applies restrictive measures in pursuit of the specific CFSP objectives set out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union19. Sanctions or restrictive measures20 on grounds of nuclear proliferation have been frequently imposed by the EU in recent years (e.g. to Iran and North Korea), by implementing binding Resolutions of the UNSC as well as on an autonomous EU basis. Possibilities to apply criminal sanctions for the proliferation of sensitive goods and technologies (i.e. illegal export, brokering and smuggling of WMD-related material) and for financing such illegal activities are currently being explored. It is fully consistent with this prevention approach that the EU has been involved in the diplomatic efforts in regard to Iran concerning the latter’s nuclear programme. It is important to note that currently the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton is leading the E3+321 talks with Iran. The role of the EU in the field of prevention has been clearly recognised internationally. This was proven - amongst other things - by the invitation addressed to the EU to join the G8 deliberations on non-proliferation and disarmament (G8 Global Partnership – G8 GP22), the Nuclear Security

18

The PSI is a global effort that aims to stop trafficking of WMD, their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern. The Initiative was launched in May 2003 by US President George W. Bush at a meeting in Krakow (Poland). 19 Article 215. 20 http://eeas.europa.eu/cfsp/sanctions/index_en.htm. 21 The E3+3 are the three European countries (UK, France, Germany) plus the US, Russia and China. The six countries are, in this context, also referred to as P5+1 (i.e. the five nuclear weapon states, members of the UNSC, plus Germany). 22 The GP against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction began at the 2002 Kananaskis G8 Summit as an initiative to prevent terrorists or states that support them from acquiring or developing WMD. Since then, the G8 GP has grown to include 24 partners, including the EU.

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Summit23 (NSS) and the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism24 (GICNT).

Cooperation with key partners One important element stemming from the EU WMD Strategy is the need to enhance efforts to mainstream non-proliferation policies into the EU's wider relations with third countries. The so-called WMD clause has been included in EU agreements with more than 100 countries25 (and more are under negotiation). The negotiation of these clauses has very often offered an opportunity to discuss with the national authorities of the respective countries their specific concerns and to have exchanges on possible tailor-made cooperation programmes. The WMD clause has played an important role in conveying to the EU’s partners the image of a Union which plays a role in political and security affairs. The EU has continued close cooperation with key partners such as the UNSC permanent members US, Russia and China, states possessing nuclear weapons that are not states parties to the NPT (India, Israel, Pakistan) and various other countries having an important role in the area of nonproliferation and disarmament (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Japan, Republic of Korea, South Africa, and Ukraine). The aim has been to strive towards a global convergence of views on the need to strengthen the international non-proliferation regime. Efforts have continued to address nonproliferation issues in the EU's bilateral relations with all relevant countries, in particular through political dialogue meetings and more informal contacts (as referred to in the six-monthly progress reports on the implementation of the WMD Strategy). 23

Initiative launched by US President Barak Obama in 2010 in Washington (the 2010 NSS focused on how to better safeguard weapons-grade plutonium and uranium to prevent nuclear terrorism). 24 The GICNT is an international partnership committed to working individually and collectively to implement a set of shared nuclear security principles. The mission of the GICNT is to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to nuclear terrorism by conducting multilateral activities that strengthen the plans, policies, procedures, and interoperability of partner nations. The US and Russia serve as CoChairs of the GICNT. 25 Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Georgia, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, the Philippines, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Ukraine, Vietnam, ACP countries (78 states), Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama), Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates).

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Developments of recent years and concrete EU action Updated lists of priorities attached to the WMD Strategy have been drafted regularly in the framework of the six-monthly progress reports. The Strategy itself was updated in 2008 when the document referring to the New Lines for Action26 (NLA) against WMD and their delivery systems was adopted. Based on the NLA, more comprehensive analyses of global risks, trends and threats in the proliferation of WMD and their delivery means have been made and further work has been conducted in a number of areas, including on protection of scientific and technical assets, cooperation in terms of consular vigilance, adoption of codes of professional conduct, identification in a more systematic manner of priority geographical and technical cooperation areas, raising the awareness of financial institutions and strengthening the machinery for combating the financing of proliferation, and strengthening legal means to combat acts of proliferation. Efforts have also been stepped up to raise awareness in scientific and academic circles of the threat posed by possible WMD proliferation. The adoption of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009 has opened new opportunities. The creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS), established in July 2010, has provided the EU with the means for a more integrated policy making and delivery capacity, bringing together all the instruments of the Union’s global engagement - political, economic and crisis management - in support of its strategic goals. It allows for the mobilisation and pooling of funds in a much more strategic way, under the guidance of Catherine Ashton, who is both High Representative for CFSP and Vice President of the European Commission. Since the 1st of January 2011 (when the EEAS was officially launched), priorities have been set by the EEAS in close collaboration with the EU Member States. That allows for more long-term planning (as compared to the pre-Lisbon period years, when priorities were set every six months by the rotating EU presidencies) and a more strategic approach in addressing current and future challenges. The EU has continued to strive for the effective and complementary use of all available instruments and financial resources27 in order to maximise the impact of EU activities in supporting international organisations and third countries.

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Document 17172/08, http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/08/st17/st17172.en08.pdf. 27 In particular the CFSP budget, the Instrument for Stability, the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation, the Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7).

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It has been important to ensure continuity of the significant work done between October 2003 and August 2011 by Annalisa Giannella during her time as Personal Representative for non-proliferation of WMD of the former High Representative for CFSP, Javier Solana. He had appointed her to coordinate, help implement and further develop the EU WMD Strategy, as well as to give sharper focus to these issues in dialogues with third countries. In February 2013, Jacek Bylica took up the position of Principal Advisor and Special Envoy for Non-proliferation and Disarmament and, one decade since the adoption of the EU WMD Strategy, he has started building on the impressive achievements made by Annalisa Giannella. He has already represented the EU in a number of key international meetings on nuclearrelated issues (including the 2013 NPT Preparatory Committee, the 10th Anniversary High-Level Meeting of the PSI, and the IAEA Board of Governors and General Conference meetings). He has also started an active engagement with the EU’s major partners in the area of non-proliferation and disarmament and has made a significant contribution to the strengthening of the dialogues with them, both on occasion of trips that he has made to a number of capitals and in the margins of various international meetings. The EU’s approach with regard to nuclear issues has always had as a point of reference the NPT. The current NPT five-year review cycle, to assess the performance of the Treaty and, in particular, the implementation of the Action Plan adopted at the 2010 NPT Review Conference, will result in new recommendations being made at the 2015 Review Conference in New York. As far as the EU is concerned, and as reaffirmed during the current review cycle, at the 2012 and the 2013 NPT Preparatory Commission meetings (held in Vienna and, respectively, Geneva), as well as during the yearly UN General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee meetings, the Union has continued to regard the Treaty as “the cornerstone of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime, the essential foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament in accordance with Article VI of the NPT and an important element in the further development of nuclear energy applications for peaceful purposes”. The EU fully supports all three reinforcing pillars of the Treaty and has continuously emphasised the importance of universalising it by calling on states that have not yet done so to join the Treaty as non-nuclear weapon states and, pending their accession to the Treaty, to adhere to its terms and pledge commitments to non-proliferation and disarmament. During the current NPT review cycle, the EU has reported28 on its activities with regard to the implementation of the 2010 Action Plan. It has 28 EU Statements and Working Papers presented at the 2012 NPT Preparatory Committee (Vienna) and the 2013 NPT Preparatory Committee (Geneva).

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organised side-events on the EU support to peaceful uses of nuclear technology as embodied in the Euratom Treaty29 and, more specifically, the Euratom regional safeguards system. It has also participated actively in the meetings with civil society. Two of the most important EU priorities, the issue of non-compliance with the NPT (Iran, North Korea and Syria) and the prospects for a Conference30 on a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in the Middle East, which dominated the debates during the 2012 and 2013 Preparatory Committee meetings, are reflected in the Chairman’s Factual Summaries31. Relations that the EU has developed with the Middle East countries are intended to support the objective of establishing a WMD-free zone in the region. The EU, through the EU Non-Proliferation Consortium32, an EUfunded network of up to 60 independent European think tanks, has organised a series of “track 2” (i.e. non-official) seminars, in 2008, 2011 and 2012, to support the process, with the participation of most of the countries of the region. The EU is ready to cooperate on the dismantling of existing WMD and to cooperate in peaceful nuclear energy programmes conceived according to the highest parameters of safety, security and non-proliferation.

Nuclear non-proliferation The EU has enhanced its political and financial support to the IAEA. As confirmed at the first-ever EU-IAEA Senior Officials Meeting33 held in Brussels on 25 January 2013, the overall EU contribution to IAEA activities amounts to more than EUR 111 million. The main areas supported by the EU are: nuclear security (support to the IAEA Nuclear Security Fund), nuclear safeguards, nuclear safety, and technical cooperation (focused on areas of health, food and water) – all contributing to the achievement of the nuclear non-proliferation objectives.

29 The Euratom Treaty entered into force in 1958 and established a European Atomic Energy Community. Initially created to coordinate the EU Member States' research programmes for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, the Euratom Treaty today helps to pool knowledge, infrastructure and funding of nuclear energy. It ensures the security of atomic energy supply within the framework of a centralised monitoring system. 30 As decided at the 2010 NPT Review Conference, the event was supposed to be organized by the end of 2012 but this objective could not be reached. 31 NPT/CONF.2015/PC.I/WP.53 of 10 May 2012 and NPT/CONF.2015/PC.II/CRP.2 of 2 May 2013. 32 www.nonproliferation.eu. 33 A Joint Press Statement was adopted, which contains a Fact Sheet on the overall EU support to the IAEA during the Multiannual Financial Framework 2007-2013.

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Regarding nuclear security, the EU is the second largest contributor to the IAEA Nuclear Security Fund. Since 2004, funds of more than EUR 31 million have been provided to the Agency through Joint Actions and Council Decisions34 from the CFSP budget to help with: - strengthening national legislative and regulatory infrastructures in third countries for the implementation of relevant international instruments in the areas of nuclear security and verification, including CSA and AP; - assisting third countries with strengthening the security and control of nuclear and other radioactive materials; - strengthening third states' capabilities for detection and response to illicit trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive materials. The EU has developed important cooperation with the IAEA to promote international efforts against nuclear proliferation and has responded resolutely and effectively to cases of non-compliance with the NPT, particularly current non-proliferation challenges in Iran, North Korea and Syria. The EU High Representative, together with the E3+3, has been leading efforts aimed at building confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear programme. The general EU approach continues to be based on a twin-track policy, combining dialogue with pressure (sanctions). The EU has remained committed to the ongoing efforts aimed at achieving a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue through negotiations, based on the NPT and the full implementation of all relevant UNSC and IAEA Board of Governors Resolutions. In 2013, during two rounds of talks (held in February35 and April36 in Almaty / Kazakhstan), the EU High Representative, together with the E3+3, has continued her efforts to engage with Iran. However official statements on the EU side confirm that “the positions of the E3+3 and Iran remain far apart on the substance”. Regarding the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the EU has continued to urge that country to abide by its obligations assumed under the relevant UNSC Resolutions, including by abandoning all its existing nuclear programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner. The nuclear test conducted by the DPRK on 12 February 201337 was strongly condemned by the EU38 and resulted in the adoption of the UNSCR 2094. The EU has continued to call on the DPRK to return to full compliance with 34

Council Joint Actions 2004/495/CFSP, 2005/574/CFSP, 2006/418/CFSP, 2008/314/CFSP, and Council Decision 2010/585/CFSP. 35 http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/135714.pdf. 36 http://www.eu-un.europa.eu/articles/en/article_13363_en.htm. 37 In violation of the DPRK’s international obligations under the UNSC Resolutions 1718, 1874 and 2087. 38 http://www.eu-un.europa.eu/articles/en/article_13148_en.htm.

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the NPT and IAEA safeguards obligations, and provide the IAEA with the requested access to individuals, documentation, equipment and facilities. The EU does not participate in the Six-Party Talks39 process but has been supportive of that framework. It has called for the DPRK to return to credible and authentic international negotiations. In addition to implementing UNSC resolutions40, the EU has also introduced additional autonomous restrictive measures41, including strengthened controls on dual use goods and the proliferation of conventional arms. The EU renewed its appeal to the DPRK to ratify the CTBT and to refrain from any further provocative acts. On Syria, the EU supported the decision taken by the IAEA in June 2011 to report that country to the UNSC for non-compliance42 with its CSA. It is of the view that Syria still needs to demonstrate concrete willingness to cooperate with the IAEA and to sign (and bring into force) an AP as soon as possible. Further on nuclear security, the EU has been an active participant in the NSS process, the objective of which is to convince countries to adopt high standards in the area in order to prevent any possibility for terrorists and criminals to get access to nuclear materials. At the 2012 NSS held in Seoul, EU leaders43 (Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, and Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission) stressed that strengthening nuclear security has been and remains part of the EU’s efforts to counter proliferation, pursue disarmament, and ensure that the best safety, 39

The Six-Party Talks (resulting from North Korea’s announcement made in 2003 with regard to its withdrawal from the NPT) aim to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns as a result of the North Korean nuclear weapons program. There has been a series of meetings with six participating states: Republic of Korea, the DPRK, US, China, Japan and Russia. 40 Also see page 27 of the Main Results of the EU Foreign Affairs Council held on 22 July 2013, on the amended implementing legislation for the EU restrictive measures against the DPRK to take account of changes introduced by UNSCR 2094 (2013) (http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/ cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/138317.pdf). 41 See pages 37-40 on the DPRK of the EU Restrictive measures (sanctions) in force (http://eeas.europa.eu/cfsp/sanctions/docs/measures_en.pdf). 42 In June 2008, the IAEA Director General informed the Board of Governors that the Agency had been provided with information alleging that an installation at the Dair Alzour site in Syria, destroyed by Israel in September 2007, had been a nuclear reactor that was not yet operational and into which no nuclear material had been introduced. See page 1 of the relevant Report of the IAEA Director General (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2012/gov2012-42.pdf). 43 See http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/129258.pdf and http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-12-227_en.htm.

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security and non-proliferation standards are followed in countries using nuclear energy. In this framework, the EU leaders welcomed the commitments by the various participating states concerning the minimisation and even eventual elimination of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in civilian use. Within the EU, conversion of the few remaining research reactors fuelled with HEU is envisaged for the end of this decade, depending on the technical and economical feasibility. The EU is satisfied that the NSS process has been addressing important areas such as the security of radioactive sources, which is also high on the EU’s agenda (the EU is currently revising its own regulatory framework), and information security. Discussions have also focused on the concept of “assurances”, i.e introducing elements of mutual reassurance by participating countries in the effective implementation of the existing legally binding and voluntary measures to enhance nuclear security. The EU has been working hard to implement an ambitious CBRN Action Plan44 which contains, inter alia, important actions aiming at strengthening nuclear security in all EU Member States. Stakeholders such as industry, academia, research, law enforcement, border control and civil defence have been involved. Cooperating with the IAEA, which plays a leading role in the area of nuclear security, has been a priority. The EU and the IAEA have sought to avoid duplication as the EU’s own CBRN Centres of Excellence Initiative45, launched in 2010, also aims at enhancing institutional capacities of selected countries and regions against nuclear risks, among other issues. The progress in implementing the EU CBRN Action Plan on the nuclear dimension was reflected in the statements made by the EU leaders at the Seoul NSS (work undertaken in the framework of that Action Plan includes the Nuclear Security Training Centre – EUSECTRA – which was inaugurated on 18 April 2013 and is established in Karlsruhe, Germany). The EU presented a substantive working paper on its contribution to ensuring nuclear security. EU leaders also stressed that safety, security and non-proliferation (absolute priorities to the EU) are clearly interlinked (there is no safety without security and vice-versa). In the wake of the Fukushima tragedy46, Europe has taken the lead in defining and carrying out comprehensive risk and safety assessments of all nuclear power plants in the EU. These were conducted through "stress tests" on the basis of an agreed methodology, which was offered as a model to the EU’s partners. 44

http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/09/st15/st15505-re01.en09.pdf. http://www.cbrn-coe.eu. 46 The accident occurred at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011. 45

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The EU is planning to enhance its active participation in the NSS process. This will continue with a further Summit in 2014, in the Netherlands, to be probably followed by one last such event in 2016 in the US. It is then expected that the IAEA would take on the key responsibilities in the area of nuclear security. On 1-5 July 2013, the IAEA organised in Vienna the International Conference on Nuclear Security at ministerial level. A statement47 on behalf of the EU High Representative was delivered by the Lithuanian Minister of Energy highlighting the EU contribution. The EU has been playing an active role in the G8 meetings on nonproliferation and disarmament and has been assisting with the carrying out of demarches on the IAEA AP and the UNSCR 1540 national implementation, in association with the G8 Presidencies. The EU has contributed up to EUR 1 billion48 since 2002 to the G8 Global Partnership (GP) Programme. From a nuclear perspective, the EU participates in the sub-working group on nuclear security under the GP Working Group. The sub-working group on Centres of Excellence also discusses projects on nuclear issues (as the EU CBRN Centres of Excellence are active on such projects). The EU holds an observer status with the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT)49. The EU contribution to the GICNT objectives is particularly related to the implementation of the 2009 EU CBRN Action Plan, the EU CBRN Centres of Excellence Initiative, the EU’s contribution to the IAEA Nuclear Security Fund, as well as its role in controlling radioactive sources. Due to substantive contributions provided during past years to the drafting of various GICNT papers, and presentations on nuclear detection, forensics and response and mitigation, the EU was offered the opportunity to organise GICNT expert-level meetings50 of the Nuclear Forensics Working Group and the Response and Mitigation Working Group. These were held in October 2012 (the meetings were organised by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre facilities in Ispra/Arona - Italy). By implementing its WMD Strategy (adopted in 2003), the EU also contributes to the implementation of the UNSCR 1540 (2004). The UNSCR 1540 imposes on all UN Member States clear obligations to prevent proliferation and prevent access by terrorists to WMD materials. The EU supports the implementation of UNSCR 1540 in cooperation with the UN and

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http://www-pub.iaea.org/iaeameetings/cn203p/eu-statement.pdf. http://eeas.europa.eu/non-proliferation-and-disarmament/g8-global-partnership/ index_en.htm. 49 The most recent GICNT Plenary was held in Mexico City on 23-24 May 2013 – see Joint Co-Chair Statement at http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/prsrl/2013/210575.htm. 50 http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/prsrl/2013/210575.htm. 48

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UNSC 1540 Committee by organising regional seminars and providing assistance to third countries on national implementation. In addition to the previously-allocated funds amounting to EUR 670,00051, based on the decision52 of the Foreign Affairs Council made on 22 July 2013, the EU will allocate an additional amount of EUR 750,000 to support action against the proliferation of WMD by further contributing to the implementation of UNSCR 1540/2004 (and 1977/2011). The new EU financial contribution will be used to assist the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) to organise regional workshops and country assistance visits. The EU CBRN Centres of Excellence Initiative53 contributes, together with other EU funds (provided through the CFSP budget), to the objectives of the UNSCR 1540 in the fight against illicit trafficking or criminal use of CBRN (including nuclear) materials. Regarding nuclear safeguards, these have been continuously applied on all civil nuclear material in all EU Member States (Chapter 7 of the Euratom Treaty54). The European Commission has been implementing this in close cooperation with the IAEA, utilising an annual budget of approximately EUR 20 million55. With regard to nuclear safeguards outside the EU, the Union has committed EUR 10 million to support an international project aimed at expanding and modernising the IAEA Safeguards Analytical Laboratory in Seibersdorf / Austria, and has continued to provide important technical support to the Agency through the European Commission Cooperative Support Programme56. The EU has used its various instruments to enable safe and secure implementation of peaceful uses of nuclear technology57 in third countries. It has also been providing support to the IAEA for technical cooperation 51

EU Joint Actions 2006/419/CFSP of 12 June 2006 and 2008/368/CFSP of 14 May 2008. 52 See page 27 of the Main Results of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting of 22 July 2013. http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/138317.pdf. 53 Financed from the EU Instrument for Stability. 54 http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/energy/nuclear_energy/l27051_en.htm. 55 See latest progress report on the implementation of the EU WMD Strategy at http://eeas.europa.eu/non-proliferation-and-disarmament/pdf/oj_c_2284_dated_7_august_2013.pdf. 56 An average of EUR 3.3 million per year (according to the EU statement on Cluster II delivered at the 2013 NPT Preparatory Committee – http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/npt/ prepcom13/statements/26April_EU.pdf). 57 Further details are provided in section 2.3.

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activities (focused on areas of health, food and water), with its yearly contribution amounting to EUR 150 million. In addition, all EU Member States have ratified the CPPNM and are expected to complete the ratification procedures for the 2005 Amendment to the Convention as soon as possible. Export controls represent an important contribution to the overall nonproliferation efforts. Various EU activities supporting export controls have continued. At policy level, the European Commission issued on 17 January 2013 a report (Staff Working Document 2013/758) presenting the conclusions of the wide public consultation launched under the Green Paper on "Export controls: ensuring security and competitiveness in a changing world"59. This report has been used as a basis for the review process of the EU export control regime launched in 2013, the debates organised in the framework of the "Strategic export control conference"60 held in Brussels on 26 June 2013, and the preparations for a Communication to reflect the European Commission's future plans in this area. On the regulatory side, the EU dual-use Regulation 428/200961 is expected to be amended (the updates to the EU dual-use control lists, including those referring to nuclear-related items decided upon in the NSG62, need to be adopted at a faster pace).

Nuclear disarmament The EU is committed to achieving nuclear disarmament, particularly through an overall reduction in the global stockpile of nuclear weapons, in accordance with Article VI63 of the NPT. It has welcomed64 the considerable 58

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2013/february/tradoc_150459.pdf. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0393:FIN:EN:PDF. 60 http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/events/index.cfm?id=893. 61 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:134:0001:0269:en: PDF. 62 See the references to the completion of the Fundamental Review of the NSG’s Trigger and Dual-Use Lists (which was launched three years ago at the 2010 Christchurch NSG Plenary in New Zealand) in the Public Statement of the NSG Plenary meeting held in Prague on 13-14 June 2013 (http://www.nuclearsuppliersgroup.org/A_test/press/NSG%206%20PUBLIC%20 STATEMENT%20HOD%20final.pdf). 63 “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” 64 Also see the EU statement on Cluster I issues (nuclear disarmament) delivered on 24 April 2013 at the NPT Preparatory Committee meeting held in Geneva 59

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reductions made so far, taking into account the special responsibility of the states that possess the largest arsenals and has continuously encourage them to achieve further reductions. The EU has welcomed steps undertaken and declarations made by the P565 with regard to nuclear disarmament, as well as the increased transparency shown by some nuclear-weapon states, in particular the EU Member States UK and France, on the nuclear weapons they possess. In particular, the EU welcomed the entry into force of the New START Treaty66 and is satisfied with further indications67 of progress being made by United States and the Russian Federation. The EU recognises the legitimate interest of non-nuclear weapon states in receiving unequivocal and legally-binding security assurances from nuclearweapon states68. Positive and negative security assurances strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime and could serve as an incentive to countries that are provided with such assurances not to acquire WMD. The EU has constantly reconfirmed that it is committed to promoting further consideration of security assurances, and has welcomed the respective adjustments in the nuclear postures of some nuclear-weapon states. In addition, the EU continues to attach great importance to the development of internationally recognised nuclear-weapon free zones, established on the (http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom13/ statements/24april_eu.pdf). 65 P5 meetings were held in London (2009), Paris (2011), Washington (2012), and Geneva (2013). 66 Entered into force on 5 February 2011 (expected to last at least until 2021). 67 On 19 June 2013, in a speech he made in Berlin, President Obama announced new guidance that aligns US nuclear policies to the 21st century security environment. Obama’s new guidance affirms that US will maintain a credible deterrent, capable of convincing any potential adversary that the adverse consequences of attacking US or its allies far outweigh any potential benefit they may seek to gain through an attack. The guidance takes further steps toward reducing the role of nuclear weapons in the US security strategy. President Obama specified that the US would reduce deployed strategic nuclear weapons by one third and will seek bold reductions in US and Russian tactical nuclear weapons. He furthermore renewed the US commitment to work on ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and called for negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT). See details at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/19/remarks-president-obamabrandenburg-gate-berlin-germany. 68 Based on UNSCR 984 (1995), each of the nuclear weapon states make unilateral statements in which they confirm that they provide conditional or unconditional security assurances against the use and the threat of use of nuclear weapons to nonnuclear weapon states parties to the NPT.

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basis of agreements freely arrived at among states of the regions concerned, in line with the principles set out by the UN Disarmament Commission in 199969. In this context, the EU pledged support with regard to the implementation of the Pelindaba Treaty70 and the establishment and work of the African Commission for Nuclear Energy (AFCONE) set up under the responsibility of the African Union. The EU has been working on identifying instruments and means to support the AFCONE, which depend on concrete assistance that still needs to be determined. With regard to the nuclear weapon free zone in South Eastern Asia, the two EU Member States that are permanent members of the UNSC (nuclear powers), as well as the other three nuclear powers (US, Russia and China), have yet to sign the Protocol to the Bangkok Treaty71 to provide assurances to the 10 ASEAN countries that are states parties to the Treaty on the non-use (or threat of use) of nuclear weapons in the zone (in November 2011, the five nuclear powers agreed with the ASEAN states on steps that would enable the first of them to sign the Protocol). The EU is an active participant in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in debates on non-proliferation issues. A Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Work Plan was adopted at ministerial level in July 2012 by the ARF and is currently being implemented. With regard to Mongolia’s nuclear weapon free status, the EU supports the parallel declarations signed by the five nuclear weapon states with that country in September 201272. Last but not least, the EU has established good cooperating relations with the Community of the Latin American and Caribbean States. The Treaty of Tlatelolco, establishing a nuclear-weapon free zone in the region, has been in force since 1969. Further on nuclear disarmament, the entry into force and universalisation of the CTBT continue to be strategic priorities to the EU. All EU Member States ratified the Treaty, and the Union remains strongly committed – both politically and financially – to pursuing the achievement of those two

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See the report available at http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/ 54/42%28SUPP%29. 70 The Treaty of Pelindaba establishes a nuclear weapon - free zone in Africa. The Treaty entered into force in 2009. 71 Entered into force in 1997. 72 https://www.un.org/disarmament/special/meetings/firstcommittee/67/pdfs/Thematic/ 19%20Oct%20TD%20Clust%201%20Mongolia.pdf.

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important objectives. Recent ratifications of the CTBT, in particular by Indonesia, which is an Annex 2 state73, have been very encouraging. As reported at the Sixth Ministerial Meeting in support of the CTBT74 held in New York on 27 September 2012, the EU has recently conducted a new series of political demarches to promote the entry into force of the Treaty in those countries. On behalf of the EU, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt reported that, during those demarches, all interlocutors expressed support for the CTBT principles and commitment for their countries to ratify the Treaty. Some still need to be persuaded of the value added of the CTBT, as compared to various existing regional arrangements, while others are waiting for Annex 2 countries to ratify first. The EU financial commitment is represented by the various Joint Actions and Council Decisions75 based on which the EU has provided the CTBTO with more than EUR 15.5 million. It is one of the most important contributors to the CTBTO International Monitoring System. The nuclear test conducted by the DPRK on 12 February 2013 has clearly shown the importance of the CTBTO Detection Stations Network, which is one of the projects that the EU is supporting financially. The EU supports the Conference on Disarmament as the single multilateral negotiating forum of the international community in that area. In accordance with its mandate, the CD has a crucial role regarding the negotiation of multilateral treaties, including a Treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices (see UNGA Resolution 67/5376). However, the on-going stalemate in the CD and the impossibility of having a Programme of Work adopted also make impossible the launch of negotiations on an FMCT (which, to the EU77, remains a clear priority). 73

The so-called “Annex 2 states” are states that participated in the CTBT’s negotiations between 1994 and 1996 and possessed nuclear power reactors or research reactors at that time. As of 2013, eight Annex 2 states have not ratified the Treaty: China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States have signed but not ratified the Treaty; India, North Korea and Pakistan have not signed it. 74 http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ministerial_meeting_2012/0927_CTBT_ EU_ Statement_Bildt.pdf. 75 Council Joint Actions 2006/243/CFSP, 2007/468/CFSP, 2008/588/CFSP, and Council Decisions 2010/461/CFSP and 2012/699/CFSP. 76 http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/67/53. 77 The EU supports the “Shannon Mandate” (CD 1299) which, in 1995, established an Ad Hoc Committee on a ban on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. The Mandate addresses the disagreement regarding the scope of the proposed treaty as to whether, in addition to future production, past production of fissile materials should be included.

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The EU sees the start of the negotiations on an FMCT (to complement the NPT and the CTBT) as an indispensable step towards fulfilment of the obligations and final objective enshrined in Article VI of the NPT. The EU is of the view that national security concerns, while legitimate, can and should be addressed as part of the negotiation process rather than as a prerequisite78. Confidence-building measures can be taken immediately, without the need to wait for the commencement of formal negotiations. In this regard, pending negotiations and the entry into force of an FMCT, the EU has been calling on all states concerned to declare and uphold an immediate moratorium on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

Peaceful use of nuclear energy As confirmed in the IAEA INFCIRC/83079 of 30 November 2011, the EU (including the individual contributions of its Member States) is “the largest single donor of foreign assistance in the world”. The mentioned document highlights that, for twenty years, the EU's external assistance has included assistance intended to ensure the safe and secure use of nuclear energy in third countries. Several hundred million Euros were spent under such external assistance programmes for the safe and secure use of nuclear energy, including in the past through the PHARE and TACIS programmes. The quoted IAEA document details on the activities financed by new instruments in the EU's current financial cycle (2007-2013). The EU’s assistance programmes are aimed at providing support for the inalienable right of all NPT’s states parties to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I, II and III of the Treaty80. The EU is also strongly committed to the objectives of Article IV. Through multilateral and bilateral cooperation programmes, the EU supports many peaceful and beneficial applications of nuclear technology, in particular in developing countries that wish to develop in a responsible way their capacities in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy with a view to ensuring the best safety, security and non-proliferation conditions. The IAEA plays a key role in that regard and the EU is firm in promoting, as a

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Pakistan is the only country that formally blocks the adoption of a Programme of Work in the CD. 79 http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2011/infcirc830.pdf. 80 http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/text/npt2.htm.

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universally accepted international verification standard, the IAEA CSA and AP. The EU is a strong supporter of the IAEA's Technical Cooperation Programme81 and values the Agency's role in the responsible development of peaceful applications of nuclear technology in the areas of human health, food and agriculture, water resources, environment, preservation of cultural heritage, nuclear and radiation safety, and nuclear energy in participating IAEA Member States. Part of the EU funding is implemented in third countries through the IAEA’s Technical Cooperation Fund (approximately EUR 150 million per year). Through the EU Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation (INSC), more than EUR 500 million was allocated over the period 2007-2013 to the promotion of nuclear safety, radiation protection and the application of efficient and effective safeguards of nuclear materials in third countries. This instrument finances projects in the field of safety in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Latin America, South East Asia, Northern Africa and the Middle East. The EU Instrument for Pre-Accession has financed similar activities in those countries that are candidates for EU membership: more than EUR 35 million was allocated over the same period, mainly to assist with radiation protection. The EU has continuously supported the key role played by the IAEA in the field of nuclear safety and the Action Plan on Nuclear Safety82 adopted at the IAEA General Conference in 2011. Following the Fukushima accident occurred in March 2011, all EU Member States agreed to subject their nuclear power plants to additional assessments, also given that citizens and civil society organisations would be involved in the process. The final results of the so-called “stress tests” were made public in June 201283, following detailed peer reviews by experts from all EU Member States, and some of the EU’s neighbours. The stress tests concluded with important lessons to be learned, provided technical insights for safety improvements and a solid basis for legislative changes. The EU will continue to work closely with the IAEA in reviewing the Convention on Nuclear Safety84 in order to improve its effectiveness and enforceability. Since 2005, the EU contribution for nuclear safety activities provided to the Agency through TACIS and the INSC has been more than EUR 20 million. 81

See details on http://www.iaea.org/technicalcooperation/programme. http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/actionplan/reports/actionplanns130911.pdf. 83 http://www.ensreg.eu/sites/default/files/EU%20Stress%20Test%20Peer%20Review % 20Final%20Report_0.pdf. 84 http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/inf449.shtml. 82

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With regard to the IAEA technical and scientific programmes, the Cooperative Programme on Nuclear Safeguards initiated in 1981 between the European Commission and the Agency (which is the second-largest of 21 IAEA Member State Support Programmes) provides the IAEA with technology, expertise and training in verifying safeguards, including detecting undeclared materials, activities and facilities. The European Commission supports the IAEA in developing detection and nuclear forensics technologies and providing training for front-line officers, police and national experts. It also works with the IAEA in the areas of nuclear smuggling and border monitoring. Furthermore, the Euratom safeguards (supporting IAEA’s verification tasks) act as the regional system for nuclear material accountancy and control, by providing verification results useful to the IAEA. The 7th Euratom Framework Programme for Nuclear Research (20072011)85 supported research activities launched under Nuclear Cooperation Agreements with third countries. The Programme has been extended for the period 2012-2013 and focuses on safety research (covering in particular safe and transparent nuclear trade and research activities in nuclear safety and fusion energy). Last but not least, the EU is supporting the establishment of the IAEA Low-Enriched Uranium Bank86 for which up to EUR 25 million have been committed (out of which EUR 20 million has already been transferred to the Agency)87.

Prospects for further EU involvement There is no doubt about the fact that the EU has done a lot in the area of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and this was certainly taken into account when the Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. The 85

See details at http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/energy/nuclear_energy/i23032_en.htm. 86 The IAEA Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) Bank will help to assure a supply of LEU for power generation. Should an IAEA Member State´s LEU supply to a nuclear power plant be disrupted, and the supply cannot be restored by the commercial market, State-to-State arrangements, or by any other such means, it may call upon the IAEA LEU Bank to secure LEU supplies, without distorting the commercial market. This initiative does not diminish in any way States´ rights to establish or expand their own nuclear fuel production. 87 See latest Six-monthly progress report on the implementation of the EU WMD Strategy - http://eeas.europa.eu/non-proliferation-and-disarmament/pdf/oj_c_2284_dated_7_august_2013.pdf.

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achievements of the past ten years, based on the implementation of the WMD Strategy88, as well as the assistance delivered, have ensured that the EU is seen as a responsible actor in the eyes of the international community. This should be perceived as a sign of encouragement and should stimulate the EU to do more, as – even if, at times, the Union does not get the credit it would deserve for its action – it is clear that such action is needed and it is helpful. The adoption in May 2011 of the UNGA Resolution 65/27689 on the “Participation of the European Union in the work of the United Nations” has been an important development. The EU is now more able to enhance its contribution to the work of various relevant fora, make known its views in a more visible way, and encourage countries to team up in the fight against proliferation of WMD. No actor can fix things alone, and it is clearly not the intention of the EU to act in isolation, which is why one of the most important principles of its WMD Strategy is to cooperate with other international actors that are willing and able to make a difference. WMD proliferation is a global challenge and it requires global action. The proliferation of nuclear weapons should be the first element to be prevented as otherwise it “would seriously enhance the danger of nuclear war“90. But even before considering engaging with outside partners (often having divergent interests) and working together with them in order to try to handle the challenges around the globe, EU Member States should make more efforts to defend, in a more united and cohesive manner, the interests of the European continent, and fully carry out what they committed to in the Lisbon Treaty: “The Member States shall support the Union's external and security policy actively and unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity and shall comply with the Union's action in this area. The Member States shall work together to enhance and develop their mutual political solidarity. They shall refrain from any action which is contrary to the interests of the Union or likely to impair its effectiveness as a cohesive force in international relations.”91

88 Also see the assessment made by Ian Anthony and Lina Grip in “Strengthening the European Union’s future approach to WMD non-proliferation” (SIPRI Policy Paper no 37) available on-line at http://books.sipri.org/files/PP/SIPRIPP37.pdf. 89 http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/65/276. 90 See the preamble to the NPT: http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/text/npt2.htm 91 See article 24(3) of the Consolidated version of the Treaty on the European Union (Lisbon).

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Only a united EU can play the role of a strong partner to other important actors on the international scene that share the same objectives in the fight against WMD proliferation, including in the nuclear area. The fact that two EU Member States (United Kingdom and France) are permanent members of the UNSC (nuclear powers) makes the EU very special. On the one hand, it is a privilege to the EU to have them (not to be forgotten that France is a founding member of the Union); on the other hand, it makes it difficult sometimes to get an EU common position in some nuclear disarmament matters (e.g. the discussions held in the NPT context on the humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, the specifics of the EU’s role in the future work of the Group of Governmental Experts that is tasked92 to make recommendations on possible elements that could contribute to an FMCT, etc.). At any rate, it is clear that the expertise of the two EU Member States in handling nuclear-related aspects needs to be capitalised on, as they have made visible efforts in the area (see the 2010 “Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review”93 and the 2013 “French White Paper on Defence and National Security”94). The EU WMD Strategy adopted in 2003 is based on principles that are still valid today. Its implementation (together with the full implementation of the NLA) needs to be pursued even more vigorously, based on a more effective allocation of the available funds and taking into account updated geographic and thematic priorities. Specifically with regard to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, and in spite of all difficulties, the EU should continue to push for the achievement of the following major objectives: -balanced implementation of the 2010 NPT Action Plan and successful 2015 NPT Review Conference, including with regard to the establishment of a WMD-free zone in the Middle East; The major proliferation and non-compliance challenges represented by Iran, the DPRK and Syria should continue to keep the EU focused on that issue. The countries that are not states parties to the NPT should continue to be special interlocutors, and the EU should not give up promoting the NPT objectives in the dialogue with them. The EU should remain committed to supporting the objective of establishing a WMD-free zone in the Middle East, and enhance work with the EU Non-Proliferation Consortium in that regard. 92

See UNGA Resolution 67/53 (available on-line at http://www.un.org/ ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/67/53). 93 http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/docu ments/ digitalasset/dg_191634.pdf. 94 http://www.gouvernement.fr/sites/default/files/fichiers_joints/livre-blanc-sur-ladefense-et-la-securite-nationale_2013.pdf.

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-entry into force and universalisation of the CTBT; The CTBT should continue to be high on the EU’s agenda. While universalisation of the Treaty is important, the EU should attach particular importance to the dialogue with the eight Annex 2 states, whose ratification is crucial for the entry into force of the CTBT. -start of negotiations on an FMCT in the CD; The adoption of the UNGA Resolution 67/53 (on an FMCT) at its 67th session is a remarkable development (all EU Member States supported the mentioned Resolution). Based on that Resolution, the EU should continue to encourage the start of negotiations on an FMCT in the CD. -effective implementation of the outcome of the NSS process; The NSS process is extremely relevant in the context in which non-state actors pose serious challenges to the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The EU has reported on significant contributions that it has provided to strengthen nuclear security, and it should enhance those contributions, including based on a more effective implementation of the relevant activities listed in its CBRN Action Plan and projects promoted in the framework of the EU CBRN Centres of Excellence. The future summits (in 2014 and 2016) will offer the EU the opportunity to announce such contributions, which are much needed. -strengthened role of the IAEA, in particular in the area of nuclear security; The partnership between the EU and the IAEA has a solid basis: the experience of both organisations with nuclear non-proliferation activities and the substantial EU funds that have been committed in support of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The commitment to strengthen that partnership was reconfirmed at the first-ever EU-IAEA Annual Senior Officials Meeting (Brussels, 25 January 2013) and joint work should continue as the two organisations are preparing for the second event of that type, which will soon be held in Vienna. -effective export control of nuclear-related items. It cannot be reiterated enough how important an effective export control regime is. All responsible actors should do their best to only export to safe destinations and to make sure that sensitive items are not diverted to problematic end-users. Ensuring effective export controls is understandably a complex issue, and the EU has come a long way towards perfecting its working methods. However, more needs to be done individually by the EU Member States as well as at community level. Working effectively also in the framework of the NSG – which has successfully completed the Fundamental Review process of its Trigger and Dual-Use Lists initiated in 2010 – requires steady commitment. Last but not least, enhanced export control outreach will need to remain an important EU priority.

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Responsibility, professionalism, leadership, courage, dedication, human and financial resources are key ingredients to getting successful results in any fight against complex enemies. The never-ending fight against proliferation of nuclear weapons is indisputably one of those battles hard to win, even in a long-term perspective, but one needs to constantly remember that any small step in such an endeavour brings us closer to a more stable security environment and a safer world. Therefore, everyone is expected to advance responsible contributions.

Bibliography Books Koppe, Erik Vincent (2006), The Use of Nuclear Weapons and the Protection of the Environment During International Armed Conflict, Groningen: Gildeprint, Enschede. Lodgaard, Svere (2011), Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world?, Abingdon: Routledge. Pollack, Jonathan D. (2011), No Exit. North Korea, Nuclear Weapons and International Security, Abingdon: The International Institute for Strategic Studies. Thakur, Ramesh; Evans Gareth (2013), Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play, Canberra: Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.

Studies within a volume Brooks, Linton F. (2009), “The Fragile Tradition of Nuclear Restraint”, review of T.V. Paul’s book The Tradition on Non-use of Nuclear Weapons, Monterey, CA, The Nonproliferation Review, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 521–525. Gomes, Ana; Swoboda, Hannes; Wiersma, Jan Marinus (2009), “Reviving the NPT and Working Towards Disarmament: The Contribution of Multilateral Fuel Cycle Arrangements” in Swoboda, Hannes; Wiersma, Jan Marinus (ed.), Peace and Disarmament: A World without Nuclear Weapons?, Brussels: The Socialist Group in the European Parliament, pp. 9-20. Müller, Harald; Schmidt, Andreas (2010), “The Little Known Story of DeProliferation: Why States Give Up Nuclear Weapon Activities”, in Potter, William C.; Mukhatzhanova, Gaukhar (eds), Forecasting Proliferation in the 21st Century: The Role of Theory, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 124-158.

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Potter, W. (2010), “The NPT and the Sources of Nuclear Restraint”, in Dædalus on The Global Nuclear Future, vol. 139, no. 1, pp. 68-81. Sagan, S. (2010), “Nuclear Latency and Nuclear Proliferation”, in Potter, William C.; Mukhatzhanova, Gaukhar (eds), Forecasting Proliferation in the 21st Century: The Role of Theory, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 80-101.

Studies in periodicals Anthony, Ian; Grand Camille; Kulesa, Lukasz; Mölling, Christian; Smith, Mark (2010), “Nuclear weapons after the 2010 NPT Review Conference” in Chaillot Papers no. 120, European Union Institute for Security Studies. Anthony, Ian; Grip, Lina (2013), “Strengthening the European Union’s future approach to WMD non-proliferation” in SIPRI Policy Paper no. 37. Grip, Lina (2011), “Assessing selected European Union external assistance and cooperation projects on WMD non-proliferation” in Non-proliferation Papers no. 6, EU Non-proliferation Consortium, pp. 3–7. Hymans, J. (2010), “When Does a State Become a ‘Nuclear Weapons State’? An Exercise in Measurement Validation” in The Nonproliferation Review, vol. 17, no. 1. Müller, Harald (2008), “The Future of Nuclear Weapons in an Interdependent World”, in The Washington Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 63-75. Portela, Clara (2009), “The Role of the EU in the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: The Way to Thessaloniki and Beyond” in Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) reports no. 65. Sauer, Tom (2011), “The Emerging Powers and the Nuclear NonProliferation and Disarmament Regime” in the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations Security Policy Brief no. 27. Simpson, John (2011), “Is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty fit for purpose?” in the United Nations Association of the UK Briefing Report no. 1 on Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation towards 2015.

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[http://www.army-technology.com/features/featureslow-steady-uk-rolein-soviet-nuclear-disarmament], consulted on 26 July 2013. Chairman’s factual summaries of the 2012 and 2013 NPT Preparatory Committee meetings [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom12/documents/WP53.pdf], 21 July 2013; [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom13/documents/CRP2.pdf], consulted on 21 July 2013. Council Decision 2010/430/CFSP of 26 July 2010 establishing a European network of independent non-proliferation think tanks in support of the implementation of the EU Strategy against Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:202: 0005: 0009:EN:PDF], consulted on 22 July 2013. Dempsey, Judy (2010), No Excuses for EU on Nuclear Disarmament [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/world/europe/29ihtletter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0], consulted on 26 July 2013. European Commission Green Paper “The dual-use export control system of the European Union: ensuring security and competitiveness in a changing world” (COM(2011) 393 final) [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0393: FIN:EN:PDF], consulted on 26 July 2013. European Commission Staff Working Document “Strategic export controls: ensuring security and competitiveness in a changing world - A report on the public consultation launched under the Green Paper COM (2011) 393 (SWD (2013) 7 final) [http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2013/february/tradoc_150459.pdf], consulted on 23 July 2013. EU Council Conclusions on strengthening chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) security in the European Union - an EU CBRN Action Plan [http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/09/st15/st15505re01.en09.pdf], consulted on 23 July 2013. EU Council Regulation (EC) No 428/2009 of 5 May 2009 setting up a Community regime for the control of exports, transfer, brokering and transit of dual-use items [http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:134: 0001:0269:en: PDF], consulted on 23 July 2013. European Security Strategy: “A Secure Europe in a Better World” [http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf], consulted on 21 July 2013.

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EU Statement at the Sixth Ministerial Meeting in support of the CTBT – New York, 27 September 2012 [http://www.ctbto.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ministerial_meeting_2012 /0927_CTBT_EU_Statement_Bildt.pdf], consulted on 27 July 2013. EU Statements and Working Papers at the 2013 NPT Preparatory Committee – Geneva, 22 April – 3 May 2013 [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom13/statements/22April_EU.pdf], consulted on 22 April 2013; [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom13/statements/24april_eu.pdf], consulted on 24 April 2013; [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom13/statements/26April_EU.pdf], consulted on 26 April 2013; [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom13/statements/30April_EU.pdf], consulted on 30 April 2013; [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom13/documents/WP21.pdf], consulted on 28 March 2013. EU Statements and Working Papers at the 2012 NPT Preparatory Committee – Vienna, 30 April – 11 May 2012 [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom12/statements/30April_EU.pdf], consulted on 22 July 2013; [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom12/statements/3May_EU.pdf], consulted on 22 July 2013; [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom12/statements/7May_EU.pdf], consulted on 22 July 2013; [http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmamentfora/npt/prepcom12/statements/9May_EU.pdf], consulted on 22 July 2013. EU strategy against proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction [http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/03/st15/st15708.en03.pdf], consulted on 21 July 2013. Fitzpatrick, Mark (2013), Clinging to hopes for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis

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[http://www.iiss.org/en/about%20us/press%20room/press/archive/2013a8a0/june-e54b/the-iranian-nuclear-challenge-dd6e], consulted on 27 July 2013. IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety (2011) [http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/actionplan/reports/actionplanns13091 1.pdf], consulted on 27 July 2013. IAEA INFCIRC/830 (2011) - Communication dated 16 November 2011 received from the Delegation of the European Union to the International Organizations in Vienna on international cooperation by the European Union in support of peaceful uses of nuclear energy [http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2011/infcirc830.pdf], consulted on 27 July 2013. Joint Press Statement of the first EU-IAEA Senior Officials Meeting held in Brussels on 25 January 2013 [http://eeas.europa.eu/250113_press_statement_for_the_first_eu_iaea_ som_as_of_25_january.pdf], consulted on 21 July 2013; [http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/mediaadvisory/2013/ma201302.html], consulted on 21 July 2013; [http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/2013/eucontribution.pdf], consulted on 21 July 2013. José Manuel Durão Barroso President of the European Commission "EU Action on Nuclear Safety" Nuclear Security Summit Seoul, South Korea, 26-27 March 2012

[http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-12-227_en.htm], consulted on 22 July 2013. Livre Blanc – Défence et Sécurité Nationale – France 2013 [http://www.gouvernement.fr/sites/default/files/fichiers_joints/livreblanc-sur-la-defense-et-la-securite-nationale_2013.pdf], consulted on 28 July 2013. Lodhi, Maleeha (2012), Dealing with symptoms, not causes [http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-146444-Dealing-withsymptoms-not-causes], consulted on 29 July 2013. Meyer, Paul (2012), The fissile material follies [http://www.thesimonsfoundation.ca/sites/all/files/The%20Fissile%20 Material%20Follies%20-%20Embassy%2C%20December%2012%2 C%202012.pdf], consulted on 29 July 2013. Müller, Harald (2009), The Importance of Framework Conditions [www.carnegieendowment.org/files/Muller.pdf], consulted on 27 July 2013. New Lines for Action by the European Union in combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems

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[http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/08/st17/st17172.en08.pdf, consulted on 22 July 2013. Painter, Daniel (2013), The Nuclear Suppliers Group at the Crossroads [http://thediplomat.com/2013/06/10/the-nuclear-suppliers-group-at-thecrossroads/], consulted on 29 July 2013. Public Statement - Plenary Meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (Prague, Czech Republic, 13-14 June 2013) [http://www.nuclearsuppliersgroup.org/A_test/press/NSG%206%20 PUBLIC%20STATEMENT%20HOD%20final.pdf], consulted on 14 June 2013. Remarks by President Obama at the Brandenburg Gate -- Berlin, Germany [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/19/remarkspresident-obama-brandenburg-gate-berlin-germany], consulted on 27 July 2013. Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review – 2010 [http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/ @dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_191634.pdf], consulted on 28 July 2013. SIPRI Yearbook 2013 - Armaments, Disarmament and International Security [http://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2013], consulted on 27 July 2013. Six-Monthly Progress Report on the implementation of the EU Strategy against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (2013/I) [http://eeas.europa.eu/non-proliferation-and-disarmament/pdf/oj_c_2284_dated_7_august_2013.pdf], consulted on 7 August 2013. Statement by the President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy 2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit [http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ ec/129258.pdf], consulted on 22 July 2013. Thränert, Oliver (2009),A World Without Nuclear Weapons:Six WrongHeaded Cliches about Disarmament [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-world-without-nuclearweapons-six-wrong-headed-cliches-about-disarmament-a-656171.html], consulted on 23 July 2013. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treaty], consulted on 21 July 2013. UNGA Resolution 65/276 (2011) [http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/65/276, consulted on 28 July 2013.

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Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Arms (2006) [http://www.blixassociates.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/ Weapons_of_ Terror.pdf], consulted on 13 August 2013.

THE EASTERN PARTNERSHIP: STILL A RELEVANT EU POLICY? CRISTIAN CON‫܉‬AN

Abstract The 2009 Prague Summit saw Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan gathered under the same umbrella within the framework of a new EU policy - the Eastern Partnership (EaP). Against a backdrop of significant differences among the six states and despite the gap between their European expectations and the EU’s self-imposed limits, the EaP has emerged as the main European channel for relating to its Eastern neighbourhood. Four years later, the picture in this area is no less complicated than it was at the outset: the accelerated progress is mixed with increasing political, economic and democratic setbacks. Moreover, the interest in the European Union ranges from EU integration to quasi-rejection and an incipient feeling of dissatisfaction is spreading across these states as the concrete results are yet to be felt and the EU seems unable to get over its introspective mood. The EaP’s overarching goal of creating a common space of security, stability and prosperity remains, therefore, a moving target. Each of these aspects challenges the very essence of the Eastern Partnership policy, which is why an overview of its objectives, achievements, failures, instruments, internal and external factors is needed ahead of the painstaking and future-oriented November 2013 EaP Vilnius Summit.

Keywords EU, neighbourhood, Eastern Partnership Vilnius Summit

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The EaP Summit in Vilnius - a test for both the EaP partner countries and the EU policy in its Eastern neighbourhood The end of 2013 will allow the EU, on the one hand, and its Eastern neighbours, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Belarus, on the other hand, to assess the progress in their relations. Likewise, this will be the moment when the parties define the level of ambition of their future engagement for the next two years, until the next Eastern Partnership (EaP) Summit. The EaP Summit that will be held in Vilnius on 28-29 November 2013, the capital of the incumbent EU Presidency, will represent a milestone in the relations of some EaP states with the European Union. If no major political turbulence occurs in the period prior to the Summit, three countries - the Republic of Moldova, Armenia and Georgia - will initialise their respective Association Agreements (AAs), including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs) with the European Union. This will be a step that concludes 3 years of negotiations and it represents a necessary phase before the signing of these agreements. The other major possible deliverable of the Summit could be the signing of the AA/ DCFTA between Ukraine and the EU, initiated in 2012. Brussels has repeatedly pointed out that the signature is pending Kiev’s determined action and tangible progress in a number of benchmarks of serious concern for the European Union. With three Association Agreements in sight and one possible AA to be signed, many could say that the Vilnius EaP Summit will quite likely be a tremendous success. Closer political association and deeper economic integration of the 28 EU Member States and their Eastern neighbours have long been the major foreign policy goals within the framework of the Eastern dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), i.e. the Eastern Partnership. A shared community of values, principles and norms is being pursued through this higher level of contractual relations. Economic prosperity, increased security, higher political convergence should also result, directly or indirectly, from this wider and deeper interaction. However, if one were to look more carefully at where these countries are now with regard to this criterion, as well as go through the recent declarations of some of the high-level EU officials and politicians, it would be hard not to notice the critical tone that accompanies the positive remarks in these statements. While the negative references to the economic area created by the EU are less prominent in speeches or communiqués - although agreeing on DCFTA texts has never been an easy task - criticism on domestic politics,

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democracy, good governance, human rights and fundamental freedoms often occupies the rest of the picture of the EU’s Eastern Partners. This ambivalence, along with limited progress in the EU’s relations with Belarus and Azerbaijan, presents a complex image of the expectations from the Vilnius EaP Summit. Moreover, it raises questions about the efficiency and efficacy of the EU policy towards its Eastern neighbours and even about its relevance, given the limited positive impact of EU-related reforms on societies1 in the partner countries to date. The efficiency, efficacy and limited positive impact assessment are themselves debatable issues. EU officials and many EU Governments may also argue that the Eastern Partnership has proven to be a successful EU policy. An official coming from the Republic of Moldova, Armenia or Georgia will, on the one hand, praise the benefits of this policy, but on the other hand, he/she will show some degree of disappointment with regard to the absence of more ambitious language in the AA texts, i.e. one that provides perspectives on EU accession. Less enthusiasm for the EaP would stem from an Azeri official’s point of view, a country which is not satisfied with its current status in the EaP framework and is urging the EU to grant it the "strategic partner" status, given its importance as a European Union energy supplier2. Furthermore, only tiny signs of openness towards this policy would characterise the official position in Minsk after a long period of reluctance, following the EU’s sanctions regime imposed on some top Belarusian politicians, which was triggered by the shortcomings of the 2010 Presidential elections and the crackdown on the opposition3. With regard to the voice of the civil societies in EaP partner countries, there is predominantly strong support for the Eastern Partnership, seen as the main (or even, in some cases, the only real) driver of reforms in these states.

1

Economic growth rates remain in 2013 below those experienced in the run-up to the economic crisis – See http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eca/overview; Corruption Perception Indexes remain high in 2012 – See http://www.transparency.org/country; the Press Freedom Index places 4 out of the 6 EaP states in 2012 in the second half of the 179 states analysed – See http://en.rsf.org/IMG/CLASSEMENT_2012/CLASSEMENT_ANG.pdf. 2 Europeanvoice.com, “Aliyev seeks EU strategic partner status”, 2013, [http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2013/june/77568.aspx], 10 August 2013. 3 Radio Free Europe, Belarusian Foreign Minister Backs Cooperation With EU Eastern Partnership, 2013, [http://www.rferl.org/content/belarus-eu-easternpartnership-cooperation/25054041.html], 29 July 2013.

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The EaP “players” likely to score in Vilnius All this information shows not only a normal and understandable range of different views, but also the need for stock-taking and the opportunity of an outlook beyond the EaP Summit in November. To that end, the deliverables of the next EaP Summit will certainly constitute the main reference points in measuring the EU’s success in this region. It is worth acknowledging, nevertheless, that even though the EaP is first of all an EU policy, its contents cannot be implemented and its objectives cannot be reached without the full participation and genuine commitment of the partner countries. As defined, the EaP is based on shared ownership and mutual accountability. To put it very simply, it takes two to tango. That is why when assessing such a policy, the analysis would have to take into account the level of interest and commitment that both sides have shown until now on this common path. In this context, the refusal of the Government in Minsk to engage with the EU in the EaP framework, as well as Azerbaijan’s wish to be regarded as a strategic EU partner and not only an EaP state, have cast a shadow over the EaP, but at the same time these are hardly consistent reasons for somebody to neglect its positive results. The other four EaP countries are better placed in their relations with the EU and their performance will have an impact on the Vilnius Summit and, on a larger scale, on the EaP. Three of them seem to be regarded as a sort of a “package” ahead of the Summit – they are preparing to sign their AAs and DCFTAs with the European Union. The fourth - Ukraine - is still unsure whether it will manage to overcome the current deadlock in its relations with Brussels regarding the prospects of signing the AA by the time of the Vilnius Summit.

A score that could have been much better Nevertheless, these four states have turned out to be rather inconsistent when implementing European values and principles over the last few years. Despite encouraging political signs and pro-European discourses of the elites in the four EaP states, the cross-cutting feature seems to be that the point of irreversibility on the European path in these countries is yet to be reached. Political stability based on democratic and inclusive participation, underpinning a social and economic environment that is conducive to sustainable reforms, has often been challenged in these states; a candidate for the Armenian Presidential elections in February 2013 being wounded by a gunman in an attack just shortly before election day, intimidation and pressure on voters or the lack of a genuinely level playing field among

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contestants4 constitute further proof that the political scene in Armenia still needs to harmonise with the EU’s ”modus operandi”, despite the overall progress in the negotiations of the AA. Uneasiness about the determination of the government in Tbilisi to keep the current EU foreign policy focused and to maintain the pace of political, economic and social reforms agreed with the European Union was felt in the European Union5 after the Parliamentary elections in Georgia from October 2012, when an apparently less proWestern political figure, Bidzina Ivanishvili, emerged at the forefront of Georgian politics. Furthermore, the political crisis in Chisinau in the spring of 2013 caused concern in Brussels over the ability of the pro-European parties in the R. of Moldova to keep their pro-European agenda6 and find the necessary compromise that would keep them in power and the country in the position of the “success story of the Eastern Partnership”. It was right to fear a setback of these countries in terms of relations with the European Union, bearing in mind the Ukrainian example, once a front-runner of this group of states and now far from being regarded as a model of a European partner sharing European values and principles. We could add to this context the protests in northern Azerbaijan against President I. Aliyev's government in February 2013 and the disproportionate reaction of the law-enforcement bodies, including the arrest of some 40 activists peacefully protesting in Baku in support of the demonstrations 4

OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission, Republic of Armenia – Presidential Elections - 18 February 2013, Final Report (2013), [http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/101314] , 15 July 2013. 5 European Parliament, EP resolution on the elections in Georgia, 24 October 2012: “The European Parliament [...] looks forward to the conclusion of the negotiations of the new Association Agreement between the EU and Georgia, in line with the European aspirations of the country, and stresses the importance of Georgia’s European integration process for the continuation of economic, social and political reform; welcomes the EU’s commitment to the objective of visa-free travel, and expects the parties to make substantial progress in this respect; [the European Parliament] expects the new majority and the new government to continue cooperation with the EU and NATO, and hopes that relations between the EU and Georgia will remain strong; welcomes the express commitment on the part of the incoming Georgian government to further Euro-Atlantic integration and its determination to build on the results of the good work done by the previous authorities” [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=//EP//TEXT+MOTION+P7-RC-2012-0467+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN], 22 July 2013. 6 See the Statement by High Representative Catherine Ashton and Commissioner Štefan Füle on recent developments in the Republic of Moldova, 2013, [http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-402_en.htm], 3 August 2013.

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mentioned. The situation forced the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, to issue a statement calling on the Azeri authorities to “refrain from further hindering journalists and political activists who seek to exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms”7. Also, the lack of any meaningful progress in democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Belarus, especially concerning political prisoners, the harassment of the civil society and the “overall background of repression”, prompted the EU to adopt a “critical engagement policy” focusing at the same time on supporting the civil society8. The conclusion of the negotiations on the Association Agreements is definitely the outcome of long and complex talks over a period of time9 marked by broad-ranging reforms undertaken by the EaP countries in the gradual approximation of EU rules and practices. But the objectives of the EaP which mark the core of the shared EaP values - respect for democracy and human rights, the rule of law, good governance, principles of the market economy and sustainable development, still have a long way until they become an integral part of the societies in the EU’s Eastern neighbourhood. Hence, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle, made it clear to Armenia during his visit to Yerevan in July 2013 that, despite significant progress10, many aspects needed to be improved and these were the “main priorities”11 in the bilateral relations between the EU and Armenia. Among them, improving the electoral legislative framework, following the OSCE-ODIHR recommendations, ranks high, albeit some progress was noted in the 2012 Presidential elections. Ensuring effective implementation of the strategy adopted in the field of human rights or modernising legislation on broadcasting according to the Council of Europe’s recommendations are also specific EU requirements. Fighting corruption and reforming law enforcement bodies and the judicial 7

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-104_en.htm, 10 June 2013. See the EU Foreign Affairs Council Conclusions in October 2012 which underlined that the EU “remains gravely concerned about the lack of respect for human rights, democracy and rule of law in Belarus”, [http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/belarus/press_corner/all_news/news/2012/16_10_2 012_en.htm], 10 June 2013. 9 Armenia, Georgia and the R. of Moldova started the negotiations on the Association Agreement in 2010. The negotiations on the DCFTA began in 2012. Ukraine began the AA negotiations in 2007 and the DCFTA ones in 2008. 10 See the ENP Country Progress Report 2012 – Armenia (2013), [http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-242_en.htm], 25 June 2013. 11 EU Commissioner Š. Füle, “EU-Armenia: Making the Best Use of Eastern Partnership”, 2013, [http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-630_en.htm], 17 July 2013. 8

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sector remain by far among the most complicated tasks Armenia has to tackle if it wants not only to boost relations with the EU, but also to gain more political, technical and, most importantly, financial support from the European Union. While security issues in the EaP region are not meant to be addressed through the EaP policy, it is expected that enhanced relations with the EU, reducing trade barriers, promoting good neighbourly ties or supporting confidence building measures, as well as making full use of the multilateral dimension of this policy which fosters cooperation among the six12 EaP countries, will indirectly contribute to the resolution of frozen conflicts. However, this contribution should not be expected to replace the work done in the specific international formats13 designed for discussing these conflicts, or to significantly leverage the position of the Russian Federation, a main actor in the region. Therefore, in terms of advancing in the resolution of protracted conflicts, we are no nearer than we were in 2010, when a study of the Romanian Centre for European Policies14 assessed that, since the launch of the Eastern Partnership, “the region […] [hadn’t experienced] any improvements in the situation of the frozen conflicts”. Even if Georgia’s record has improved significantly in the run-up to the EaP Summit in November 2013, with a constitutional reform, stepping-up the judicial reform and re-iterating its foreign policy goal towards the EU after the last Parliamentary elections, these achievements are not sufficient for Brussels to diminish its calls on Tbilisi for more democracy and rule of law15. The completion of negotiations on the Association Agreement between the EU and Georgia did not mean the EU was ready to compromise on its values for the sake of initialling a document in Vilnius. The EU has taught itself during the enlargement processes that signing a document is not always 12

Belarus is only participating in the multilateral dimension of the EaP, rejecting a bilateral relation with the EU within this policy. 13 For the Transnistrian conflict – the so-called “5+2” talks (R. of Moldova, the de facto Transnistrian authorities, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the OSCE, the EU and the USA; the EU and the US are observers); for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict “The Minsk Group” (co-chaired by France, the Russian Federation and the United States; the EU is not part of the discussions); for Georgia’s breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia - “The International Geneva Talks” (where the EU is cochairing the discussions along with the OSCE and the UN). 14 Ivan, Paul; Ghinea, Cristian, “Making sense of the EU’s Eastern Partnership”, 2010, [http://www.crpe.ro/english/making-sense-of-the-eus-eastern-partnership/], 15 June 2013. 15 EU Commissioner Š. Füle speaking at the conference “Georgia's European Way: EU’s Eastern European partners - towards the Vilnius Summit” (2013), [http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-635_en.htm], 21 July 2013.

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followed by its appropriate implementation by the partner country and that the best leverage Brussels can have is the pressure applied on the country before the moment of signing. Once the document is signed, the “relaxation” of costly social and political reform measures might occur. The way the new Government in Tbilisi chose to address the abuses of the previous administration, sending signals pertaining to the politicisation of justice, received a strong response from the EU during EU Commissioner Š. Füle’s visit to Georgia in July 2013. The high official stressed that while the EU still saw Georgia after the October 2012 elections as being on the proEuropean track, the EU based its approach on “profound respect for democratic principles and the rule of law […] democratic institutions, promoting political pluralism and media freedom”16. Therefore, it attaches equal importance to monitoring the capacity of the Government to act according to EU standards and values while handling the issue of the alleged abuses of the former government, an element which is important enough to balance the chances of a successful EaP Vilnius Summit for Georgia17. In this context, the EU’s calls for constructive cohabitation between the Primeminister and the President, for more democratic institutions and increasing the freedom of the media reflect the long road Georgia still has to cross in the process of adopting a genuine and constant EU set of principles and norms. The Republic of Moldova is another state that has had a very promising EU path since the Alliance for European Integration came to power in 2009, following a period when the Communist Government had only claimed to be engaged in a consistent calendar of reforms which was never really pursued. Accelerated progress in reforming its legislative framework, strengthening its democratic institutions, promoting social and economic reforms soon turned this state into the success story of the Eastern Partnership. Placing itself in a truly “EU integration mood”, the R. of Moldova soon got proper attention and support from Brussels and other EU Member States actively engaged in the EaP, perhaps also becoming a good example of implementing the “more for more principle” of the European Neighborhood Policy18. Its performance, 16

Ibidem. Ibidem: “The path that leads to Vilnius has to be a genuinely European path, and steps along it have to be taken in a European way. There is no other way to get there”, [http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-635_en.htm], 21 July 2013. 18 The “more for more principle” of the ENP policy implies that the more one state is engaged in EU reforms, the more EU political, technical and especially financial support it will get. In the case of the R. of Moldova, EU financial support has increased constantly over the last years, reaching 122 million euros in 2012, the highest level of EU financial support per capita in the ENP region, [http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-12-888_en.htm], 18 June 2013. 17

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backed by an EaP context in which the other countries seemed to slow down or even experience setbacks in the pace of reforms, allowed Chisinau to gradually secure the position of EaP front-runner. Encouraged and supported by the very active and demanding EU Commissioner for Enlargement and ENP, by the European External Action Service, as well as by very influential or vocal EU Member States (e.g. Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and Romania), the R. of Moldova seemed to be almost a successfully closed file well before the Vilnius Summit. This was the case before the spring of 2013, when major conflicts between the three parties in power once again raised the question of how far and how deep EU reforms had really managed to penetrate and be anchored in the society and political life of the Republic of Moldova. Failing to overcoming the political crisis would have not only wasted years of hard work and endangered the progress already achieved by paving the way for the Communists to discredit the European goal of the foreign policy of the R. of Moldova, but it would have also led to a much weaker EaP policy. The deliverables of the Vilnius Summit would have had to be really well “packed and sold” for an EU face-saving compromise. Fortunately, the leaders of the aforementioned political parties in Chisinau overcame the crisis, political stability was reinstalled and the Government was allowed to continue its EU reform agenda. However, this political crisis did not remain without an adequate EU response, which quickly emphasised the importance of transmitting to Chisinau the message that no setbacks in EU related reforms were acceptable from a country that still had many areas of cooperation where there was a lot of room for improvement. Hence, the EU decided to increase its pressure, characterising the next period of time ahead of Vilnius as “crucial”19. It called on the authorities of the R. of Moldova to “[…] re-focus their attention on internal reforms and enhance transparency in their functioning”, to ensure a “robust” system of checks and balances, to enhance the transparency of political party financing and media ownership20. For an external observer, this means, like in Georgia’s case, that it is not the completion of the AA/DCFTA negotiations that will determine the next step in EU - R. of Moldova relations, but the constant European supervision of the political life in Chisinau and the reforms adopted and implemented. If Belarus is, to a large extent, the missing piece in the EaP puzzle, Ukraine is undoubtedly the most problematic of all EaP states. From a pro19

EU Commissioner Štefan Füle’s remarks following the 15th EU-Moldova Cooperation Council (2013), [http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13618_en.htm], 4 July 2013. 20 Ibidem.

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European, pro-democracy and reform-focused country, which was the first to open and end the negotiations on the Association Agreement and its Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the EU, it has become an example of how enthusiasm and high hopes can switch to disappointment and then to cautious optimism. Ukraine is the most populous state in the EaP region, having a heavily divided society in terms of foreign and security policy options, between EU integration and closer relations with Russia. It is also a major part of the regional geopolitical and integration processes, being therefore in the eyes of many analysts the country without which the EaP policy would be meaningless. This is why there would be no mistake in agreeing with Lithuania’s foreign minister Linas Linkeviþius when he states that the failure of Ukraine to sign the AA/DCFTA at the EaP Summit in Vilnius “would seriously undermine the Eastern Partnership programme, it would undermine the reliability, the credibility of that programme. That would undermine our vision of Europe, open and free”21. A closer look at Ukraine’s situation is therefore required if one is to fully assess its complex bilateral relation with the European Union, as well as the relevance of the EaP policy. The determined actions and tangible progress expected by Brussels encompass three main areas outlined in the EU Foreign Affairs Council Conclusions from December 2012: 1. the compliance of the 2012 parliamentary elections with international standards and follow-up actions, 2. Ukraine’s progress in addressing the issue of selective justice and preventing its recurrence, and 3. better implementation of the reforms defined in the jointly agreed Association Agenda. The EU’s requirements were reiterated during the February 2013 EU-Ukraine Summit, when common understanding22 of their importance was reached by the two sides. These three fields are strongly dependent on each other and this is why the EU has pointed out that progress should be achieved in all three if Kiev is to cross a milestone in its relations with Western partners. The election criterion referring inter alia to the necessity of reviewing the whole electoral legislation in order to establish a unified Electoral Code would help avoid the shortcomings identified by the OSCE/ODIHR Observation mission amid the October 2012 Parliamentary elections, which 21 Linkeviþius, Linas, Lithuanian envoy: “Failed deal with Ukraine could hurt EU's Eastern Partnership”, 2013, [http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/lithuania-seesrisk-eastern-part-news-529089], 2 August 2013. 22 See the 16th EU-Ukraine Summit, Brussels, 25 February 2013: Joint Statement, 2013, [http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/135667. pdf], 5 May 2013.

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were characterised by EU foreign ministers as showing a deterioration compared to the standards that had previously been achieved. The 2015 Presidential elections in Ukraine are paramount for the European destiny of this country and the EU seems ready to make full use of the signing of the Association Agreement, as leverage to help ensure fair and free electoral competition. The conviction to seven years in prison on questionable grounds of former Ukrainian prime-minister Yulia Tymoshenko - the most important political figure of the Ukrainian opposition - for abuse of power prevented her from being a candidate in last year’s parliamentary elections. Her case is therefore placed in the centre of the second criterion, i.e. selective justice, and the Lithuanian foreign minister in charge of organising the EaP Summit in November 2013 warned Ukrainian authorities about its real weight: “I am saying to my Ukrainian friends: take it seriously. There are some capitals in Europe who are considering this personal case as a symbol of the rule of law”23.

The third condition that Ukraine has to deliver on is the resumption of the reforms jointly agreed with the EU. In the legislative package that needs careful reviewing, judicial reform ranks high among the EU’s demands. Apart from the intrinsic value that any institution representing the rule of law in a democracy is expected to hold, judicial reform, and especially the reform of the Office of the Attorney General, perceived as a highly politicised public institution, is seen today by many political actors as having a much too important potential role in the conduct of elections. From an even more relevant viewpoint, the EU could hardly imagine stepping up its pace of engagement with a country in which its political and economic interests derived from the contents of the two reference documents - the Association Agreement and the DCFTA - are not properly guaranteed by a democratic institutional architecture operating according to European rules and norms. A great deal of time was wasted by Ukraine after ending the AA/DCFTA negotiations on what some politicians and analysts24 regarded as the wellknown geopolitical balance between Russia and the West, in an attempt to obtain as many advantages as possible from both sides, by playing one side 23

Linkeviþius, Linas, Lithuanian envoy: “Failed deal with Ukraine could hurt EU's Eastern Partnership”, 2013, [http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/lithuania-seesrisk-eastern-part-news-529089], 2 August 2013. 24 Euractiv.com, “Ukraine balances between East, West at Yalta forum”, 2012, [http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/ukraine-balances-east-west-yalta-news514822], 5 August 2013.

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against the other. However, playing the strategic geopolitical card by Ukraine was not enough in this context and the EU felt compelled to state this clearly in public speeches25. Brussels let Kiev know that Russia’s siren song of joining the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union and the Eurasian Union would come against the possibility to conclude a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the EU, given the incompatibility of their provisions. And Ukraine seems to have understood this, reassuring the European Union that its gestures of building up some links with the future economic structure would not contradict its European commitments26. Ukraine’s position is not one that should be envied. EU leaders and senior officials have so far resisted the temptation of designing or speaking about a “plan B”, in case Ukraine still does not manage to convince the EU that it has achieved enough progress to ink the Agreement by November 2013. Ukraine’s economic dependency on imports of Russian gas at very high prices, Moscow’s pressure aiming to take control of the Naftogaz transit pipeline network in exchange of a better gas price deal, as well as the significant share of the Russian market in Ukraine’s exports, leave it without any real strategic alternative to strengthening its relations with the European Union. Having a largely unreformed economic sector and facing the consequences of the current economic crisis on the EU market, Ukraine’s economic outlook is not a bright one: “Growth in 2013 is projected to remain weak and will continue to be vulnerable to external shocks. Along with macroeconomic adjustment,

25 O'Sullivan, David (the chief operating officer of the European External Action Service) speaking about EU-Ukraine relations: “EU-Ukraine: Time to Walk the Talk”, 2013: “[…] Let it be absolutely clear, however, that while we welcome Ukraine's European choice, the EU will not sign the AA/DCFTA on the basis of geopolitical considerations - only honest and committed work by the Ukrainian authorities on the concrete issues set out by the EU's benchmarks will matter”, [http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/ukraine/press_corner/all_news/news/2013/2013_06 _07_2_en.htm], 1 July 2013. Sikorski, Radosáaw (the Polish Foreign Minister, whilst attending the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 25 June 2013): “[…] If Ukraine does not do what it is supposed to do, there will be no signing”, [http://www.euractiv.com/europeseast/sikorski-warns-ukraine-vinius-su-news-528869], 19 July 2013. 26 Interfax News Wire, “Yanukovych assures Barroso new model of Ukraine’s cooperation with EEC does not contradict EU integration course”, 2013, [http://www.interfax.co.uk/ukraine-news/yanukovych-assures-barroso-new-model-ofukraines-cooperation-with-eec-does-not-contradict-eu-integration-course/], 3 August 2013.

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structural reforms are needed to jumpstart growth”, according to the April 2013 World Bank Economic Update on Ukraine27.

Thus, Kiev still needs to pursue the long postponed and costly in-depth social, political and economic reforms for reasons ranging from electoral considerations to protecting vested economic interests. There remains a lot of homework for Kiev to do before the Vilnius Summit! But Ukraine has signalled that this time it is ready to fully embrace the European option, viewing the signing of the Association Agreement as the second major political event after the independence of the state, having similar consequences for Ukraine as the fall of the “Berlin wall” did for Germany28. The first half of 2013 marked significant progress: e.g. a new Criminal Procedure Code, addressing the cases of former ministers Filipchuk and Lutsenko, some economic and judicial reform measures. But the most sensitive steps are yet to be taken, as pointed out by EU Commissioner Štefan Füle after the EU - Ukraine Cooperation Council in Luxembourg on 24 June 201329: the Y. Tymoshenko case, reform of the electoral legislative framework, or the reform of the “Stalinist era prosecution service”30. And time has become Ukraine’s worst enemy as delivery on these benchmarks before the EaP Vilnius Summit is a real challenge for President Yanukovich and his ruling party, the Party of Regions. Solutions are not easy to identify/accept, as proven for example by the current results of the mission of ex-Presidents P. Cox and A. KwaĞniewski, who are striving to find a solution to the Tymoshenko case through dialogue with Ukrainian authorities. Ukraine is the key country for Russia’s own strategic interests of building up its influence in the ex-Soviet space. Dmitri 27

See http://www-ds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/ IB/2013/04/03/000333037_20130403111619/Rendered/PDF/763530BRI0Worl00Box 374373B00PUBLIC0.pdf. 28 Yelisieiev, Kostiantyn (the Ukrainian ambassador to the EU), speaking about EUUkraine relations: “We consider in Ukraine the signing of this agreement as the second event after the declaration of the independence of Ukraine. And I would like to enforce my argument: this signing for Ukraine will be, like years ago, the fall of the Berlin wall for Germany”, 2013, [http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/ambassadoreu-ukraine-associatio-news-529427], 19 July 2013. 29 EU Commissioner Štefan Füle, “EU-Ukraine: Good progress, but still more to be done”, 2013, [http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-605_en.htm], 22 July 2013. 30 Sikorski, Radosáaw (the Polish Foreign Minister), speaking about the EaP whilst attending the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 25 June 2013, [http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/sikorski-warns-ukraine-vinius-su-news528869], 19 July 2013.

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Trenin, Director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, regards Ukraine as “indispensable for the creation of a Moscow-led power centre in Eurasia”31 Moreover, trying to prevent Ukraine from making the decisive step towards the European Union in November, as well as taking advantage of the EU’s firm stance on its requirements related to the development of its relations with Kiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin unsuccessfully asked his Ukrainian counterpart to reassess the opportunity of the European choice of his country in comparison with closer economic ties with the ex-Soviet space, in July 201332. The rejection of Russia’s economic offers/conditions by Ukraine previously resulted in fierce bilateral economic disputes and it is once again prone to trigger Moscow’s severe response. The first signs have already appeared, given the ban imposed on a Ukrainian confectionary producer which is controlled by a Ukrainian politician supporting the signing of the AA/DCFTA33.

Conclusions This last complex picture, namely Ukraine trying to “walk the talk”34 on its European journey, is also a reflection of the challenges of the EaP policy. Has the EU put all its Easter(n) eggs in the same (EaP) basket? And is it too late to make a change? Or is the current state of play of the EaP region an acceptable situation for the European Union, which acknowledges the difficulty of attempting to “copy-paste” its values and norms without offering an EU membership perspective? Is the EU just trying to strengthen its relations with the EaP partners as much as possible as long as it still holds a card in its hand, namely the AA/DCFTA? Some would say the EU needs success stories for the EaP policy to survive. Others would not expect too 31

Trenin, Dmitri, “Whither new Eastern Europe”, 2013, [http://carnegieeurope.eu/2013/07/12/whither-new-eastern-europe/gfc8], 4 August 2013. 32 Euractiv.com, “Putin tells Ukraine to rethink its drift towards the EU”, 2013, [http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/putin-tells-ukraine-rethink-clos-news-529618], 13 August 2013. 33 Bugriy, Maksy, “Ukrainian-Russian Relations: Facing Cool Winter”, 2013, [http://www.jamestown.org/regions/europe/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D= 41197&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=667&cHash=98653b34cb66ae5bf086d46434 68eb44], 4 August 2013. 34 O'Sullivan, David (the chief operating officer of the European External Action Service), speaking about EU-Ukraine relations: “EU-Ukraine: Time to Walk the Talk”, 2013, [http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/ukraine/press_corner/all_news/news/2013/2013_ 06_07_2_en.htm], 1 July 2013.

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much from EaP states since dealing with these countries sometimes resembles what Laurynas Kasþinjnas, an analyst at the Eastern Europe Studies Centre in Vilnius, described: “We are not planning to marry; we are planning on just dating”35. Whether the EaP Summit in Vilnius will be a success or not and whether the EaP policy will be subsequently referred to as a relevant one, it depends on how success is measured. If the assessment is based on factual EaP Summit deliverables, i.e. the signing of the three AAs/DCFTAs, and especially the ones with Ukraine, it will probably be regarded as a success. On the contrary, if at the time of the Vilnius Summit, Ukraine finds itself in the same position as today, a big question mark will be raised about the efficacy of the EaP policy. The progress achieved by the other three partners will be overshadowed by Kiev’s inability to understand and take advantage of this historic opportunity. The EU elections of May 2014, the elections in Germany in September 2014, as well as the presidential elections in Ukraine in 2015, will sideline the subject of signing the Association agreement with Ukraine. At the same time, if one remembers the high hopes placed not a very long time ago in the possibility to sign, not only to initial, these Agreements on this occasion, then the results of the EaP Summit and the efficiency of the EaP policy will once again be looked at through different lens. On the other hand, if the assessment of the EaP policy takes into account the processes of transformation and modernisation which these EaP states have undergone, their level of embracing the EU’s model, then we have a mixed picture. It is one in which Armenia, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and possibly Ukraine will have won this race, but their “time”, the quality of their performance, would still be below the EU’s standards. Moreover, the outcome of the Ukraine case will impact on the image of the EaP policy. If the Tymoshenko case is solved by November but the other benchmarks are not met, and the EU still decides to sign the Association Agreement, it will be hard to expect general enthusiasm. This mixed picture would also include the other two EaP states facing problems with regard to human rights. However, despite all these shortcomings, no one can deny the very important steps36 35

Euractiv.com, Lithuanian envoy: “Failed deal with Ukraine could hurt EU's Eastern Partnership”, 2013, [http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/lithuania-sees-riskeastern-part-news-529089], 2 August 2013. 36 European Commission &High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, “Implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy in 2012 Regional Report: Eastern Partnership”, 2013, [http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/docs/2013_enp_pack/2013_eastern_pship_regional _report_en.pdf], 15 July 2013.

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these countries have taken over the last three years in reforming their economic, political and social sectors. And this would have hardly been possible without the EaP framework or support. One can have doubts about the success of the EaP policy, but its relevance is undeniable. However, the degree of success of the EaP policy depends not only on the next EaP Summit; it also depends on how these states understand that initialling/signing the AA is just the beginning of another period of hard work centred on the implementation of AA/DCFTA provisions; it depends on the extent to which the EU is able to monitor and ensure the implementation of these provisions (the AA/DCFTAs need to be ratified by the 28 EU member states and there is still no EaP state which has been granted a free visa regime, so Brussels retains some leverage and it will continue to exert its influence even after the Vilnius Summit); it is based on the EU’s level of political ambition regarding its future engagement with its European partners, which will be outlined in the EaP Summit Declaration; it also depends on the economic crisis in the EU; finally, it depends on Russia’s response to these developments which undermine its own regional integration project. And, if all these facts are what US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the “known knowns” and the “known unknowns”37, then we should not forget that the success of the EaP will also depend on the “unknown unknowns. They are the things we don't know we don't know”.

Bibliography Books Popescu, Nicu. 2011. EU Foreign Policy and Post-Soviet Conflicts. Stealth intervention. New York: Routledge Publ.

Articles in online journals Bayramov, Vugar, Gogolashvili, Kakha, Secrieru, Angela and Sekarev, Alexei (ed.). 2012. “Public Administration in EU Eastern Partners: Comparative Report”. Eastern Partnership Review, No 13, Estonian Center of Eastern Partnership. Accessed August 2, 2013. 37

Rumsfeld, Donald (US Defence Secretary) speaking at a Press Conference, 2002: “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don’t know we don’t know”, [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/books/04book.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0], 22 July 2013.

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http://eceap.eu/ul/Report_2012_051212_web.pdf. Bugriy, Maksym. 2013. “Ukrainian-Russian Relations: Facing Cool Winter”. Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 10 Issue: 141. Accessed August 10, 2013. http://www.jamestown.org/regions/europe/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news %5D=41197&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=667&cHash=98653b34cb66a e5bf086d4643468eb44. Christoffersen, Julie Herschend (ed.). 2011. “The EU’s Eastern Neighbours, The state of reforms and the reform of the state”, DIIS Reports, No 2011:10, Danish Institute for International Studies. Accessed July 27, 2013. https://www.ciaonet.org/wps/diis/0023393/f_0023393_19115.pdf. Delcour, Laure, Dr. 2011. ”The Institutional Functioning of the Eastern Partnership: An Early Assessment”, Eastern Partnership Review, No 1, Estonian Centre of Eastern Partnership. Accessed August 2, 2013. http://www.eceap.eu/ul/Review_No1.pdf. Ivan, Paul, and Ghinea, Cristian. 2010. “Making sense of the EU’s Eastern Partnership”, CRPE Policy Memos, No 13, The Romanian Centre for European Policies. Accessed July 15, 2013. http://www.crpe.ro/english/making-sense-of-the-eus-eastern-partnership/. Munk Jensen, Peter. 2011. “Getting on the Right Track: The EU Eastern Partnership”, DIIS Policy Briefs, July 2011, Danish Institute for International Studies. Accessed July 17, 2013. https://www.ciaonet.org/pbei/diis/0023161/f_0023161_18951.pdf. Raik, Kristi. 2012. “A rocky road towards Europe: The prospects for the EU's Eastern Partnership Association Agreements”, FIIA Finnish Institute for International Affairs Briefing Papers, No 110, Finnish Institute for International Affairs. Accessed July 22, 2013. https://www.ciaonet.org/pbei/fiia/0025442/f_0025442_20802.pdf. Trenin, Dmitri. 2013. “Whither new Eastern Europe”, Strategic Europe, 12 July 2013, Carnegie Europe. Accessed August 4, 2013. http://carnegieeurope.eu/2013/07/12/whither-new-eastern-europe/gfc8.

Websites European Commission. 2013. “Country Progress reports on implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy (2013)”. Accessed June 25, 2013. http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/documents_en.htm#3. —. 2013. “European Commission & High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Joint Staff Working Document Implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy in 2012. Regional Report: Eastern Partnership”. Accessed July 15, 2013.

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http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/docs/2013_enp_pack/2013_eastern_pship _regional_report_en.pdf. —. 2013. “Remarks of the EU Commissioner Štefan Füle to the press after the EU Ukraine Cooperation Council: EU-Ukraine: Good progress, but still more to be done”. Accessed July 22, 2013. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-605_en.htm. —. 2013. “Remarks of Commissioner Štefan Füle following the 15th EUMoldova Cooperation Council”. Accessed July 4, 2013. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-618_en.htm. —. 2013. Speech of the European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle: “European Neighbourhood Policy Priorities and Directions for Change”. Accessed August 8, 2013. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-661_en.htm. —. 2013. Speech of the European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle: “Georgia's European Way”. Accessed July 21, 2013. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH13-635_en.htm. —. 2013. Speech of the European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle: “EU-Armenia: Making the Best Use of Eastern Partnership”. Accessed July 17, 2013. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-630_en.htm. —. 2013. “Statement by the spokespersons of EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, and the European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle, on recent events in Azerbaidjan, Brussels, 9 February 2013”. Accessed June 10, 2013. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-104_en.htm. —. 2013. “Statement by High Representative Catherine Ashton and Commissioner Štefan Füle on recent developments in the Republic of Moldova”. Accessed August 3, 2013. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-402_en.htm. —. 2012. Speech of President of the European Commission, Manuel Barroso: “European Union and Moldova: a journey to share". Accessed June 18, 2013. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-12-888_en.htm. European Council. 2013. “16th EU-Ukraine Summit: Joint Statement”. Accessed May 5, 2013. http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/for aff/135667.pdf. —. 2012. “3191st EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting - Conclusions on Belarus”. Accessed June 10, 2013.

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http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/fora ff/132836.pdf European External Action Service. 2013. Speech of David O’Sullivan, European External Action Service Chief Operating Officer: “EU-Ukraine: time to walk the talk”. Accessed July 1, 2013. http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/ukraine/press_corner/all_news/news/ 2013/2013_06_07_2_en.htm. European Parliament. 2012. “European Parliament resolution on the elections in Georgia”. Accessed July 22, 2013. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT +MOTION+P7-RC-2012-0467+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN.OSCE. 2013. “OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission, Final Report on the Presidential elections in Armenia - 18 February 2013”. Accessed July 15, 2013. http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/101314. EurActiv. 2013. “Remarks of Radosáaw Sikorski, the Polish Foreign Minister, whilst attending the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 25 June 2013”. Accessed July 19, 2013. http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/sikorski-warns-ukraine-vinius-sunews-528869. —. 2013. “Remarks of the Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Linas Linkeviþius on Ukraine and the EaP Summit in Vilnius”. Accessed July 20, 2013. http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/lithuania-sees-risk-eastern-partnews-529089. —. 2013. “Remarks of Ukrainian ambassador to the EU, Kostiantyn Yelisieievon, signing the Association Agreement with the EU”. Accessed August 4, 2013. http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/ambassador-euukraine-associatio-news-529427. Radio Free Europe. 2013. “Remarks of the Belarusian Foreign Minister, Uladzimir Makey, on the Eastern Partnership (2013)”. Accessed July 29, 2013. http://www.rferl.org/content/belarus-eu-eastern-partnership-cooper ation/25054041.html. Reporters without Borders. 2012. “Reporters without Borders - World Press Freedom Index”. Accessed August 2, 2013. http://en.rsf.org/IMG/CLASSEMENT_2012/CLASSEMENT_ANG.pdf. The World Bank. 2013. “The World Bank Economic Update on Ukraine”. Accessed August 10, 2013. http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WD SP/IB/2013/04/03/000333037_20130403111619/Rendered/PDF/763530BR I0Worl00Box374373B00PUBLIC0.pdf . —. 2013. “The World Bank Europe and Central Asia Overview”. Accessed August 10, 2013. http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/eca/overview.

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Transparency International. 2013. “Transparency International Index of Corruption”. Accessed August 11, 2013. http://www.transparency.org/country.

THE EUROPEAN UNION STRATEGY FOR CENTRAL ASIA AND THE REGIONAL DEMOCRATISATION PROCESS CRISTINA-MARIA DOGOT

Abstract Although located outside the zone of the Neighbourhood Policy/European Eastern Partnership, Central Asia represents a region where EU presence has been considered important since 1991, when Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan became independent. Although not very dynamic at the beginning, the cooperation of the European Union with this region started almost immediately after the abovementioned states gained their independence. However, the strategy of the European Union for this region was to be adopted only during the Brussels European Council of 2007, but its review in 2012 shows the increasing importance of Central Asia for the EU. If in 2007 the EU Strategy for Central Asia focused mainly on dialogue and cooperation in human rights, education, rule of law, energy, transport, environment and water, trade and economic relations, combating common threats and challenges, in 2012, the region became important from the security perspective too. Consequently, for the future years, the EU’s relations with Central Asia will take into account some very stringent security issues: counter-terrorism, border security (especially with Afghanistan), energy security, drug trafficking and other problems germane to the ones above. Last but not least, the EU is interested in the democratisation of the region, by supporting intra-regional relations, economic, social and institutional reforms.

Keywords Central Asia; the EU’s role in democratisation; EU Strategy for Central Asia.

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Introduction The external action of the European Union was taken into account from the beginning of the integration process, although it did not develop in a linear and continuous way from the standpoint of its institutional and decisional dimensions. Albeit this was a permanent objective, the active presence of the European Community in the international political life experienced an inconsistent institutional and decisional evolution and materialised, in different contexts, in the form of various less visible actions. Nevertheless, at the end of the Cold War, the European Union found itself in the situation of being perceived as a political and economic model or even as a true “saviour” of former communist countries from Central and Eastern Europe. Although the European Community had aimed from its inception to possess an international role, this was scarcely accomplished before the end of the Cold War. The most important external actions developed by the European Community were to take place especially starting from 1969, when the European Political Cooperation process came into force and, later, the Single European Act improved the institutional level (Fonseca-Wolheim, 1981; Bindi, 2010, 24-25). The Maastricht Treaty, required by the new international context, paved the way for the EU’s foreign actions. Because the beginnings1 are not considered to be successful, the EU learnt its lesson and during the process of accession of former communist countries it created subsidiary policies and strategies for the West Balkans, and so it restated2 and improved its general transformative role (Grabe, 2006) in Eastern Europe. This regional revival led, inter alia, to further and deeper political, public and scientific debates on this topic. Each Central and Eastern European state involved in the accession process concluded different agreements with the EU, passed the monitoring process and became, in the end, a member of the Union and a more or less active part of the integration process. At the same time, each of the candidate states, individually and as member of the group of candidates, was asked to become an active part of the EU’s sectoral and general projects developed in the Balkans, Eastern European or even Caucasian countries. (Lopandik, 2001; Ghazaryan, 2010, 224-226) The Eastern enlargement, achieved in 2004 and 2007, prompted an increasing interest of the Union in the problems of the neighbours situated at its new physical borders, and the EU had to exert in a new way its conditioning1 It is especially the case of the disintegration of former Yugoslavia, where it is difficult to consider that the EU succeeded in imposing many efficient solutions. (Bindi, 2010, 31-32) 2 This role of the EU as a democratic model had been practised some years before in Greece, Spain and Portugal.

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transformative role. (Manners, 2010; “Polish-Sweden Proposal on the Eastern Partnership” 2008) Shortly, it was basically time for the EU to put into practice an old desideratum, reiterated and (we dare say re-) adopted after of the failure of the Dayton Agreement3, namely that of becoming more active at international level. The eastern enlargement of the EU reduced geographical distances between the EU and Russia, the former ideological forerunner and political leader of the East. Although particularly anaemic immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Russia became increasingly incisive and started fighting for its area of influence after NATO’s enlargement to the East, fearful of the opposite values that the EU tried to implement around of its particularly dynamic borders (Haukkala, 2010, 165170; Piccardo, 2010). New negotiations had to be started, new agreements were needed (Lynch, 2005) and all these determined the EU to enlarge its international perspective even more. Being in proximity to Russia, the distance to Asia was also considerably reduced.

Central Asia: a new geopolitical space looking for democracy? The end of the Cold War presented, first of all, the possibility for the members of the Soviet Union to choose their own way of continuing their existence inside or outside the old federal state. Although the main image related to the collapse of the Soviet Union is that of welcoming independence, this was partially a cliché, because some of the former members were not so glad to leave the block4. It was the case of the five states from the Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which reluctantly decided to receive (and not really ask for) their individual shape and identity, beyond any genuine intent to really interrupt the privileged relations with their former master. Despite some particularities, the general explanations for this particular situation were multiple: their historical submission to Russia and the lack of any previous individual statehood experience; the patriarchal political (and social) culture and poor national awareness5, which, consequently, took their toll on these new states 3

“The international situation increases the responsibilities of the Union and the need to strengthen its identity on the international scene with the aim of promoting peace and stability. The Union's political weight must be commensurate with its economic strength. […]”. (European Parliament, 1996, under 3) 4 “Central Asian States were forced to leave the Soviet Union.” (Swanström, 2011, 6) 5 This was largely due to the trivialisation of national identities, to the influence of Russians, who had immigrated there in different waves, and to the impossibility to learn about their national history during the communist regime.

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through the emergence of several nationalist leaders marking the acceptation of the appointment (or even election) of very submissive presidents to postcommunist Russia (supported by China as well) (Swanström, 2011, 6); the important economic benefits provided by the Soviet system became a source of permanent nostalgia (Brill Olcott, 1998, 2-4, 8-10). The situation changed (not dramatically!) when, in order to determine the awareness of people’s identities, the authorities supported the return to religious traditions of Islam and the use of national tongues instead of Russian. (Ibid.)6

Fig. 2-1. Map of Central Asia Source: http://www.un.org/depts/Cartographic/map/profile/centrasia.pdf

As suggested, the economic situation of the region was very important, which degraded tremendously when, immediately after independence, the new self-governing states gradually abandoned their former “inter-republic

6

However, when the authorities realised the dimension of the danger posed by political Islam, they banned any political parties established on religious grounds. (Brill-Olcott, 1998, 19)

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connections”7, in parallel with increasing domestic corruption. Consequently, social dissatisfaction grew steadily and the only solution perceived at popular level was stronger Islamism. Fortunately for the region, despite several internal ethnic conflicts, providing local leaders with political vision and external support8, Islam failed to institutionalise at political level and the region remained somewhat stable. In the end, only these initially destroyed interconnectivities would act as economic and political catalysts for the five republics. This happened especially when national authorities understood that the main danger they could confront would be the political Islamism and organised crime, so active in the region, and especially when the most important international actors intensified their activities in the area and started building a common approach. (Brill Olcott, 1998, 14-18) The first two or three years after independence were extremely difficult from an administrative perspective, because the five states failed to establish their own infrastructure in terms of transportation, electrical or water resources, or to conceive a new regional framework for themselves. As the map above shows, the only neighbours of Central Asian countries that could become stable and firm political and economic partners were Russia and China. Russia failed to accomplish this role at the beginning of 1990, when the five Central Asian countries were in urgent need of help. China was not absent from this equation, but it was chiefly interested in the security of its western border and oil resources. Hence, due to China’s initiative, the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO)9 was established in 1996, in order “to demilitarise the border between China and the former Soviet Union” and to represent a counterpoint and even an alternative to NATO. Given its active role in the region, the SCO became “a forum used to discuss trade and security issues, including counterterrorism and drug trafficking,” a role improved by the signing, in 2005, of a memorandum of understanding with both ASEAN and the Commonwealth of Independent States (Scheineson, 2009). At the same time, the establishment of this regional security organisation had consequences on China itself, which was left with little choice but to suspend its nuclear test programme because the risk of pollution in Kazakhstan, its SCO partner, and on the territory of its own 7

This situation had never been imagined by the USSR when it created the infrastructure of the region, especially if geographical traits were considered. 8 Because of its Turkic Uigur population from Hinjiang, China was directly interested in protecting its western border from any possible form of fundamentalist Islamism, and so “Beijing has made Central Asia an integral part of its ‘develop the west’ programme”. (Swanström, 2007, under “Security”) 9 Its current members are Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (the latter from 2001).

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Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (where separatist groups were easy to incense). (Niquet, 2006) However, the interest in better security is not completely separate from the interest in energy resources: an unfriendly western neighbourhood would mean fewer resources for China in geographical proximity. (Swanström, 2007) All in all, because they were so familiar with the former Soviet dirigisme, Central Asian countries were not prepared, in 1991, to really enjoy their independence, individually or together, as a region with common goals and interests. On the other hand, despite their more or less important political and economic support, Russia and China10 apparently failed to convince that they could play the part of role models. Russia was excessively weak, while China was becoming ever stronger; furthermore, domestic corruption subordinated to the greater corruption in Russia would produce fewer benefits for national stakeholders. Hence, individually, at internal level, although considered less prepared to fulfil their role11, the political leaders from Central Asia seemed to follow the interest of their countries, and so “no Central Asian state would like to exchange Russian domination for Chinese, preferring to keep as many options open as possible” (Swanström, 2007, introduction). The important oil reserves played their role in this nonalignment (Rahmani, 2003). And so, in spite of, or rather due to the difficult economic conditions they had to confront12, Central Asian states maintained their ideological and geopolitical equilibrium by organising themselves as a supranational body which should be able to represent their common interests. Therefore, after the five republics established, in 1992, the Central Asian Regional Cooperation, with the 10

Troubled by its own economic problems, Russia supported several political leaders from Central Asia, while China, interested in the energy potential of the area, aiming to maintain good relations with its neighbours and to be perceived as a trade alternative to Russia, the United States or the EU, offered economic aid and helped different projects in the areas of information technology, environment, culture and trade, mainly through bilateral, but also by means of multilateral tools, and so it increased interdependences and its influence in the region. (Swanström, 2007, 6-7, 9) 11 As stated by Aszhdar Kurtov, in 2002, the Central Asian republics were to a very small extent democratic states, where electoral laws were not submitted to public debates and the civil society could not monitor the electoral process or accuse the violation of the Constitution or other laws. Furthermore, amongst them, Turkmenistan was “extremely authoritarian” and Tajikistan was the theatre of a long civil war. In the case of the other three countries, Kurtov believes that democracy there was a “timelimited political power”: they were presidential republics, where the mandate of the president was seven years long, and where the prolongation of this mandate was not at all difficult to obtain. (Kurtov, 2002) 12 In 1993, the Russian rouble collapsed, and the five countries had to use their national currencies and establish national banks. (Spechler, 2002, 42)

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purpose of economic unification and establishment of a common economic space and a single regional market (Duschanov, 2003), on 30 April 1994, (only) Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan concluded the Treaty on the Formation of an Integrated Economic Space (IES), whose grounds were “geographic proximity, ethnic-lingual, cultural, and mental communality, the desire of the people to maintain and develop good-neighbourly relations, and the advantages of the joint use of Central Asia’s extremely rich natural and resource potential.” (Ushakova, 2003)

The novelty in this Treaty is the establishment, following the model of the EU, of several institutional structures (Interstate Council, Council of Prime Ministers, Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence, Executive Committee of the Interstate Council and the Central Asian Bank for Cooperation and Development13) and even of a programme for industrial integration of the member states, based on “international consortia in the fields of energy, water resources, food, communications, and production and processing of minerals and other raw material resources” (Duschanov, 2003).

Thus, the Central Asian Union14 was established, whose common competences were chiefly economic (a free trade agreement), but they also encompassed the security and political fields, following, as stated before, the EU’s geographical model, although with the support of the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) and the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). (Brill Olcott, 1998, 19; Swanström, 2011, 6; Duschanov, 2003) Although “dictated by the need to find ways to make rational use of the region’s common resources,” regional cooperation between Central Asian states failed to produce the expected effects. The leaders did not possess the necessary abilities and their states did not have the appropriate mechanisms to maintain this regional structure functional, therefore, when a serious problem occurred, such as that of exploiting common water resources, the partners proved to be unable to resolve their contradictions and preferred to tackle the problems at bilateral level. Furthermore, such difficulties were amplified by the 13

The latter met “with modest success.” (Spechler, 2002, 42) Renamed Central Asian Economic Community (CAEC) on 17 July 1998 (when Tajikistan joined), and then Central Asian Cooperation Organisation in 2002. In 1996, Russia, and in 1999, Georgia, Ukraine and Turkey were accepted as observers within the framework of this organisation. (Ushakova, 2003) 14

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“increased divergence in economic interests… the nature and rates of the socioeconomic reforms they are conducting, and in the level of liberalisation of the economy and involvement in the world economy, as well as by the differences in political and ideological preferences,” (Ushakova, 2003)

These matters would impede effective regional cooperation in the region. The awareness of a regional “common good” proved to be completely absent. Again, in 1994, the President of Kazakhstan proposed the establishment of another economic organisation, the Eurasian Union, composed of Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, but the divergent interests of these partners brought about its collapse. (Spechler, 2002, 43) Martin Spechler considers that the reason for the failure of regional cooperation amongst Central Asian countries is the following: they are new states that “naturally wish to reinforce their weak national identities by symbolic, administrative and economic means […] Because there are few established political parties, and strong clan, local and tribal loyalties, Central Asian authoritarianism has become personalistic, following the historical pattern of the region’s long-gone oasis potentates, whose mode of ruling had a pronounced hierarchical and patrimonial character. […] Authoritarian politics call for nationalistic rhetoric, not shared sovereignty. […] Democratic criticism of waste, corruption and cronyism is suppressed. […] More than time is needed to develop regional cooperation. […] Post-war Europe had a strong political impetus, the common threat of communism and a common protector and patron in the United States to push it toward an economic union. Central Asia has none of these, except perhaps a common threat of Islamic extremism.” (Ibid., 45-46)

As a short conclusion, it became obvious that Russia had no more potential for being the catalyst of the economic and political life of the region, although the need for this area to be over-coordinated was enormous. China had the necessary economic and political capabilities, but Central Asian states were not really interested in its model. The long-time presence of Russia in the region prompted not only economic, political or infrastructurerelated interdependences, but also a series of cultural affinities. And, perhaps, it was really important at the time for a “common protector” to emerge, i.e. a political actor that was on good terms with both China and Russia, and, if possible, with America (Sharapova, 2003), having a different but complementary vision and using unusual but peaceful tools in its reliable foreign actions. The political actor better corresponding to these expectations was the European Union, but its presence in the region was still rather sparse and not yet firm enough.

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The way of the EU towards Asia: from economic to political challenges The European Union’s relations with Asian countries are related to more than just the improvement of China’s international economic position and, consequently, to its increasingly prominent regional role. However, before the 2000s15, despite several concrete events and its so-called Towards a New Asia Strategy16, the EU had only scarcely been present in the region, or, to be more precise, it had not developed any permanent and comprehensive policies there. The EU’s presence in Asia started from its “human rights, developmental aid and environmental protection” policies, and then spread to other fields, depending on its new interests and objectives concerning some Asian economic and political regions.17 In its extra-European actions, the EU probably had an important disadvantage at all times, due to the conservatism of the actors of the international relations system: the EU is perceived rather “as a multi-actor entity with many voices and on-going problems of policy inconsistency and incoherence” (Murray, 2010, 257-258), than as a definite and efficient regional soft power. Nevertheless, from the perspective of security policies18, there are also a few key moments when the EU improved its relations with Asian countries: it participated in the ASEAN Regional Forum, in 1994; it established, in 1996, the inter-regional dialogue entitled the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM), consisting of summits held every two years focused on three dimensions: 1. economic, 2. political and 3. social, cultural and educational (Stockhof, “ASEM 4,” 2002); it elaborated, in 2001, the ‘Europe and Asia’ Strategy, 15

Although China had registered some important economic growth in the previous two decades, only in the 2000s, given the continuity and the constant level of this growth, did it become more visible at international level. However, wanting a better economic position in Eastern Asia, the EU began its economic cooperation with China much earlier, in 1970, but despite the reciprocal interest in developing their economic relations, the EU and China did so only in 2006, when they signed two very important agreements: “EU-China: Closer Partners, Growing Responsibilities,” and “Competition and Partnership”. (Caira, 2010, 263-265) 16 It was the first official document that engaged the EU in the Asian space, especially due to the incredible economic development of the region. (Commission of the European Communities, 1994) 17 The parallel tools of collaboration (UN, WTO, ASEAN) were also important for the EU in its relations with Asian countries. (Holland and Chaban, 2010, 320-322; Murray, 2010, 254-257) 18 Although the economic agreements and the level of economic changes are not negligible in assessing EU-Asia relations, we will approach them only if they are deemed relevant to our purpose concerning EU-Asia political and social projects.

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whose objectives were focused on politics, economic matters, democracy and good governance, human rights and the environment; it included, in 2003, a Security Strategy and the problem of Asia-Pacific, with special provisions on nuclear proliferation and terrorism; it elaborated, in 2007, the East Asia Policy Guidelines. (“EU-Asia Security Factsheet”) Apart from the regional strategies, the EU concluded some bilateral partnerships, such as those with India, established in 1994 and focused on social reforms in the field of education and health; with Japan, focused, at the beginning, especially on economic changes, but later extended to other fields, as of 2001, when the first EU-Japan Summit was held. Regarding the EU’s relations with China, they started in 1975, when the first European Commissioner visited China, and developed in time: in 1992 a new bilateral political dialogue was established between the EU and China; in 1995, the EU published the document entitled “A long-term policy for China-Europe relations” and launched the dialogue on human rights; in 1998, the first EUChina Summit was held in London, and so began the time for regular summits and a period when numerous sectoral agreements were concluded between the two parties, through a myriad of meetings, seminars, dialogues, consultations, joint committees etc. (Commission of the European Communities, 2001; European External Action Service, 2013) The ‘Europe and Asia’ Strategy, adopted amid the Asian economic crisis arising in 1997, could be considered an important step for the EU towards a more active engagement in Asia. Apart from the general objectives, to contribute to peace and security in the region, or to spread democracy, good governance and the rule of law, the EU also assumed political and security goals (involvement in conflict prevention and in certain home affairs, such as visa, asylum or immigration; support for strengthening the civil society), economic and social objectives (strengthening cooperation in the private sector; better access to markets for the poorest developing countries in Asia; reduction of poverty). (Commission of the European Communities, 2001) However, the EU was criticised because of the lack of cultural approaches and for the fact that its major economic interests were the principal reasons behind its strategies pertaining to Asia (Stokhof, “A Word about...”, 2002), as it is openly admitted in the Strategy of 1994. Despite all criticism, the EU remained involved or, better said, became more active in the period of economic crisis after 1997, without being the most important economic actor in the region. One of the notable differences between the 1994 and 2001 strategies is that the former was chiefly aimed at the economic needs of the EU (but not only!); it was more likely an economic strategy for the EU, while the latter focused primarily on the needs of Asian regions, without neglecting the EU’s interests. It is possible to consider the former as being less

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diplomatic, or rather reflecting the EU’s economic realism, and this is not so strange if we conclude, following the classic political actor logic, that the EU of the nineties was less developed from the perspective of political integration, and that it had to improve its economic role as a basis for claiming a more prominent position in international politics. The Strategy of 2001 proposed key actions in each major Asian region (South, South-East, North-East and Australasia), but it did not yet consider Central Asia as a distinct segment. Regular bi- and multi-lateral meetings took place, where participants debated on the new regional and international contexts and different approaches were proposed. Regarding the real outcomes of the EU’s strategies and of these regular meetings, there are both critical opinions and remarks on their progress. ASEM, started in 1996 with the goal of improving the partnership and communication between Europe and Asia, was considered “a unique instrument for dialogue, cooperation and inter-civilizational understanding between European and Asian countries” (Stokhof, “Director’s note on ASEM 4,” 2002), which should be more open to different actors from the civil society and to large groups of citizens. The first ten years of EU-ASEM relations gathered the following appreciations on the part of researchers of the International Institute for Asian Studies from Leiden:

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Positive 200219 -despite the economic crisis, ASEM remained a useful forum in the dialogue between the two regions; -the adoption of the ASEM Copenhagen Political Declaration of Peace in the Korean Peninsula; -the adoption of the ASEM Copenhagen Declaration of Cooperation against International Terrorism; -the decision (in Copenhagen) to establish a Task Force on Closer Economic Cooperation; -the “Iron Silk Road” as a way to connect South Korea to Europe; -the decision to organise, in 2003, in China, the conference entitled “Unity in Diversity”;

Negative 2002 -ASEM’s goals are “necessarily vague and somewhat ostentatious”; -there is “little connection” between the measures and instruments used by the heads of states to achieve ASEM’s goals; -the ASEM process is “still waiting for a crucial idea or concept that will boost its development”; -ASEM meetings are preponderantly focused on economic aspects, although “economic relations between Europe and Asia would have prospered without ASEM”; in the political field, “less progress can be demonstrated”, and in terms of civil society, education, culture etc. “many opportunities have neither been seen nor seized”; -the EU failed to obtain an improvement of debates on human rights and good governance; -poor connections between the conclusions of the ASEM summit of Seoul (Oct. 2000) and the one of Copenhagen (Sept. 2002); -the weak activity of the Asia-Europe Foundation (the only permanently established institution of ASEM); -ASEM needs “well-planned longterm comprehensive programmes with concrete deliverables, good monitoring, evaluation, reporting procedures, and relevant down-toearth follow-up activities” Proposals: to concentrate more on the third pillar (civil society, education, culture etc.); to introduce some “consultative forums” (platforms concerning workers, NGO, research)

19

Sources for 2002: Stokhof, “ASEM 4.,” 2002, 1-2; Stokhof, “Director’s Note on ASEM 4,” 2002, 2; Velde and Sondaite-van Soest, 2002, 3; “Asia-Europe Foundation”.

Cristina-Maria Dogot 200320 -progress in economic and cultural matters;

200421 -the contribution to multi-level governance at regional/international level; -it promoted and boosted intraregional cooperation; -it diminished nationalism; -it promoted respectful cross-cultural relations; -it helped the process of “selfidentification” in the South-Asia region; -it promoted multilateralism, multidimensional dialogue and regional cooperation; -it offered better visibility and a more important international role of the EU; 200622 -the regularity of the meetings; -the support given to the identitybuilding process; -the capacity of ASEM to become an inter-regional forum, as important as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation; -inter-regionalism was used as a tool to improve multilateralism; -ASEM inspired NGOs to establish an Asia-Europe People’s Forum;

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2003 -lack of results within the political pillar; -EU and ASEM forthcoming enlargement is seen as a potential danger to deeper interactivity between ASEM members; 2004

2006 -the lack of institutions; -the problems provoked by ASEM enlargement;

Criticism and negative remarks are completely understandable, but more progress was not possible as long as ASEM remained only “an informal process, without a permanent organizational body” (Velde and Sondaite-van 20

Sources for 2003: Stokhof, 2003, 2. Sources for 2004: Reiterer, 2004, 9-20; Gilson and Lay Hwee, 2004, 24-36. 22 Sources for 2006: Lay Hwee, 2006, 70-73. 21

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Soest, 2002, 3). On the other hand, ASEM, and generally speaking, EU-Asia (or other regions) relations have always been studied from the perspective of realism, where politics and security are regarded with a high level of consideration, whilst economic and social matters are secondary (Lay Hwee, 2006, 70-80). However, it is well known that the EU follows and applies the principle of constructivism, where the ranking is not completely opposite, but the social level is considered to be an important element of the political equation. If at its inception the process of EU-Asia cooperation was fairly clumsy, it improved with every meeting and even succeeded in boosting cooperation in the third pillar, deemed the most sensitive and difficult to tackle.

The European Union and Central Asia: from eye-opener to mutual gradual discovery In the latter half of the nineties, the ideological independence of the former Soviet republics, the incapacity of Russia to protect the region after its independence, the particular security-based interest of America23, the merely resource-based interest of China, and, last but not necessary least, the increasing interest of regionally prominent states, i.e. Turkey and Iran (Rahmani, 2003), transformed Central Asia into an appealing geopolitical 23

In 1994, the USA succeeded in attracting all Central Asian states into NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme, and so, it gained their support for achieving the regional geopolitical objectives of the USA in terms of actions in remote regions. The main reason for this approach of the USA to Central Asia is considered to have two dimensions: a short-term one, namely the need to contain the influence of China, Iran and Russia in the region, and a long-term one, linked to the process of democratisation of the zone, whilst building privileged relations with the newly-opened markets and contributing to the establishment of “an open and unfettered environment to allow the development of the regional energy resources”. Because of some actions of the Islamic Organisation of Uzbekistan on the territory of Kyrgyzstan, in 1999, the USA renewed its security engagement in Central Asia and the Caucasus and even supported “greater regional integration and cooperation, with assistance in border control and security to combat drug trafficking, in non-proliferation, and other trans-national criminal activities”. In order to achieve this objective, the USA elaborated, the following year, the Central Asian Border Security Initiative (CASI), by means of which it granted supplementary security assistance to the region. All these policies were to reveal their usefulness after September 2001, when Central Asian states supported the regional actions of the coalition lead by the USA. (Giragosian and McDermott, 2004) The USA’s preoccupations with Central Asia were approached throughout issue no. 4 (34) from 2005 of the journal entitled Central Asia and Caucasus.

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region, but one that nobody dared to get close to. The leaders of Central Asian states understood that their regional political semi-isolation worked to their benefit and tried to take full advantage of this situation, by increasingly consolidating their political power at the expense of the democratisation of the their states (Kurtov, 2002; Rahmani, 2003; Sharapova, 2003). At the end of the nineties and especially at the beginning of the following decade, since many roots of international terrorism were found close to Central Asia, this region became more and more interesting not only from an economic, but also from a geopolitical perspective. After the fall of the Soviet Union, in spite of their domestic authoritarianism and corruption, political leaders from Central Asian states were constantly accepted because they succeeded in managing, to some extent, political Islamism, organised crime and drug trafficking. Furthermore, they were always open to economic collaboration (although often by dishonest means) and never disclaimed or completely rejected the role of superpowers (whether democratic or not). The internal situation did not change dramatically after 2000, but EU activities in Asia multiplied (as we have revealed, albeit not exhaustively, in the previous chapters) and the events of September 2001 further altered the perception of both the USA and Western democracies24 of Islamic states, and, intrinsically, of the significance of the Central Asian region itself. Generally speaking, the social aid that the EU granted to Central Asia in the ‘90s was usually minimised25 from the perspective of the resulting political influence or the political benefits gained. Classic geopolitical actors chiefly consider military capacities as being the most important ones in spreading one’s influence to developing regions, and especially economic capacities as part of the relations with such areas. According to statistics, in the nineties, the EU was present in Central Asian countries only through its development aid: 363 million euros per year, for the period 1991-1995, and 438 million euros per year for the period 1996-2000. (Commission of the European Communities, 2001) Hence, although from an official perspective, the interest of the EU in Central Asia was only demonstrated in 2007, when 24 Regarding the EU, Hélène Rousselot added as an essential reason the EU’s need to escape from the Russian monopoly of gas and oil resources, because Russia was the supplier of almost half of the quantity of gas imported by the EU in 2006, and in 2007 it was the only supplier for Baltic states, Finland and Slovakia, and the main supplier for Hungary, Austria, Poland, the Check Republic, Greece and Bulgaria. (Rousselot, 2011) 25 This understatement is applied by the classic geopolitical actors or by some analysts who consider the social aid as less efficient and insufficient in the process of establishing the zones of influence. So often, the beneficiary states themselves hide the source of the aid from their citizens, for populist reasons.

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the European Council adopted the Strategy for a New Partnership, the relations between the two parties are much older, as it results from the following key data: Start of diplomatic relations

Opening of representative office in the EU/ state capital

Kazakhstan

Feb. 1993

Kyrgyzstan

Not specified

Dec. 1993/ Nov.1994 Oct 1993/1994

Tajikistan

1992

2001/2004

Turkmenistan

Not specified Not specified

Data not found /2008 1995/2012

Uzbekistan

Partnership and Cooperation Agreement initiated/ came into force Jan. 1995/ July 1999 Dec. Febr.1995/ July 1999 Oct. 2004/ Jan. 2010 1998/ Pending 1996/1999

Agreement on Cooperation in Nuclear Safety initiated/came into force July 1999/ June 2003 no no no 2003

Table 2-7 Bilateral relations between the EU and Central Asian countries Sources: Delegation of the European Union to Kazakhstan; Delegation of the European Union to the Kyrgyz Republic; Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Tajikistan; Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Uzbekistan; European Union. External Action; “Cooperation between Tajikistan and the European Union”; “About us. Welcome to the Europa House website”; “EU Ambassador in Uzbekistan takes up his duties”.

Even though this table presents only the most important data pertaining to the bilateral relations between the EU and Central Asian countries, it is wellknown that the EU did not develop any systematic activity in this area beyond the TACIS agreement (Technical Aid to the Commonwealth of Independent States) (Rousselot, 2011). The abovementioned information shows that the EU tried to have a unitary approach towards each Central Asian state, the differences being caused by the particular situations from some states: the civil war of Tajikistan, the disrespect for human rights in Turkmenistan, as well as the different security policies and military capabilities of the five republics (Rahmani, 2003). Given its non-aggressive presence in the region, although having its own economic interest there, like the other international powers, the EU had a positive image amongst Asian

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states, although its conditionalism and requests to respect human rights and democratic principles diminished its aura, to a certain extent. However, between the EU’s conditionalism and Russia’s regional authoritarianism, the former was by far a better choice26. Hence, when the EU enlarged towards the East, in 2004, Central Asian states considered this to be a new opportunity to increase their economic relations with the EU with the help of their traditional economic partners, Poland and Latvia. In light of some declarations made by EU officials, EU enlargement was also perceived as a basis for the “intensification of economic and political relations” both between the EU and Central Asian states, which should benefit from the most favoured nation treatment, and between the new neighbours of the EU and Central Asian states. Geographical proximity was deemed a good possibility to develop common projects, “including the transportation-communication and energy fields,” and the important hydrocarbon supplies of the region were seen as a very important advantage for Central Asia, because they could help the EU to reduce “its dependence on Russia in the energy sphere”. The negative aspects were also considered: the exigencies of the European Union’s standards in different areas, including air transport communication; the “qualitative and quantitative restrictions and trade protection measures”; the intrinsic caducity of some bilateral agreements between the new members of the EU and third countries, as well as the new visa conditions included. (Abdulaeva and Iigitaliev, 2004) Coming back to the EU, when it decided to get more involved in Central Asia, the internal political situation of the five component states could be adequately described in the words of Azhdar Kurtov: “…no one of the newly independent Central Asian countries has been able to build a true democracy or law-based state. It is obvious that this situation did not come about by accident. […] Almost none of the public politicians, including the leaders of the post-socialist states, have spoken out directly against democracy. On the contrary, they like to talk about their adherence to democratic development. But this is often just a front, propaganda, and not a genuine desire to establish democratic rule in a particular state. For at one time, outright dictators and the supporters of communist totalitarianism called themselves democrats.” (Kurtov, 2004, “Introduction”).

26

However, Central Asian states stayed connected with their neighbours or even temporarily deepened their relations with some of them, to the detriment of the EU. It was the case of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which joined the Russia-Belarus Customs Union. (Marat, 2011)

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The EU itself, in its “Strategy Paper 2002-2006”27, elaborated with the goal of providing better implementation of existing EU programmes for Central Asia, considered that Central Asian states had made “some progress towards democratisation and the establishment of market-based economies”, such as: “progress towards internationally agreed borders, the creation of functioning government structures and the establishment of public administrations, law enforcement, economic and financial management bodies”

Nevertheless, they need to tackle: “further economic reform and poverty reducing growth, improved governance, efforts to tackle corruption, implementation of the rule of law, and an overdependence on revenues from the export of a small number of unprocessed primary commodities...” (Strategy Paper 2002-2006)

At the same time, the abovementioned document pointed out some other particular problems of the region: -political and security matters (the communist roots of the new political leaders and the practice of the personality cult; the autocratic character of the new political regimes and their intolerance towards political opposition; obstacles raised by politics to the civil society; corruption; insufficiently reformed public administration; disrespect for human rights (torture used in prisons, application of the death penalty in three of the republics, disrespect for the freedom of expression, religion and the media, an inferior social status of women, at both private and public level28); the growing presence of terrorism and fundamentalism; various border problems between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (Ferghana Valley); the incapacity to find solutions to share common natural resources; -social problems (quality of education29; migration of high-educated people to urban areas; level of unemployment); -social-economic problems (scarcity of economic and agricultural reforms; lack of foreign investments, due to the absence of modern financial services 27 This period is considered to be one when the EU made efforts to transform from an ‘observer’ into a ‘participant’ in matters germane to Central Asian countries. (Shilibekova, 2008, 19) 28 Some approaches could be found in: European Commission. External Relations, „EU Human Rights Dialogue in Central Asia.” 29 The EU adopted sectoral policies on education. European Commission. External Relations, “EU Cooperation in Education in Central Asia.”

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meant to facilitate trade; underdeveloped financial and private sectors; weak support for the SME sector; weak fiscal and budgetary policies; fragility of public finances; income disparities and widespread poverty). (“Strategy Paper 2002-2006…,” 2002) However, given its geographical position, at the “crossroads between China, Russia, Ukraine, Iran and Afghanistan,” its abundance of mineral resources its important capacity to produce energy, the EU considered the “great strategic importance” of the region. (Ibid.) The EU did not disregard the interests of the other key actors in Central Asia, for example Russia, China, the USA, Japan or even Iran and Turkey, but it announced that it had “a strong interest in using all the means at its disposal to promote the peaceful political and economic development of the region”, so as “to promote stability and security” and support Central Asian countries “in their pursuit of sustainable economic development and poverty reduction”. (Ibid.) In order to accomplish these general objectives, the EU aimed to offer “support for institutional, legal and administrative reform; support in addressing the social consequences of transition,” and its help for the “development of infrastructure networks”, next to some other international donors (the World Bank, the European Bank for Research and Development, the Islamic Development Bank, UN agencies, OSCE etc.) and by means of the TACIS programme30. The latter proposed three tracks to be followed, each dealing with more sectoral programmes and involving different projects (Ibid.): -The Regional Cooperation Programme, focused on inter-state and cross border cooperation, found it necessary to develop viable, secure, safe and competitive “energy, transport and telecom networks, for the management of shared natural resources, such as water, for addressing major environmental problems which have a global or cross border nature, and for fighting against organised crime, drug trafficking, hazardous materials and human beings”. (Ibid.)

Thus, its goal is to improve the relations between the aforementioned states, to increase their interdependencies and so to reduce the risks of conflict. Amongst the indicators of this track, one may underline: reducing the non-physical barriers to the movement of goods and increasing transit volumes; investments to upgrade the oil and gas transmission systems of Central Asian countries to international standards; increased public 30

This programme was conceived and then permanently upgraded so that it would approach different problems of Central Asian countries: transition to market economy, democratisation, and regional integration. (Urdze, 2011, 23-24)

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participation and NGO involvement in environmental activities; improvement of the main pollution/emissions indicators; upgrading the system of border management (electronic equipment, technical support for border guards); anti-drug strategies; prevention and rehabilitation measures leading to better treatment of drug addicts. -Regional Support for programmes implemented at national level, namely the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements, the Trade and Cooperation Agreements, launched in 1991 and finalised in 2006, and of Poverty Reduction Strategy Programmes. The specific activities of this track include any type of technical assistance necessary for a proper implementation of the regional programmes. Its goals were to upgrade the transparency of trade regimes and the business climate and to strengthen their specific organisational structure; to improve governance activities and make them more transparent; to enhance the training and management methods used within the education system. -The Pilot Poverty Reduction Scheme aimed at the most vulnerable groups, which was needed to assist several local communities in mitigating poverty, through measures that were capable of improving “local governance, food security, social protection and employment opportunities”. As appropriate methods and activities, one may turn to: projects that were able to rehabilitate small-scale economic and social infrastructure and services; a better framework providing micro- and agricultural credit in order to support rural households and small farmers; drafting the necessary legal framework and providing the financial support for a better climate for local businesses; enhancing the relevance and coherence of labour market policies. The most important outcomes of this first EU strategy for Central Asia are considered to be several projects with great relevance for the region: Interstate Oil and Gas Pipeline Management (INOGATE), Transport Corridor Europe Caucasus Asia (TRACECA), Central Asia Drug Action Programme (CADAP) and Management Programme in Central Asia (BOMCA), the latter being germane to the events of September 2001. (Urdze, 2011, 23-24) The new EU strategy for Central Asia was adopted under the pressure of some local or regional events, concisely emphasised by Hélène Rousselot: the Tulip Revolution from Kyrgyzstan and the massacre from Andizhan, in Uzbekistan, in 2005, which triggered the assignment of a EU Special Representative for Central Asia31; the oil crises between Russia and Ukraine, in 2005 and 2006, which made the EU more aware of the energy potential of the region and the urgency of drafting a strategy for energy security, which 31

Considered by Urdze as less useful for the EU’s interests in the region, because of the diplomatic abilities of these representatives, the temporary character of this position and the insufficient funds granted. (Urdze, 2011, 28).

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was eventually adopted in 2006, and a report on the relations between the EU and Russia (Rousselot). This helped the EU to negotiate its presence in Central Asia with Russia and to enhance its activities concerning oil production in the region. A special role in adopting a new EU strategy for Central Asia is considered to have been that of Germany, which took over the EU’s presidency in January 2007, closely supported by France and Finland. Hence, that very month, the EU adopted the Development Co-operation Instrument (DCI), so as to be implemented in the period 2007-2013, and focused on three dimensions: geographic programmes (addressed to Latin America, Asia and Central Asia, and the Gulf Region); thematic programmes (addressed to all developing countries); and a programme of supportive measures for the 18 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Sugar Protocol countries. The main actions of the first programme dealt with the eradication of poverty, access to education and health; social cohesion and better employment; boosted governance, democracy and respect for human rights; deeper regional integration; sustainable development, sustainable management of natural resources and sustainable integrated water resource management; sustainable rural development and food security; developing infrastructure and improving access to new technologies; and support in post-crisis situations. The second programme restates some of these actions from another perspective and adds the matters of migration and asylum. (“Development Co-operation Instrument,” 2007, 8, 11) The DCI replaced TACIS, but its programmes are considered to be very close to the previously presented tracks of TACIS, and it succeeded in continuing the abovementioned programmes of TACIS (INOGATE, TRACECA, BOMCA and CADAP). As Sigita Urdze emphasises, the DCI benefited from more funds and focused especially on the problems of diminishing poverty (40-45% of its budget), on regional cooperation and good neighbourhood relations (30-35%), as well as on good governance and economic reforms (20-25%). From the perspective of its outcomes, the DCI is regarded as being more successful than TACIS32

32 Even the European Commission Report of 1997, pointed out the general difficulties faced in the implementation of the programme, its unrealised objectives and the factors that contributed to its deficiencies (little continuity in high level Commission management, delays in ratification of PCAs, poor policies in some fields of action, some positive changes in the application of the programme etc.). (European Commission. TACIS, 1997). However, the opposite situation, in which the TACIS programme is considered to be a genuine success, exists as well. It is the case of Alexander Frenz, former team leader of several regional monitoring projects of the EC’s Tacis Programme, who elaborated a paper in which he made connections between TACIS and various other projects, agreements or strategies developed by the EU, regarding

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(there are some allegations that its funds were often used by the European enterprises in Central Asia). (Urdze, 2011, 24-26) In June 2007, the European Council adopted a new EU Strategy for Central Asia, regarded by Sven Biscop as: “a new framework for relations with the five Central Asian countries, focusing on political dialogue, education, rule of law, human rights and energy”,

equitable with the European Neighbourhood Policy from the perspective of its objectives and which will help to achieve better connection between Central Asian and ENP countries. (Biscop, 2010, 86) This new strategy also recognised “the dependency of the EU on external energy sources and the need for a diversified energy supply policy in order to increase energy security” as a basis for “cooperation between the EU and Central Asia”. By assessing the results obtained by the previous programmes in the region, it becomes apparent that the new strategy proposed as instruments of cooperation both bilateral relations and a regional approach, unlike the different regional organisations already active in Central Asia. (Council of the European Union. General Secretariat, “European Union and Central Asia: Strategy for New Partnership,” 2007) Like the previous strategy, the one in question focused on the problem of democratisation of the region, both at local (national) and regional (inter-state cooperation) level. To accomplish such an objective as democratisation means to tackle various other “subsidiary” objectives, such as respect for human rights, rule of law, good governance, fight against corruption, transparency of public administration and political structures, and development of the civil society. The EU pledged once again, through this strategy, to support Central Asian states in their efforts to boost their programmes and activities in the abovementioned fields. Because in Central Asia the average age is very low, the strategy properly emphasised, as a very important objective, the improvement of the quality of education and aimed, by means of the European Education Initiative, to support education at each level. (Ibid., 1214) In order to support this strategy and benefit from a more dynamic and adaptive instrument of work, the European Rule of Law Initiative for Central Asia was adopted, so as to “set up a coordination mechanism among EU institutions and Member States to further support the ongoing modernisation of the legal sector, as part of a TACIS as a basic element in the progress accomplished by the other projects or strategies. (Frenz, 2006)

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more comprehensive strategy to foster and consolidate stability, prosperity and respect for human rights in Central Asian countries.” (European Communities, 2009, “European Rule of Law Initiative…”)

The success of this initiative was considered possible if it benefited from the help of regular meetings at ministerial level, technical workgroups and national level dialogue on legal reform. After one year, the first official report on the implementation of the Strategy underlined the “new quality of cooperation” and more intense political dialogue between the two parties; better determination of the five Asian partners to assume and apply the rules of cooperation with the EU and to implement the Strategy; better synergy, from the perspective of bilateral cooperation, between PCAs, TCAs and the objectives of the new Strategy. In the field of democratisation, the Report did not quantify the advancement, but only the steps to be made in order to attain some progress. The situation seemed better in the field of education, but especially in that of the high-level meetings and discussions on “priority themes”, and with regard to the solutions proposed for different sectoral priorities. (European Communities, 2009, “Joint Progress Report,” 35-41) The subject of political cooperation was readdressed in September 2008, during the EU-Central Asia Forum held in Paris, with special emphasis on regional cooperation as a basis for stability and democratisation at macro level. (European Communities, “Joint Declaration...,” 2009) Another report, prepared by an independent research centre, was published in 2010. According to it (Emerson et al., 2010)33, the following important aspects arose in the field of democratisation:

33

The report of 2013 is not yet available in its final form. Only a collection of factsheets (Tsertsvadze and Boonstra, 2013) has been published.

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Political dialogue Positive -Innovation: regional-multilateral meetings between the foreign ministers of the five Central Asian states and the EU Troika (September 2008 in Paris, on security issues, and September 2009 in Brussels, with a wider agenda); -The regularity of these meetings; -The EU’s Special Representative, Ambassador Pierre Morel, has regularly been present in the region.

-Inter-cultural dialogue was announced as a topic in the 2007 strategy document.

Negative

-Ambassador P. Morel failed to meet the representatives of human rights organisations in the region; -Ambassador P. Morel positioned himself firmly in favour of lifting sanctions on Uzbekistan, even though the EU did not accept its conditions accepted; -Placing Ambassador P. Morel in charge of the Georgia peace process diluted his work in Central Asia. -No notable results.

Human rights and democracy Positive -The establishment of a highly structured Human Rights Dialogue process, with annual meetings at official level and civil society seminars; -There have already been two official rounds of dialogue, and one of civil society seminars.

-There is a standard agenda template, updated with key topics of debate and final lists of individual cases of concern;

Negative -In the case of Turkmenistan, there have been no civil society seminars, because there is no independent civil society in that country; -In Uzbekistan there was only one civil society seminar, where the Uzbek side was represented solely by GONGOs (government organised NGOs); -An attempt to organise a second meeting encountered obstacles from the Uzbek side and the process was abandoned. -In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan there is no open space for the civil society or NGOs to work on human rights issues;

Cristina-Maria Dogot -The standard template functioned in a relatively satisfactory manner even in the cases of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan; -The EU representative met with human rights activists the day before the official dialogue sessions, when they were held in the Central Asian state. -The large participation of human rights activists, NGOs, legal experts, academic and NGO counterparts from the EU, in the civil society seminars held in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. -Before opening the official sessions, the dialogue process was conducted in detail, with both sides exchanging thoroughly prepared positions in a constructive atmosphere. - October 2009: the EU removed sanctions against Uzbekistan, adopted in response to the brutality used in the suppression of the Andjian uprising in 2005; -Some observers considered that the sanctions would reduce the probability of recurrence of this type of atrocities.

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-The tone of the sessions on human rights with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan was difficult (the first was ‘evasive’ and the second was ‘aggressive’).

-Initially, there was no official Kazakh participation in these seminars; -The recommendations and conference reports, albeit public documents, were not published in due time on the websites of the Commission and/or its Delegations; -The limits of the endeavour are also clear: it is a process of dialogue and not of negotiation. -The sanctions failed to produce any evident reforms and their effectiveness is contested; -The lack of discipline and unity of the EU in the case of sanctions against Uzbekistan.

Rule of law Positive -The new rule of law initiative was more acceptable to the Central Asian authorities; -The two levels involved: high-level political dialogue and specific technical assistance programmes; -While the work at regional level seeks to address similar problems shared by the five states, the state-specific activity is adapted to the different stages of development of the legal systems of each country.

Negative -The EU lacks an active democratisation agenda for the region; -The modernisation of legal system is relatively more advanced in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; -The authoritarian leaderships of all five states control their judicial institutions as part of the single power structure; - In December 2008, Uzbekistan required all lawyers to apply for requalification for the bar in an obvious bid to secure their political compliance.

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-The initiative builds on a number of pre-existing projects (German GTZ agency, Venice Commission of the Council of Europe); -Both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan had the status of observers to the Venice Commission.

-It is necessary to have a clearer strategy for the numerous projects and sub-projects in this field, and better synergies of results.

Education Positive -Investments in higher education in Kazakhstan ($500 million for a new technical university in Astana, teaching in English and contracting foreign professors); -Both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan will adopt the Bologna system, necessary for international recognition. -The Education Platform is intended to have a series of high-level regional meetings of technical working groups, and dialogues at national level; -The operational activities are largely continuing pre-existing projects, with some rebranding under the Education Initiative label, with the Bologna Process and Tempus as complementary activities. -The Erasmus Mundus facility introduced in 2007; six academic consortia created in three years, each of which consists of about 8 EU universities and 6-10 Central Asian universities (only 1 from Turkmenistan); -602 individuals programmed for mobility (three-quarters are Central Asians spending time in the EU and one quarter Europeans in Central Asia). -The scale of funding for Erasmus Mundus was doubled from €5 to €10 million per year, although the evaluation of the first years is not yet available.

Negative -The state of education systems in Central Asia is, generally speaking, highly problematic, with a widespread collapse of funding at all levels; -Contraction of secondary education with closure of vocational schools; -Falling standards of literacy in schools and widespread corruption in higher education. -These meetings have begun to take place, but it is not yet clear whether the process is becoming meaningful in practical terms.

-There are some arguments stating that Erasmus Mundus is not yet sufficiently adapted to Central Asian realities. The programme has developed in a proper way wherever there are comparably high standards of universities on both sides, which is not the case of most state universities in Central Asia. In light of this situation, the standard Erasmus Mundus package requires amendments.

Cristina-Maria Dogot -The 2007 Central Asia strategy document suggested the establishment of a European Studies Centre and more support for existing European higher education initiatives (Kazakh-British and Kazakh-German universities in Almaty; Westminster University in Tashkent). -Private universities, as alternatives to state universities (characterised by low standards and corruption) and a potential base for the EU to make a more visible contribution to the education sector, branding itself as promoter of a cluster of higher education centres of excellence in the region.

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-These intentions have not yet been followed up in practice.

-Responsibility for the Education Initiative for Central Asia has been delegated to the EuropAid Cooperation Office (AIDCO), although, formerly, it was managed by the Education and Culture directorate general (EAC), the main professional institution in education policy. -The EAC maintains responsibility for the education platform of the Eastern Partnership countries. It would be better for the Central Asian Education Initiative to be run alongside that of the Eastern Partnership, given the multiple commonalities in terms of challenges stemming from the Soviet legacy.

Another report, concerning only the EU’s capacity to intervene in the conflict from Kyrgyzstan, in 2010, was extremely critical of the EU’s institutional ability to foresee, prevent and even intervene in conflicts. (Babaud and Quinn Judge, 2010) Albeit the report of Michael Emerson and Jos Boonstra does not focus on this aspect, this is something that the EU will need to improve in the future: the enhancement of its capacity to intervene in any stage of a conflict, because now the EU is better at acting especially in post-conflict situations. In 2010, a complementary financing line was launched to the benefit of Central Asian countries, namely the Investment Facility for Central Asia (IFCA). Its objective was to provide Central Asian states with “non-refundable financial contributions to support loans… from the EIB, the EBRD and other European multilateral and national development finance institutions”,

aiming “to promote additional investments and key infrastructures with an initial

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The European Union Strategy for Central Asia priority focus on energy, environment, SMEs and social infrastructure”. (“The EU Investment Facility…”)

Although activated only for the period 2010-2013, the European Commission and Member States could extend it for a new interval, if its indicators are attained. The annual implementation report, drafted by an independent evaluator, was presented to the DCI Committee. (“The EU Investment Facility…”; “Action Fiche for Central Asia”) According to a report elaborated one year later, “the positive results are uncontroversial”, as the new financial facilities for Central Asian states “have leveraged substantial volumes of additional development finance” and thus improved their economic and social life. (Núñez Ferrer and Behrens, 2011) In 2012, the Strategy was discussed at the Luxembourg Council and its objectives were reconfirmed as necessary to be continued by the EU, while some activities had to be upgraded, taking into account the new regional challenges (for example, political dialogue and cooperation in the area of security) or reinforced policies (education, rule of law, good governance, democratic reforms, human rights, civil society development, environment and water, energy cooperation etc.). In the field of security, it was suggested that a regular EU-Central Asia High Level Security Dialogue should be established based on a regional format, along with the implementation of a Joint Plan of Action on counter-terrorism, strengthening cross-border cooperation and encouraging Central Asian states in their accession process to the World Trade Organisation. (Council of the European Union, 2012; European Commission. External Relations, “EU Supports Well-managed Borders…”)

Concluding observations As we have easily noticed, the European Union is decided to maintain and improve its presence in Central Asia, as well as to use its conditionalist policies in order to obtain the largely expected political, economic and social changes in the region. The positive results are not always easily and timely obtained, modifications are often necessary, but all these exhibit not only the somewhat limited view, but also the openness of the EU or even its flexibility in unusual or critical situations. As Aigerim Shilibekova emphasises, local opinions concerning the presence of the European Union in Central Asia are different and often critical. Hence, during the Tulip Revolution of Kyrgyzstan, when the president was overthrown, some analysts considered that the TACIS programme was not properly adapted to local circumstances. According to other opinions, the programme was generally inefficient and

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“the region must develop a ‘Central Asia first’ strategy to unify their foreign policy and to ‘answer’ the EU’s regional strategy, which would foster cooperation at an equal level,”

all within the framework of larger international support, of a genuine ‘Marshall Plan for Central Asian states’. (Ibid.) The European Union did not propose a rigid framework, and when this framework proved to be inefficient, the EU was not rigid in its implementation, although this could be deemed an incoherent attitude on its part. As Algerim Shilibakova suggests, “EU-Central Asian cooperation should not be a one-way street: regional countries must strive to develop their own strategies, which will contribute to regional development.”

It is obvious that the mere determination of the EU will never be able to dramatically change the situation in Central Asia and in any other part of the world. Local political determination is also essential in getting the necessary changes under way, whether they pertain to the political or the social field. However, despite inherent stumbling, every EU programme developed in Central Asia modified perceptions of some individuals or groups and provoked undesired or involuntary changes of others, including political, economic, professional, or social groups34. It is possible to assert that the EU learnt its lesson following its involvement in developing countries. The quality of its monitoring process has upgraded from 2000 and a new monitoring method is used, the Resultsoriented method (ROM), due to which EU monitors can now perform on-site visits and thus verify key project documents or conduct interviews with important stakeholders and beneficiaries. The new method can be used either during a project’s implementation or when the implementation process has been achieved, in which case both the impact and the sustainability of the programmes are monitored. In order to verify the achievement of the regional dimension of such programmes, a new methodology was adopted in 2009, which depends on the type of regional programme: “1 – regional programmes with exclusively regional objectives and without national components; 2 – regional programmes with exclusively regional objectives, but with national components or activities; 3 - hybrid regional 34

According to Sharshenova, the majority of citizens in four Central Asian countries regard democracy “as an ideal form of government”. So, the chance to reduce the political power of authoritarian regimes exists. (Sharshenova, 2013) Taking into account the number of academic mobility stages, the educational programmes will yield social results in the foreseeable future.

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The European Union Strategy for Central Asia programmes with both regional and national dimensions in terms of objectives and activities; 4 - pseudo-regional programmes without a regional dimension in objectives or activities, but with regional funding.” (European Commission, 2010, 144, 147-8)

Apart from this approach, there are also environmental or gender-related aspects which are verified. (Ibid.) In Sven Biscop’s opinion, the European Union should be more intransigent in its conditionality, because “‘positive conditionality’ requires an extremely difficult balancing act, especially vis-à-vis countries with authoritarian regimes – and vis-à-vis great powers like Russia and China: maintaining partnerships and being sufficiently critical at the same time. But in that difficult context, the EU could notably show more consistency and resolve to react to human rights abuses, which should visibly impact on the relationship with any regime. A much enhanced image and increased legitimacy will follow, notably in the eyes of the public opinion, which is a prerequisite for the gradual pursuit of further-reaching political, economic and social reforms.” (Biscop, 2010, 76-7)

On the other hand, according to Bernard Yvars, the European Union could be considered a model in the field of regional integration: “Actions taken by the Union of States of East Africa, the Central American Common Market, the East African Community, Caricom, the Andean Pact and Mercosur have tried to reproduce the European Community experience of rapprochement between neighbours and economically equal countries.” (Yvars, 2010, 274)

The regional approach could be considered a better solution than the local one, because it establishes a series of interdependencies that should resolve conflicts, if necessary, or lead communities to economic development. If in Central Asia the results are not yet so positive, this is not only because the European Union has failed to find the proper methods to implement regional integration principles in this region. Other regions, which experienced a similar history to that of Central Asian countries (authoritarian regimes, poverty, drug trafficking, organised crime etc.) (Ibid.) succeeded in creating regional structures through which their economic life was upgraded. But, in order to reach this level, it is necessary to have not only external support, but also internal political will. Reiterer considers that: “It seems natural that the EU should be the champion of inter-regionalism as

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it has reached the deepest degree of regional integration worldwide. […] The EU has gained broad experience in using inter-regional dialogue to manage increasing global interdependence, maximise local resources and move towards a more consistent European foreign policy, as well as foster the peaceful resolution of conflicts and greater cooperation.” (Reiterer, 2004, 10)

This experience should be used and improved by those regions where, historically speaking, democracy, peace and welfare are nothing more than utopian ideas. But Shilibakova, at her turn, has expressed another regional conviction, namely that the EU is asking for a unitary voice in Central Asia albeit it has failed to gain such unity within. The author has launched the idea that the EU, even at present, is not visible enough in Central Asia, and, furthermore, the USA is benefiting from the EU’s actions in the region without investing at the same pace. However, for the moment, the high costs and the failures in the relationship between the EU and Central Asia are visible not only to Eurosceptics, but also to the critics of EU foreign policies and to scholars whose position is rather positive in this respect. Apart from these costs and failures, there are also benefits of this relationship: the Central Asian region is evolving; regional security challenges are considerably blurred by various partnerships acting in the region, and this calls for upgraded security needs for the EU as well; the EU has really become an important partner in conducting the dialogue on energy resources with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan; the EU is developing important economic relations with some of states in Central Asia; the Central Asian states’ borders are more secure, in spite of the level of corruption in the region; the energy security of the EU has been improved, although not all its energy projects have been successful. (Sharchenova, 2013) It is not possible to assert that the problems of Central Asian countries are or will be solved in a satisfactory manner in the near future. However, we have to remember that the EU became more active in Central Asia in the period when Russia increased both its economic and its international role. In 2010, when the EU strategy for Central Asia was being fully applied, Russia established the Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan and liberalised the movement of goods, services, labour and capital, which created open (and sometimes unfair) competition with the European Union in the region. The fact that some Central Asian countries are still highly dependent on Russia, either directly or (especially) indirectly, help is more than relevant, especially because Central Asian citizens can move and work freely in Russia. Many citizens of these republics have left their independent states, where corruption, the lack of economic growth, and unemployment reach high levels, in order to seek work or even settle permanently in Russia, where they can earn enough to support their families. (“Remittance Man…,” 2013) This

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situation is not possible within the EU, because Central Asian citizens cannot move or work freely on the Single European Market, and so, dependence on Russia has increased. However, in time, the European Union has succeeded in creating numerous interdependencies amongst Central Asian countries, which are easier to deny than to acknowledge, by both regional leaders and those who are eternally dissatisfied with the actions of the European Union. Maintaining its position in Central Asia is not easy for the EU. Its better asset lies in its capacity to monitory the political class, survey the respect of human rights, contribute to the democratisation of domestic political systems and inter-state relations. If these tasks of the EU are considered to be derisory, it is probably necessary to engage in a simple creativity exercise: what could be the situation in Central Asia in the absence of the EU’s intricate programmes, conditionalism and permanent monitoring activities?

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THE EUROPEAN CITIZENS’ INITIATIVE DIANA-IONELA ANCHE‫܇‬

Abstract The reason behind the introduction of the European citizens’ initiative into the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty is related to the democratic deficit within the European Union. The Lisbon Treaty is designed to be a new stage in the process of creating a Union closer to the people of Europe, where decisions are made closer to citizens. The term citizens’ initiative refers to the procedures that allow citizens to bring new problems onto the political agenda, through collective action, namely through collecting a certain number of signatures in order to support a legislative proposal. The provisions of the Lisbon Treaty (TUE) regarding the European citizens’ initiative create the proper path for modern democracy. For the first time, the principle of representative democracy, based on both direct and indirect democracy, will become a political practice at a transnational level. This historic step which is carefully watched by global observers raises many questions regarding future provisions (implementing regulations), opportunities (the attitude of European Union institutions) and infrastructure (support and assistance).

Keywords European citizens’ initiative, legislative proposal, Lisbon Treaty, representative democracy, democratic deficit

Introduction This paper revolves around four main concerns which are closely connected to the European citizens’ initiative. First of all, we have focused our attention on certain general aspects referring to the institutional framework and the EU decision-making process because of the influence

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exerted on them by the European citizens’ initiative. The main purpose of the EU’s institutional framework is to make sure that all relevant interests of Member States, citizens and the European Union as a whole are well represented in the decision-making process. Ensuring the representation of relevant interests is a major characteristic of democracy. Before the Lisbon Treaty, the European Commission had the “monopoly” on legislative initiative. Today, this prerogative is divided between the Commission and the citizens of the European Union. The second part of the paper is centred on the presentation of some considerations regarding the democratic deficit of the European Union and its relation to the European citizens’ initiative because we consider that at the basis for introducing the European citizens’ initiative we can chiefly find considerations related to the democratic deficit within the European Union. In this context, the Lisbon Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating a Union that is closer to the peoples of Europe, where all decisions should be taken closer to citizens. The third part of this paper is dedicated to presenting the meaning of the concept of “citizens’ initiative” in general, which we consider an important final aspect of our analysis. In this final part, we will refer to the main characteristics of the ECI, its legislative framework, the procedures and conditions required for its promotion and its practical implementation.

The EU’s institutional framework and decision-making process The Lisbon Treaty or the “modifying Treaty of the Treaty on European Union and of the Treaty on European Community” contains a series of amendments to the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on European Community (TCE) - which becomes the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Hence, the Lisbon Treaty determines the fusion of the three community pillars and, according to Article 1 (3) of the Treaty on European Union: “the Union shall be founded on the present Treaty and on the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (…). Those two Treaties shall have the same legal value. The Union shall replace and succeed the European Community”1.

1 Jean-Luc Sauron, Comprendre le Traité de Lisbonne. Texte consolidé intégral des traités. Explications et commentaires, Paris: Gualino éditeur, 2008, p. 25.

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According to Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union, the Union has an institutional framework which ensures the coherence and continuity of its actions, which means that - as H. Renout shows - the same institutions intervene in the community framework and in the achievement of intergovernmental cooperation, as established by the treaties2. Before the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, according to the principle of attribution of powers, the European institutions exercised their powers within the conditions and the purpose of the Treaties, in the sense that they had different roles, according to the field in which they had the power to decide, representing different interests: the European Council represented the interests of the sovereign states, the Council of the European Union reflected the ones of the governments of Member States, the European Commission represented the interests of the Union, the Court of Justice of the European Union dealt with European judicial order, and the Court of Auditors of the European Union handled the Union’s financial interests. Within the community framework, according to Article 7 (1), only they were considered to be institutions of the European Community. They were accompanied by multiple bodies which were considered subsidiary. The current institutional system is the result of a complex evolution of the entire European construction, which has experienced moments of consolidation reflected in its management patterns. The main concern of this institutional system is related to its capacity to synthesize3: x the interests of the states and those of the Community, x economic needs and political ones, x the intergovernmental level and the supranational one, x democratic representation and the efficiency of the action, x the diversity of procedures, x the affirmation of the cultural diversity and the promotion of the fundamental values of the European spirit, x The materialisation of the precepts of governance in order to respect the importance of the legal-regional-national- European levels. This system, as some authors show, has been created and is functioning in accordance with legal norms and a series of principles which have taken shape during European construction, such as: the principles of subsidiarity, solidarity and inter-institutional balance. It is true that Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union establishes that the Union has a unique institutional framework which ensures the coherence

2 3

H. Renout, Institutions européennes, Orléans: Paradigme, 2006, p. 189. Michel Clapié, Institutions européennes, Paris: Flammarion, 2003.

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and continuity of the actions undertaken in order to attain its objectives, but we share the opinion of J. Santer, according to whom: “The European Union will not be a European super state. It will be and remains an entirely original form of cooperation and integration of European nations and peoples”4.

Within this institutional framework, the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament and the European Commission form what is called the “decision-making triangle” - a new formula, introduced by the Lisbon Treaty5. Within this triangle, the Commission has legislative initiative in the case of directives, regulations and decisions; the European Parliament and the Council are the ones which adopt these European legal acts6. Within this decisional mechanism, the Commission maintains the right to legislative initiative conferred to it by the old legal provisions of the Community The European Commission used to have not only the right, but also the monopoly on legislative initiative in many areas of policy making because it was created “to strengthen the orientation of legislative proposals towards a common European interest”, and hence, it was “responsible for the European common good”. In some new policy fields, for example justice and home affairs, Member States also have the right to make formal proposals (see Article 76 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union)7. For our approach, it is important to assess the EU’s institutional framework, after the Lisbon Treaty, in terms of its capacity to represent interests. The main purpose of the EU’s institutional framework is to make sure that all relevant interests of the Member States, citizens and the European Union as a whole are well represented in the decision-making 4

See also Liviu-Petru Zăpâr‫܊‬an, Reflecаii despre Europa Unită, Cluj-Napoca: Eikon, 2011. 5 Thomas Christiansen, “The EU reform process: from the European Constitution to the Lisbon Treaty”, in Maurizion Carbone (ed.), National Politics and European Integration. From the Constitution to the Lisbon Treaty, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2010, pp. 16-33. 6 Jean-Luc Sauron, op. cit., p. 46; Aspects concerning the structure and functioning of the decision-making triangle can also be found in Diana-Ionela Ancheú, “Tratatul de la Lisabona úi sistemul instituĠional al Uniunii Europene”, in Flore Pop, Oana Albescu (eds.), Tratatul de la Lisabona. De la „metoda comunitară” la noile evoluĠii ale guvernanĠei europene. Drept úi Politici ale Uniunii, Cluj-Napoca: CA Publishing, 2012, p. 187. 7 Markus Jachtenfuchs, “The institutional framework of the European Union”, in Henrik Enderlein, Sonja Wälti, Michael Zürn (eds.), Handbook on Multi-level Governance, Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010, pp. 205-206.

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process. The European institutional framework, as it is portrayed in Article 13 of TEU, is meant to ensure that decisions are made in a consensual manner “and that they are relying upon the support of all interested parties”8. Name of the European Institution European Council

Role Executive

Council of the European Union

Executive/Legislative

European Commission European Parliament Court of Justice of the European Union European Central Bank Court of Auditors

Executive Legislative Judicial Executive Control

Representing Member states Member states Union Citizens Union Union Union

Table 2-8 – The EU’s institutional framework as represented in Article 13 TEU Source: Herman Lelieveldt, Sebastiaan Princen, op. cit., p. 53.

In table 2-8 we have presented the EU’s institutional framework according to Article 13 of the Treaty on European Union, which contains seven official institutions that are the foundation of the EU’s decision-making apparatus. This institutional framework was designed to balance different interests. Although the institutions have names that do not necessarily sound like the ones found in a national political system, they perform tasks which are very similar to national political institutions. The organization of the powers of European institutions is rather complex, especially concerning the legislative and the executive. Thus, unlike a national system where executive and legislative powers are located in separate branches of government, at the EU level, executive and legislative powers have different sources and so, they are located in different bodies which perform their tasks using the art of compromise and conciliation9. As we have already underlined, European institutions are supposed to incorporate and represent various interests. As research literature outlines, ensuring the representation of relevant interests is a major characteristic of democracy. But unlike national political systems, in which citizens determine the composition of the legislative and executive powers, in accordance with the principle of popular sovereignty, the European political system is more 8

Herman Lelieveldt, Sebastiaan Princen, The Politics of the European Union, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 52. 9 Ibidem, p. 53.

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complex and citizens can directly affect just one European institution - the European Parliament - as its members are decided by direct popular elections in each of the Member States10. So, as a consequence of this aspect, the interests of European citizens are represented by the European Parliament, while the other institutions (European Council, Council of the European Union, European Commission, Court of Justice of the European Union, European Central Bank and Court of Auditors) represent, first of all, the interests of the Member States and of the Union itself, and only then, the interests of citizens.

Some considerations regarding the democratic deficit of the European Union and its relation to the European citizens’ initiative We consider that, as grounds for introducing the European citizens’ initiative, we can chiefly name considerations related to the democratic deficit within the European Union, because the Lisbon Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating a Union closer to the peoples of Europe, where all decisions should be taken closer to citizens. The concept of democratic deficit first arose in the debates germane to the legitimacy of the European Union, as several decision-making institutions of the European Union were regarded by some as falling short of the standards of democratic accountability and transparency in comparison to the democratic standards of the Member States11. The democratic deficit has important consequences on political activism, allegiant forms of political behaviour and the rule of law, as well as on the processes of democratisation12. Since 1991, the European Commission has considered that the democratic character of European construction is justified by two ideas: the states that make up the Union are democratic (the democratic character being a condition for accession to the European Union) and they can only generate a democratic organisation; moreover, the Union is founded on Treaties, thus it is a construction of law, ratified by each Member State. Consequently, the legitimacy of European integration is proved, people are familiarised with this construction, whilst being aware of its benefits, and political forces that

10

Ibidem, pp. 53-54. Pippa Norris, Democratic Deficit, Critical Citizens Revisited, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 5. 12 Ibidem, p. 8. 11

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were once sceptical of the value and power of the Union are now engaged in its democratisation13. Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan shows that the introduction of the European citizenship has marked a change of the statute of each person, because it implies “a new type of legitimacy for European institutions”. According to the author, this is the meaning which must be attributed to the concept of democratic deficit of the Union. “The citizen does not feel a relation with European institutions as he does with national institutions”14. Referring to the democratic deficit, Simon Hix claims that it is the expression of the distrust of citizens in the functioning of the Union’s institutions15. Other authors believe that for legitimising European construction, it is necessary to shape a European identity16, a common culture which should bring together Europeans as they are brought together by their national identities. The Union can only be closer to its citizens to the extent that it will offer them an identity, by creating some concrete opportunities of participation, for expressing their own positions concerning the fundamental options of the Union, leaving in charge of the executive institutions only the mission to manage practical ways of implementing global orientations17. In a detailed analysis of the democratic deficit of the European Union, Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan has identified four essential aspects which this problem entails: the legitimacy of institutional structures and of the relationships between them, the representative character of the institutions and of the political personnel in relation to the equality amongst citizens, the functional character of the institutional system of the European Union and the participation of citizens to the European political life18. The Lisbon Treaty affirms the principles of a democratic political life, which also translate to potential solutions to the problem of the democratic deficit: democratic equality, by means of which all citizens enjoy the same treatment on the part of institutions; representation of European citizens in both national Parliaments and the European Parliament. Hence, Article 9 of the Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union provides that:

13

Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan, op. cit., p. 219. Ibidem, p. 221. 15 Simon Hix, The Political System of the EU, New York: Palgrave, 2005, pp. 177-178. 16 M. Pantel, “Unity in Diversity: Cultural Policy and EU Legitimacy”, in Thomas Banchoff, M. P. Smith (eds.), Legitimacy and the European Union, London: Routledge, 2005. 17 Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan, op. cit., pp. 222-223. 18 Idem, “Le déficit démocratique dans l’Union européenne”, in Societate úi Politică, Arad: Vasile Goldiú Univ. Press, 2, 2007. 14

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“in all its activities, the Union shall observe the principle of equality of its citizens, who shall receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, offices and agencies. (...)”19.

Furthermore, Article 10 of the Treaty on European Union states that the functioning of the Union is based on the principle of representative democracy, that citizens are directly represented at the Union level, in the European Parliament, that they have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union, that decisions will be made closer to citizens, and also that political parties will contribute to the formation process of a political conscience of citizens, which will enable them to openly express their desires: “(1) The functioning of the Union shall be founded on representative democracy. (2) Citizens are directly represented at Union level in the European Parliament. Member states are represented in the European Council by their Heads of State or Government and in the Council by their governments, themselves democratically accountable either to their national Parliaments, or to their citizens. (3) Every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union. Decisions shall be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the citizens. (4) Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of the citizens of the Union”.

In its quest to bring citizens closer to the decision-making process, the Lisbon Treaty created the right to citizens’ initiative. Some authors believe that this is not a genuine right to initiative, but rather one to petition, which does not oblige the European Commission to take it into account. This can be explained by the fact that, within the institutional system of the Union, neither the Council, nor the European Parliament has the right to legislative initiative, the latter being reserved for the European Commission. Consequently, from a political point of view, granting the citizens more rights than the ones attributed to the European Parliament is not possible. Furthermore, the quorum of the Union’s population has to be representative for the Commission to take it into consideration. On the other hand, in practice, the Commission often grants such requests transmitted by various interest groups which are not much more representative than the quorum necessary for the European citizens’ initiative. Also, it becomes apparent that if the citizens’ initiative is transmitted to both the European Commission and the European Parliament, the latter, based on Article 225 of the Treaty on the 19 Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, Official Journal of the European Union, C83/13, 30.03.2010, p. 8, http://eur-lex.europa.eu.

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Functioning of the European Union, may invite the Commission to elaborate a legislative proposal, within three months in which it must motivate its decision20. The Lisbon Treaty recognises the importance of dialogue between citizens, associations, civil societies and the institutions of the Union, especially the Commission. The Council of the European Union publicly debates and votes European legislation, so that transparency would encourage the participation of civil society21. In one of its documents, the European Parliament has showed that it is not sufficient to tell European citizens that Europe is built for them, since Europe must be built with them. At this time, over half a billion citizens are governed by institutions which seem distant to them, with a slow way of functioning, obscure and confuse, because such institutions obey a set of rules known only by them22. The Lisbon Treaty, along with other founding texts of the Union, calls for the introduction of a real dialogue between institutions and citizens, all the more because no NGO is accredited beside the European Commission, as is the case of the Council of Europe or the UN. To that effect, Article 11 (1, 2) of the Treaty on European Union23 provides that: “(1) The institutions shall, by appropriate means, give citizens and representative associations the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their views in all areas of Union action. (2) The institutions shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society”.

An important place in the interaction between European institutions, civil society and European citizens is occupied by the Commission because, according to Article 11 (3) of the Treaty on European Union24, “The European Commission shall carry out broad consultations with parties concerned in order to ensure that the Union’s actions are coherent and transparent”. 20

Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan, op. cit., 2011, pp. 248-249. Ibidem, p. 249. 22 Culture Action Europe, p. 1, http://www.cultureactioneurope.org/lang-fr/advocate/advocacy-and-lobbying-at-eulevel?e4b73c3745ac4bc374714928e835769b=73e9ab. 23 Consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union, in Official Journal of the European Union, C83/13, 30.03.2010, p. 9, http://eur-lex.europa.eu. 24 Ibidem. 21

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Nevertheless, in fulfilling this task imposed by the Treaty, the Commission only makes use of three forms of consultation of the civil society25: a) In various areas, the Commission organises Advisory Committees which include different associations and organisations of the civil society helping to prepare a legislative process. b) Each Directorate General of the Commission can organise a structured dialogue with the civil society, but practices vary from one field to another. c) A third way is the one through which various routes are used to collect legislative proposals or the ones related to the politics of the Union. The Commission guides this process in accordance with a document entitled The general principles and minimal norms applicable to the consultations engaged by the Commission with interested parties. Another European institution, the European Parliament, engages is dialogue with the European civil society through the actions of each MP who assumes the proposals of the citizens in his district and upholds them before parliamentary committees or in plenary sessions, as part of the legislative process or the control of the activity of the European Commission26. In the case of other institutions and bodies, such as the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the permanent representations of the EU’s member countries etc., the dialogue is established at a national level, because these institutions become or should become “spokespersons” of their own civil societies27. A separate mention should be made concerning the Economic and Social Committee, which created a contact group with the NGOs that are represented in Brussels, leading to partial representation of the civil society, but which proves to be a significant initiative28. It is believed that at the level of the European civil society, eight sectors of activity should be engaged in the dialogue with European institutions: culture, environment, education, development, human rights, public health, social affairs and equality between men and women. In each of these fields one may already encounter active European networks of non-governmental organizations which represent local, national and European interests in a transparent, accessible, inclusive, just and pluralist dialogue, upholding participatory democracy, civil dialogue and transparency in the organisation 25

Ibidem, p. 2. Ibidem. 27 Ibidem. 28 Ibidem. 26

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and functioning of the European Union. They hold ample and diversified debates which pertain to all social aspects of the Union29. The European citizens’ initiative also responds to the problem of deepening the democracy of European construction.

What does “citizens’ initiative” mean? The citizens’ initiative is a form of democratic participation and it refers to: “the procedures that allow citizens to bring new issues to the political agenda through collective action, that is, through collecting a certain number of signatures in support of a policy proposal”.

Like referenda, citizens’ initiatives are regarded as forms of direct democracy because they allow citizens to participate in the policy-making process, in other words to exercise their influence on particular issues. Academic research on democracy has shown that in the course of recent history, many forms of citizen participation have been presented for discussion. Hence, since the 1960s, participatory democrats have promoted various new forms of citizen participation, including examples of direct democracy, in order to enhance democratic empowerment and selfgovernment. Participatory democrats have insisted both on the fact that initiative institutions provide citizens with equal opportunities to influence the agenda of political decision-making, and on the positive effects of democratic participation, for example, the development of citizens’ civic skills (political knowledge, understanding of alternative viewpoints)30. Since 1990, the democratic theory has experienced deliberative democracy, which insists on the content and quality of political discourse. According to deliberative democracy, the different types of initiative institutions are important because they represent an opportunity to influence the political agenda and debate. In this context, some authors have pointed out the role of autonomous civil society associations and organisations in enhancing public deliberation31. 29 Le Groupe de Contact de la Société Civile, http://www.cultureactioneurope.org/lang-fr/advocate/civil-society-contactgroup?e4b73c3745ac4bc374714928e835769b=73e9ab. 30 Theo Schiller, Maija Setala, “Introduction”, in Maija Setala, Theo Schiller (eds.), Citizen’s Initiatives in Europe, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp. 1-2. 31 J. S. Dryzek, Deliberative Democracy and Beyond, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

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Compared to referenda, which “represent a traditional, aggressive view of democracy”, initiatives are considered ways of encouraging the expression of different voices from the civil society. This is why initiatives are considered to be a “democratic innovation” which, in turn, was defined by Graham Smith as a “form of direct democracy” and which is meant “to increase and deepen citizen participation in the political decision-making process”. We must also add the fact that the author dedicated a lot of effort to analysing the concept of democratic innovation, in which he labelled both initiatives and referenda as “direct legislation”32. At national level, the institution of initiative does not conflict with the idea of parliamentary sovereignty and it does not change the distribution of institutional power of representative democracies. This institution is perceived as a “compromise between promoters and opponents of direct democracy” and, for this reason, they are considered to be “a viable option for expanding opportunities for citizen participation”. In Europe, the institution of initiative is relatively widespread33. More recently, the increasing need for new forms of supranational democracy has triggered debates on the possibility of democratic innovations to cure the democratic deficit in international organisations34. This is why the European citizens’ initiative was also introduced amongst the provisions of the Constitutional Treaty and it was later adopted as part of the Lisbon Treaty.

The European citizens’ initiative It is important to present the legislative framework for the European citizens’ initiative. By analysing the legal grounds on which the European citizens’ initiative is founded, we can see that there are three types of legislative provisions that guide its functioning: Treaty provisions, secondary legislation and various other legal acts of the European Commission. Treaty provisions refer, first of all, to the right to citizen’s initiative, which is set out in Article 11 (4) of the Treaty on European Union, thus creating the breeding ground for modern democracy. According to these legal provisions35:

32

Graham Smith, Democratic Innovations. Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 1. 33 Ibidem, pp. 3-4. 34 Ibidem, p. 3. 35 Article 11 (4) of the Treaty on European Union, in Official Journal of the European Union, C83/13, 30.03.2010, p. 9, http://eur-lex.europa.eu.

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The European Citizens’ Initiative “Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties”.

Thus, for the first time, the principle of representative democracy, based on both direct and indirect democracy, will become a political practice at a transnational level. This historic step, which is carefully watched by global observers, raises many questions concerning future provisions (implementation of regulations), opportunities (the attitude of EU institutions and of groups of European citizens) and infrastructure (support and assistance)36. By carefully analysing the provisions of the Treaty on European Union, we can observe that the European citizens’ initiative was introduced in Title II of the Treaty, which concerns: “Dispositions referring to democratic principles”. Therefore, in order to talk about the European citizens’ initiative, we must refer to certain aspects, such as: x The principle of equality of citizens (which means that they enjoy equal attention on the part of institutions, bodies and European agencies); x European citizenship (according to which any person who is a national of a Member State is also a citizen of the Union; European citizenship does not replace national citizenship, but it is complementary to it); x Representative democracy (which means that: 9 European citizens are directly represented at the level of the Union, in the European Parliament; 9 Member States are represented in the European Council by their heads of state or government and in the Council by their ministers, who are accountable either to national parliaments, or directly to citizens; 9 European citizens have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union, where decisions are made “in an open manner and closer to the citizens”; 9 Political parties at the European level contribute to the formation of a European political conscience and to the expression of the will of EU citizens)37.

36

Johannes W. Pichler, Bruno Kaufmann, The European Citizen’s Initiatives: Into New Democratic Territory, Intersentia Uitgevers, N.V., 2010. 37 Art. 10 of the Treaty on European Union.

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x Open dialogue, transparency and legality at the Union level (meaning that: 9 Institutions give citizens and representative associations the opportunity to make known and to publicly change their opinions in all action fields of the Union; 9 Institutions have an open, transparent and legal dialogue with representative associations and the civil society; 9 The European Commission shall carry on consultations in order to ensure the coherence and transparency of the Union’s actions). The European citizens’ initiative implies, according to the provisions of the Treaty on European Union, the right of the citizens of the Union, numbering at least one million, who are resident of a significant number of Member States, to have an initiative according to which they invite the European Commission, within the framework of its powers, to consider an acceptable proposal on issues where citizens deem that the adoption of a legal act is necessary at the Union level, and for the purposes of the Treaties. A few essential aspects must be emphasised: 9 The aforementioned provisions must be correlated with those of Article 24 (1) of TFUE, referring to the procedures and conditions which are necessary for presenting such an initiative; 9 The current provisions do not affect the legislative initiative of the Commission, which is maintained, in an improved form; 9 The European citizens’ initiative must always be addressed to the European Commission - this being the institution which listens to the “voice of the citizens”; 9 The issue which is submitted to the Commission through the European citizens’ initiative must be of general concern and in accordance with the purpose of the Treaties. According to the text of Article 24 (1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union38: “the European Parliament and the Council, acting by means of a regulation in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, shall adopt the provisions for the procedures and conditions required for a citizens’ initiative, within the meaning of Article 11 of the Treaty on European Union, including the minimum number of Member States from which such citizens must come”.

38

Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Official Journal of the European Union, C83/47, 30.03.2010, HTTP://eurlex.europa.eu.

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As it has been shown above, the procedures and conditions for the citizens’ initiative are established by secondary legislation: Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council, of 16 February 2011, on the citizens’ initiative39. There are also other legal acts that refer to the European citizens’ initiative, adding weight to its legislative prominence. It is the case of the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No. 1179/2011 of 17 November 2011, laying down technical specifications for online collection systems pursuant to Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council, of 16 February 2011, on the citizens’ initiative. What is an ECI? According to the provisions of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, three important meanings of the European citizens’ initiative, or ECI, can be outlined. First of all, the ECI is generally presented as a way of reinforcing the citizenship of the Union and of enhancing its democratic functioning. Then, the ECI is presented as being the right of every EU citizen to participate in the democratic life of the European Union, which consists of: “a procedure that affords citizens the possibility of directly approaching the Commission with a request inviting it to submit a proposal for a legal act of the Union, for the purpose of implementing the Treaties”.

This right is similar to the one conferred on the European Parliament, by Article 225 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and on the Council, by article 241 of the TFEU40. Finally, the European Parliament and the Council define the ECI in a more specific manner41, as follows: “an initiative submitted to the Commission in accordance with this Regulation, inviting the Commission, within the framework of its powers to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties, which has received the support of at least one million eligible signatories coming from at least one quarter of all Member States”.

This last definition has the advantage of presenting the main characteristics of the ECI, as follows: x The ECI is an invitation addressed to the European Commission to propose legislation on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of 39

Official Journal of the European Union, L 65/1, 11.03.2011. Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council of 16 February 2011 on the citizens’ initiative, Official Journal of the European Union, L 65/1, 11.03.2011. 41 See Article 2 of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., p. 3. 40

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the Union is necessary for the implementation of the provisions of the Treaty; x The ECI is possible in any field and on any matter where the European Commission has the power to propose legislation (e.g. environment, agriculture, transport, public health etc.) x Any ECI must be supported by at least one million EU citizens (“eligible signatories” is a concept which is defined by the European Parliament and the Council as being those citizens of the Union who have upheld a given ECI by completing a statement of support for that ECI42); x The eligible signatories of the ECI must come from at least one quarter of all Member States (i.e. at least 7 out of the 28 Member States). A minimum number of signatories is required for each of those 7 Member States43 (see Table 2). What are the procedures and conditions required for promoting an ECI? In order to launch an ECI, citizens are required to form a citizens’ committee of at least 7 people, who must be residents of at least 7 different Member States. The members of this committee must be old enough to vote in the European Parliament elections (18 years old, except in Austria where the voting age is 16). We must underline the fact that the Regulation does not demand that citizens be registered to vote; they must just have the proper voting age. The citizens’ committee must designate from among its members two contact persons, one representative and one substitute who will act as liaisons between the committee and the institutions of the European Union44. The ECI cannot be run by organisations, but they can promote and support such initiatives in full transparency. The steps which must be followed by the citizens’ committee in order to have a successful ECI are: registration of the proposed citizens’ initiative; certification of the online collection system; collection of statements of support; certification of statements of support; submission of the ECI to the European Commission.

42

Idem; See also Annex III of the same Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., pp. 12-18. 43 See Article 7 and Annex I of the Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., pp. 6, 10. 44 See Article 3 of the Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., p. 4.

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Table 2-9 - Minimum number of signatories per country45 45 European Commission, Guide to the European Citizens’ Initiative, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2011, p. 21.

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The citizens’ committee is required to register the ECI on the website destined for it (http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/registration) before starting the collection of the statements of support from citizens. At the time of registration, the committee must provide the information set out in Annex II of the Regulation in one of the 24 official languages of the European Union: the title of the initiative, the subject matter, a description of its objectives, its relation with the Treaty provisions, personal details of the seven committee members, all sources of funding and support of the initiative known at the moment of registration which are worth more than 500 euros/year/sponsor, the website of the initiative (optional), any existing annexes of the initiative (optional) and the draft legal act (optional)46. Before the official registration of the ECI, the Commission, within two months, will verify whether: the committee was formed and the contact persons were appointed; the initiative falls within the framework of the Commission’s legislative power; the initiative is manifestly abusive, frivolous or vexatious; the initiative is manifestly contrary to the EU values established in the Treaties. Only after verifying these aspects will the European Commission confirm the registration of the ECI. If the Commission decides to refuse its registration, it will inform the committee about its reasons and about all available judicial and extrajudicial remedies47. The certification of an online collection system must be accomplished if the committee desires to collect statements of support online. Before beginning the collection process, the committee must ask the competent authority, in the Member State where the data will be stored, for the certification of the online collection system which will be used for collecting statements of support for the ECI. The national authority must respond to this request in one month. The certification of the online collection system can be obtained before or after the registration of the ECI with the Commission48. This legal requirement is needed in order to prevent attempts at online fraud in the case of the online collection system. The collection of statements of support is the responsibility of the citizens’ committee. Thus, once the registration is confirmed, the committee has one year to collect signatures. Statements of support can be collected on paper and/or online. In order to achieve this, the committee must use specific forms which comply with the model established by the European Parliament and the Council in Annex III of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011. The statements of support must be in one of the languages included in the register 46

European Commission, op. cit., p. 17; Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., p. 4. 47 Ibidem, p. 18; Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., p. 4. 48 Ibidem, p. 19; Article 6 of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., pp. 5-6.

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of the ECI. Before initiating the collection of statements of support, the committee must complete the forms as indicated in Annex III of the Regulation. The information from the forms must correspond to the one given in the register49. Online statements of support must be electronically signed according to Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and Council of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for electronic signatures50. All EU citizens (nationals of Member States) who are old enough to vote in the European Parliament elections can sign a ECI, by filling in the statement of support from provided by the committee, either on paper or online. Any given ECI can only by supported once by the signatories. At the end of the one-year interval, the register will indicate that the period of signing the statements of support has expired and, where appropriate, that the required number of statements of support has not been collected51. After collecting all necessary statements of support, the committee must submit them, in paper or electronically, to the competent authorities designated by each Member State, so that they may verify and certify the statements of support. The list of such competent national authorities within Member States has been made publically available by the European Commission52. In order to present the statements of support for verification to the competent authorities, the committee must use the form set out in Annex V of the Regulation. The competent authorities must verify the statements of support submitted to them within three months of receiving the request. The verification is made in accordance with national law and practice and is concluded with the issue of a certificate (according to Annex VI of the Regulation) which mentions the number of valid statements of support for the Member State concerned. According to the provisions of the Regulation, the authentication of signatures is not required and the certificate is issued free of charge53. The last step is the one referring to the submission of the ECI to the European Commission and it can be completed after obtaining the certificate of verification from the competent authorities within the Member States and provided that all other steps have been properly followed. The procedure

49

Ibidem, p. 20; Article 5 of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., p. 5. Official Journal L13, 19.01.2000, p. 12. 51 Article 5 of the Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., p. 5. 52 See Articles 8 and 15 of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., pp. 6, 8. 53 Article 8 of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., p. 6. 50

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involves the use of a specific form provided by Annex VII of the Regulation54. After receiving the ECI, the European Commission will examine it and publish it without delay in the register. Then, the Commission’s representatives will meet with the organisers in order to allow them to explain in detail the issues raised in their ECI. Within three months of the receipt of the ECI by the Commission, it will give its organisers the opportunity to present their initiative in a public hearing, hosted by the European Parliament, together with all the other European institutions and bodies that desire to participate. Finally, during this three-month period, the Commission will adopt in the College of Commissioners a formal response (a communication) showing what actions it intends to take, if any, and also the reasons on which its answer based. This communication shall be published in all official EU languages55. We must also point out the fact that the European Commission is not obliged to propose legislation as a consequence of such an ECI, but in the case it does so, it shall submit it to the ordinary legislative procedure: the Commission’s proposal is presented to the European Parliament and the Council or just to the Council, in some cases, and if adopted, it becomes law56. What is the practical implementation of the ECI? The European citizens’ initiative is considered to be “the people’s power tool of the 21st century”, because it is “more direct and more transnational than anything that has ever been experienced at a local, regional, national and European level”57. Still, its democratic functioning has not yet been sufficiently tested. In fact, since 2012, it has been considered that in order for it to function it is necessary to create a pan-European democratic infrastructure which may deal with the counselling of the groups of citizens which desire to have a legislative initiative at European level58. To support the practical implementation of the ECI, on 29 April 2013, the European Commission established a set of guidelines and recommendations which can be used by national authorities and organisers. This set of guidelines and recommendations is centred on the implementation of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011 on the citizens’ initiative and it covers all 54

See Article 9 of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., p. 7. Article 10 of Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011, op. cit., p. 7. 56 http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/basic-facts. 57 Bruno Kaufmann, “Transnational Citizen’s Initiative - How Modern Direct Democracy can make the European Union a Better Place for Minorities”, in Wilfried Marxer (ed.), Direct Democracy and Minorities, Springer, Wiesbaden, 2012, p. 212. 58 Ibidem, pp. 230-244. 55

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different stages of the procedure. Hence, it refers to: the early-warning information exchange systems, registration, certification of online collection systems, data protection, notification procedure, statement of support forms, signatories and verification of the statements of support59. So far, it appears that the first to enjoy the possible benefits of this initiative are national minorities. However, for the EIC to be successful, in the near future, from the viewpoint of all citizens of the European Union, and for the practice of direct democracy furthered through the EIC to give power to citizens and not to submit them, as David Altman stated60, there is a need to follow a few steps61: STEP I – The idea 9 The idea desired to be promoted by citizens must be a solution to a considerable problem which confronts Europe (e.g. traffic in the Alps). 9 In turn, the problem must be pressing for all the citizens who promote the initiative. 9 If the idea being promoted is desired to be an alarm generator and not a solution, then it is less likely to be successful. STEP II – The documentation 9 The initiators must be well documented on all aspects of the problem. 9 This step must be covered because once the initiative is sent, a series of official checks will start. STEP III – The purposes/objectives (which lie at the basis of promoting the ECI) 9 After establishing the idea and after the initiator has become an expert on the problem submitted through the ECI, he must also know what he wants to accomplish through the ECI. 9 The purpose must be determined before launching the initiative. STEP IV – Collecting signatories 9 Gathering at least one million signatories form a minimum of 7 Member States of the European Union in one year (on paper or online). STEP V – The dialogue 9 Or the promotion campaign of the initiative (transnational dialogue). STEP VI – The starting point

59

See the Homepage of the ECI: http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative. David Altman, Direct Democracy Worldwide, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2011, p. 188. 61 Johannes W. Pichler, “The Commission’s Regulation Proposal on the European Citizen’s Initiative”, in Wilfried Marxer (ed.), op. cit., p. 245. 60

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9 Despite meeting the conditions of form and content, the initiative will be subjected to a series of political or technical obstacles. 9 Hence, the future steps of the initiative depend on numerous aspects: º During the analysis of the initiative by the Commission, it must foresee a “win-win” situation (first of all for the Commission, then for the process of Europeanization, and only at the end for the citizens) – according to some; º The Commission must foresee the opportunity for a new channel of mutual understanding, communication and political negotiation with citizens. º The Commission must foresee the opportunity to refer to the CJEU.

Conclusions The main purpose of this paper is to present both theoretical and practical information on the European citizens’ initiative because it is an important step for modern European democracy. This is why the paper is interspersed with legal provisions form European legislation and practical information concerning the number of signatories for each Member State (see Table 2-9), as well as the steps that each European citizen must follow in order to hope for a successful initiative, as presented in the last part of the paper. The Lisbon Treaty provides the legal framework for the implementation of modern European democracy in Member States, while European institutions (especially the European Commission, which is directly concerned with the promotion of the ECI) have created the practical framework for its implementation (the homepage of the ECI, online possibilities of seeking documentation on all steps that must be followed by the citizens who want to make a difference at a European level, adoption of secondary legislation in accordance with the provisions of the Treaties etc.). All that remains to be seen in the future are the results, if any, of such a modern political and legal endeavour as the one introduced by the Lisbon Treaty.

Bibliography Altman, David (2011), Direct Democracy Worldwide, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge. Ancheú, Diana-Ionela (2012), “Tratatul de la Lisabona úi sistemul instituĠional al Uniunii Europene”, in Flore Pop, Oana Albescu (eds.), Tratatul de la Lisabona. De la “metoda comunitară” la noile evoluĠii ale

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guvernanĠei europene. Drept úi Politici ale Uniunii, Cluj-Napoca: CA Publishing. Christiansen, Thomas (2010), “The EU reform process: from the European Constitution to the Lisbon Treaty”, in Maurizion Carbone (ed.), National Politics and European Integration. From the Constitution to the Lisbon Treaty, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. Clapié, Michel (2003), Institutions européennes, Paris: Flammarion. Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, Official Journal of the European Union, C83/13, 30.03.2010, p. 8, [http://eur-lex.europa.eu], 10 July 2013. Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Official Journal of the European Union, C83/47, 30.03.2010, [http://eur-lex.europa.eu], 10 July 2013. Culture Action Europe, p. 1, [http://www.cultureactioneurope.org/lang-fr/advocate/advocacy-andlobbying-at-eu-level?e4b73c3745ac4bc374714928e835769b=73e9ab], 10 July 2013. Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and Council of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for electronic signatures, Official Journal L13, 19.01.2000. Dryzek, J. S. (2000), Deliberative Democracy and Beyond, Oxford: Oxford University Press. European Commission (2011), Guide to the European Citizens’ Initiative, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Hix, Simon (2005), The Political System of the EU, New York: Palgrave. [http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/basic-facts], 10 July 2013. [http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative], 10 July 2013. Jachtenfuchs, Markus (2010), “The institutional framework of the European Union”, in Henrik Enderlein, Sonja Wälti, Michael Zürn (eds.), Handbook on Multi-level Governance, Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing. Kaufmann, Bruno (2012), “Transnational Citizen’s Initiative – How Modern Direct Democracy can make the European Union a Better Place for Minorities”, in Wilfried Marxer (ed.), Direct Democracy and Minorities, Springer. Le Groupe de Contact de la Société Civile, [http://www.cultureactioneurope.org/lang-fr/advocate/civil-societycontact-group?e4b73c3745ac4bc374714928e835769b=73e9ab], 10 July 2013. Lelieveldt, Herman, Princen, Sebastiaan (2011), The Politics of the European Union, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Norris, Pippa (2011), Democratic Deficit, Critical Citizens Revisited, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pantel, M. (2005), “Unity in Diversity: Cultural Policy and EU Legitimacy”, in Thomas Banchoff, M. P. Smith (eds.), Legitimacy and the European Union, London: Routledge. Pichler, Johannes W. (2012), “The Commission’s Regulation Proposal on the European Citizen’s Initiative”, in Wilfried Marxer (ed.), Direct Democracy and Minorities, Springer. Pichler, Johannes W., Kaufmann, Bruno (2010), The European Citizen’s Initiatives: Into New Democratic Territory, Intersentia Uitgevers, N.V. Regulation (EU) No. 211/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council of 16 February 2011 on the citizens’ initiative, Official Journal of the European Union, L 65/1, 11.03.2011. Renout, H. (2006), Institutions européennes, Orléans: Paradigme. Sauron, Jean-Luc (2008), Comprendre le Traité de Lisbonne. Texte consolidé intégral des traités. Explications et commentaires, Paris: Gualino éditeur. Schiller, Theo, Setala, Maija (2012), “Introduction”, in Maija Setala, Theo Schiller (eds.), Citizen’s Initiatives in Europe, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Smith, Graham (2009), Democratic Innovations. Designing Institutions for Citizen Participation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zăpâr‫܊‬an, Liviu-Petru (2011), Reflecаii despre Europa Unită, Cluj-Napoca: Eikon. —. (2007), “Le déficit démocratique dans l’Union européenne”, in Societate úi Politică, Arad: Vasile Goldiú Univ. Press, 2.

A PHILOSOPHICAL AND POLITICAL TREATMENT OF THE BLOCKING EFFECTS OF DEMOCRACY VIORELLA MANOLACHE

Abstract This study will identify and diagnose the ambiguities (and perhaps to a lesser extent the crises) of the contemporary European space, while proposing a reassessment of the debate (with a clear politico-philosophical focus) on the topic of Europe and Democracy. This will enable us to make sense of any possible treatments/infusions proposed as alternatives to some of the blocking effects of the contemporary world. The study revisits some personal interventions, studies and research projects and analyses them (in a new/original formula) in a series of subchapters whose key ideas are: The blocking effects of democracy; Politico-philosophical reactions to the blocking effects of democracy; A possible conjoined treatment: immunology and/or political kinetics; Strategies/treatments: Europe 2020 or the scenario of a republican government of the European Union.

The blocking effects of democracy In the reactive (and sufficiently controversial) context of the realities of the contemporary crisis, and as a means of positioning ourselves, in terms of political philosophy and/or economic history, within the Brownian motion of objective revolution, we can speak of a “territorialising” irrigation of a particular aridity that is deemed to be a constituent part of capitalism. In light of this, the present study will seek to identify and diagnose the ambiguities (and to a lesser extent the crises) of the contemporary European space, while proposing a reassessment of the debate (with a clear politico-philosophical focus) on the thorny issue of Europe and Democracy. This will enable us to make sense of any possible treatments/infusions proposed as alternatives to some of the blocking effects of the contemporary world. This gives rise to a

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symptomatology of the hesitant marshes of the European “quagmire”, to the detriment of the crisis as a chronic(ising) and tensing effect, affording democracy a mere structurally ambiguous framework – a moving concept placed by its critics between “a form of government” and/or “a form of social life”, and in any case not opposed to revolution in the sense of Badiou, but itself a revolutionary possibility of politics. In the opinion of J. Rancière,1 democracy implies the de-statalisation of politics, the negation of any extra-political, “allogeneic” (in the political sense with regard to the polis) “title”, the delegitimation of the right not only to exercise power, but also to participate in the game/struggle for power based on a reorientation towards the re-politicisation and unblocking of access to the “objective”/controlled (formalised, dissipated, technologised and de-concretised) revolution by weakening any recurrence of adherence to the dynamics of revolution; more precisely, we are referring to the dedemocratisation, anti-liberalisation, limitation and control/censorship of access to the common revolution. Given the different schools of thought with a direct interest in rediscussing the “possibilities” of democracy, the North American standpoint reintroduced by epistocrats has declared the European project to be a failing project of partial economic decline and with an inherent potential for “renationalisation” of the political landscape, as a direct consequence of rotation, more precisely of the “change of generations”2. The expression of “blocked liberalism” broadly covers the limitations of the effects of democracy, including excesses in its exercise based on circumscription within a new form(ula) of liberalism. We are dealing with a germinated model oriented against the universalism of the “Franco-Kantian lights”, in a context of maintaining the evidence according to which existing democracies can be (re)interpreted as blocking democracies. The symptomatology of the “European decline”, developed in the laboratories of the epistocrats, provides evidence of a multitude of nations dispersed in a Brownian fashion and devoid of geopolitical influence. This is set against the background of advancing “right-wing populism” and it is based on a renewed type of hostility towards immigrants, with the unconditional reflexes of a fragmented and hermetic(ising) Europe in which “the European political scene” tends to become increasingly less European and increasingly more national. This explains the reaction of the Obama Administration,3 according to which “the demilitarisation of Europe – in 1

Jacques Rancière, Ura împotriva democraаiei, Cluj: Idea Design& Print, 2012. David Estlund, Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. 3 Robert Gates, US Defense Secretary at NATO meeting in February 2011. 2

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which large swathes of the general public and political class are averse to the use of military force and the risks that go with it – has gone from being a blessing during the 20th century to representing an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st.” In his critique of democracy, Jaques Rancière4 warns of the obvious traps inherent in the endeavour of regaining the right to power and the right to politics of the trans-historical elites, with the consequence that present-day democracies take the form of “oligarchic states of law”. A “Democratic authority” of an instrumental-procedural type implies that the essence of democracy is mechanical, “technical” in nature5. This leads to a possible “epistemic procedural” solution in which we move away from neoliberalism and head for deliberativism, a technical means of taking a stand, through political augmentation, on the blocking effects of democracy to which we have referred. This scenario has already been explored in the area of political philosophy, beginning with Theory and Practice (1971) and culminating in the Legitimation Crisis (1973), by philosopher Jürgen Habermas,6 who distinguished two means of approaching political issues: the technical and the practical. Habermas places the technical approach to politics in opposition to practice, based on the premise that “practical issues cannot be solved except by consensus achieved through communication”. Through a reference to the creation of the moral stages from the perspective of developmental logic, Habermas examines the manifestation of the ontogenesis of a decentred understanding of the world, structurally founded in action oriented towards reaching understanding. In fact, in terms of the social world, the devaluation of existing institutions requires the social-cognitive transformation of the conventional stage into moral concepts. That said, in this analytical context, the social perspectives correlated with different types of interaction serve to justify the corresponding forms of moral consciousness as stages. Relating the legitimation and democratic authority of “proceduralism” to Habermas’ moral stages, Rancière regards this as a decisive-epistemic point with implications for the broader (non)neutral social debate through universal democratic expertise and under the imperative that, if democracy is to be

4

Jacques Rancière, Ura împotriva democraаiei, Cluj: Idea Design & Print, 2012. David Estlund, Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. 6 Jürgen Habermas, ConútiinĠă morală úi acĠiune comunicativă, Bucharest: Substan‫܊‬ial All, 2000. 5

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truly radical – in the Athenian sense7 – then it must rely on the formula of “technical self-invention”. The idea of a technical-procedural “re-founding” of democracy, in fact, fuels an entire set of alternatives, either in terms of the “accounts” of the mechanically-hybridising marriage of left and right in a trans-ideological consensus, or of the “radical reinjection” of the revolutionary subject with an added dose of substantive meaning. In reference to the overlap of scientific knowledge and technology, J. Fr. Lyotard8 warns of the operationality determined by the translation of knowledge into/through amounts of information as new channels accessible to producers/consumers of mechanised production, subject to the laws of the market. This explains the control reassigned to those who invest in the production of information technology, with a shift away from the state and towards production communities/enterprises/civil society. According to Lyotard, the computerisation of society becomes a strategy for the legitimation of postmodern knowledge, resulting in a transfer of power, apparently through competition, albeit expressed by means of a plurality of language games, fuelled by the agonistics of linguistic innovation and the pressure of sociability given free rein. The computerised society appears to avoid the limits imposed by institutions in terms of formally establishing the potential for language moves, chiefly through provisional results and from outside the institution, thus maintaining the legitimising conflict between narrative knowledge and scientific knowledge. Using the rule of versus, if scientific knowledge is based on the singling out of a language game, the denotative, the exclusion of all other alternatives with emphasis on obligatory competence – a memory and a project – resonating with specific, accidentally common moves, then it cannot be legitimated as authentic without resorting to narrative knowledge. Expressed in terms of the deligitimation of knowledge, with implications for the means of action, the crisis of scientific knowledge resides in internal erosion and in random proliferation, with the effect of a weakening/erosion of encyclopaedism and the unchaining of the speculative game, with the injection of individualism into the technological realm, with a dissolution of the social subject within the structure of its own language. This gives rise to the possible alternative offered, that of endogenous, procedural “technicalisation”, achieved by means of a de-ideologisation/ strategic reduction to the status of technical “trickery”. 7

Yves Sintomer, Petite histoire de l'expérimentation démocratique. Tirage au sort et politique d'Athènes à nos jours, Paris: La Découverte, 2011. 8 Jean-François Lyotard, Condiаia postmodernă, Cluj: Idea Design, 2003.

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Politico-philosophical reactions to the blocking effects of democracy In warning, almost prophetically, that we are witnessing the collision of functional and systematic imperatives in the context of removing the European project from the monopoly of the elite, Jürgen Habermas’ contributions in the European press (in the period 2011-2012, as compiled by presseurop.eu) show how the essence of democracy has changed under the “pressure of the crisis” and the frenzy of the market or the strategic departure from European ideals. Habermas is clearly an advocate of the old and ordered democracy, guided by the rationality of people and the public opinion. This view is endowed with a well-controlled political effect, both on correcting the departure from the model and on the creation of a project for civilisation in which the global community is in charge of reconciling democracy and capitalism. Habermas notes that the process of expansion, integration and democratisation does not come naturally, but is rather reversible, leading to a decline of democracy and a drifting into a constitutional grey area.9 This also explains the emerging signs rendered visible by the marriage of German economic liberalism and French etatism as symbols of postdemocracy, expressed either in terms of the “odd”, “suspended position” of the European Commission (a possible political-economic “quagmire”) or the anomalies reinforced by the Lisbon Treaty, the result of which being the promotion of a governmental body that engages in politics without being authorised to do so. Habermas categorically states that: “if the European project fails, then there is the question of how long it will take to reach the status quo again. Remember the German Revolution of 1848. When it failed, it took us 100 years to regain the same level of democracy as before.”

Denouncing the absence in the existing treaties of the principle of consolidated cooperation in the field of budgetary law (despite the risk of intervention by a common economic government and national parliaments), the blocking effect of democracy is triggered by the transformation of the European project (namely Old Europe) into its opposite: a supranational community, democratically legalised and changed into an arrangement that results in post-democratic domination. Habermas’ alternative consists of the insistent continuation of the democratic legalisation of the EU by renouncing a (hesitantly German) inflated formula such as More Europe. 9

Jürgen Habermas, Zur Verfassung Europas - Ein Essay, Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2011.

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Oscillating between a permanent definition of democracy in terms of ambiguity, stasis and crisis, Habermas believes that a sustained political fragmentation in a globalised (European) world stands in contradiction to the systemic growth of a multi-cultural society, ultimately blocking the progress of judicial (constitutional) civilisation and weakening the relation between state and social powers. The blocking effects (in terms of the European economic crisis) are felt both in terms of the disguise of political systems as “governed partycracies” and the markets that are transformed into autonomous spheres of power – the result being a weakening of the power’s ability to resist and of the quality of emerging democracies. Given the failure to (re)invent the democratic ideal, notwithstanding all the evidence of a reconsideration “from the outside” of representative democracy (faced with the impossibility to free up the channels of representation and to efficiently regulate markets in the general interest), the prognoses pertaining to the European space warn that from Athens to Wall Street, the ideal of democracy is struggling to survive.10 By deconstructing the effects of a possible economic (technocratic) government of member states, a current opinion originating from the sphere of political philosophy associates economic effects with political ones, suggesting that the scenarios of a technocratic future do not hold their ground in comparison to the possibility of giving up the euro and plunging into a state of prolonged financial chaos at a global level. In other words, we are presented with the mirage of a “divided Euro zone”, resulting in the confirmation of the gulfs between (economic and financially) powerful states and (financially weak) anaemic ones. A possible solution would be to resuscitate the original project of a political, free and united Europe, by refilling the “gaps” with the functional fluid of deliberative democracy, an endeavour which, in essence, reflects the instincts of a federal Europe to rejoin its original course. Based on the conceptualisation of a crisis of sovereignty, the “federal Europe” project (re)launches the assumption that the “right of the peoples” is meant to be founded on and guaranteed by the federalism of the free states. The federal state of European states is the only “legal state” compatible with the quest for liberty, as the coexistence of politics and morality is only possible in this kind of federal union. This led I. Kant to reject the wellknown theory of the “world republic”, basing his argument on a thorough understanding of the internal dynamics of republics, a process directly related to the promotion of the state of liberty. 10

José Ignacio Torreblanca, “El embudo democratico” in El Pais, 7 October 2011.

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Acknowledging the procedural type of approach (i.e. non-substantial and non-organic!) with regard to the “governance of democratic societies” and the encouragement of a dialogue on the political subjects which turn discussion into an instrument of civic co-participation, for Habermas11 the “legitimacy of procedural deliberative democracies” is closely related to the “collective deliberation” that precedes it. In this case, legitimacy precedes legality, loosening the knots surrounding “individual liberty” (a dual concept understood by Isaiah Berlin in both a negative and a positive sense), something which ultimately confirms the citizens’ right to “equal participation” in the process of forming public opinion and/or creating “equality” of opportunity. According to Habermas, the model of “discursive democracy”12 defines the deliberative model as a rejection of the “republican idea” based on the legitimacy of “democratic norms” (a model which implies the ethical ideal of a relatively homogeneous community capable of self-governance). In light of what Rawls calls “the fact of pluralism”, the supporters of deliberative democracy invoke the moral theory as the fundamental right to “normative validity” and the decisions made subsequent to a process of “democratic deliberation”. Occupying an equidistant position between mass communication and democracy, the public space thus becomes an area of mediation between civil society and state – the interstice in which public opinion, as the legitimation of public norms, rational public authority and the critique of power, is formed and expressed. “Come together as a public, the citizens’ debate freely with the guarantee of being able to gather and assemble freely, to freely express and make public their opinion on matters of general interest. A political consciousness has developed within this public sphere, one that demands of the power the legal regulations necessary for the functioning of economic and social relations, by drafting general laws, and which also acts as a public opinion and the only legitimate source of these laws.”13

11

Jürgen Habermas, “Citizenship and National Identity. Some Reflections on the Future of Europe”, in Ronald Beiner (ed.): Theorizing Citizenship, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. 12 Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought), Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1999. 13 Jürgen Habermas, Sfera publică úi transformarea ei structurală, Studiul unei categorii a societăĠii burgheze, Bucharest: Univers, 1998, pp. 23-31.

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Social antagonisms are, however, those which impede public opinion in its intention to express (rationally condense) the general interest. The public space is thus torn asunder by private interests and pressure groups, by the “massification” of society, with the result of relativising the public-private relationship and generating the crisis of public space. It should nonetheless be borne in mind that: “in a future Federal Republic of European States, the same legal principles would also have to be interpreted from the vantage point of different national traditions and histories. One’s own national tradition will, in each case, have to be appropriated in such a manner that it is related to and relativised by the vantage points of the other national cultures. It must be connected with the overlapping consensus of a common, supranational shared political culture of the European Community. Particular anchoring of this sort would in no way impair the universalist meaning of popular sovereignty and human rights.”14

The traditional “republican idea” of the conscious political integration of a community (of free and equal individuals) appears to be an exhausted notion, given the present-day situation in which the nation/community, which is homogeneous from an ethnic point of view, can be characterised in terms of common traditions and history. At the intersection between Habermas and John Rawls, Percy B. Lehning proposes, in a “contractarian” manner, a federal solution in which different national identities are interconnected by a common political culture, characterised by an “overlapping consensus”, meant to avoid falling back into an unstable modus vivendi with respect to the alternative solutions of federalism. This Habermas-inspired constitutional patriotism, encountered at federal level, provides, in Lehning’s opinion, the basis for a shared community citizenship, by overcoming rivalries founded on national belonging. While for Marcel Gauchet and Paul Thibaud15, the attempts to resuscitate and recreate a new European model can be traced back to the Treaty of Rome (1957), for R. Aron16, the mistake of the “founding fathers” was to have ignored (sufficiently willingly) the distinctions of Hegelian dialectics pertaining to the “members of civil society” and “citizens”. For Gauchet, however, European universalism remains polycentric precisely on account of the attributes on which the European project is based: non-exclusivity and 14 Percy B. Lehning, Pluralism, Contractarianism and European Union, in B. Lehning, A. Weale (eds.): Citizenship, Democracy and Justice in the New Europe, London, New York: Routledge, 1997. 15 Paul Thibaud, “De l’échec au projet”, Le Débat, 140, 2006, p. 17. 16 R. Aron, “Is Multinational Citizenship Possible”, Social Research, 4, 1974.

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renewed openness, as well as de-materialisation in favour of the elitist nature of the proposed model. In this sense, the focus on the concepts of “individual universalism” and “similarity of passions” has undermined every attempt to define a new federal union within a specific territory. Such an “implacable level” appears to have been decisive in establishing the process of enlarging Europeanness towards the East and accepting possible “negotiations” with Turkey. In terms of political philosophy, these events demonstrate the transparency of the tendency towards the dissolution of already constituted political bodies. It should be noted, however, that the “European project” needs to be separated from lamentations amid the demise of the supremacy of politics, in order to (re)anchor it and realign it to the principles of Kantian cosmopolitanism. This “ubiquist perspective”, which Habermas17 calls a “cosmopolitan turn”, envisages a respect for the process, by taking into account citizens’ rights and not by creating a “global state” as a principle of civilising regulation. By comparing the French version of the cosmopolitan paradigm to Habermas’ “political activism”, we find that the idea of an “enlarged nation” (inspired by the principles of 1789) remains an integral part of the European process while still being a debatable construct given the failure of French thinkers to identify the very political dimension of the “problems” specific to European states. Naturally, these issues may give rise to confrontation between national cultures (in their plural form!), which may necessitate the recourse to topoi from the sphere of shared political culture which are accepted as a basic principle among European Community partners. The European model, as we know it, appears to be based on the “consensus” born out of confrontation, public deliberation and the “horizontal” political integration achieved through transnational rights and confirmed by the sharing of national sovereignty. Despite the absence of a single public sphere and a single “demos”, Europe paradoxically appears to possess the political means for achieving a “single deliberative polity” with multiple demoi.18 From this perspective, “polyculturalism” reflects a version of cultural pluralism that coexists with the re(invention) by the European Union of a minimal set of political values. 17

J. Habermas, “Citoyenneté et identité nationale. Réflexion sur l'avenir de l'Europe”, in J. Lenoble and N. Dewandre: L'Europe au soir du siècle. Identité et démocratie, Paris: Esprit, 1992, p. 22. 18 Kostas A. Lavdas, A European Republican in a Polycultural Setting: Authority and Diversity in Europe's Emerging Polity, Cyprus Centre of European and International Affairs, 2007.

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The (re)discovery of civic Europe institutionalises the dynamic change away from the diplomatic space and towards the domestic space, away from politics and towards policies, and away from democracies and towards democracy. For Bellamy and Castiglione19 democratic liberalism bears the traces of pre-liberal constitutionalism, which associates the constitution with the forms of government of the polity and the social composition. This equilibrium of political groups aims to disperse power and to encourage the process of control and deliberation of political conflicts. Based on an interpretation of neo-Roman origin, the European Union becomes a mixed commonwealth in which the subjects of the constitution are not homogeneous, but rather allogenous/political agents – a “mixture” that is possible in a system unified through authority and representation and prone to control all the functions of government. Thus, the particular texture of the European Union can also be (re)viewed from the “deconstructivist” perspective of international relations; in other words, this is an attempt to go beyond the “explanation of variables” within a fixed structure (in politics and policies) and to revive the impact of inter subjectivity on the social context of the process of European integration.20 From the perspective of this change, we are confronted with the transformative impact of normative and instrumental integration, given that the principles of “political deconstructivism” also transmute “norms” from the social to the legal domain, by examining aspects of European constitutionalism and corresponding citizen practices. Ulrich Beck21, in fact, identifies real opportunities within the blocking effects of democracy through the initiation of the “Europeanisation of Europe” from below, through diversity and self-determination. This confirms it as a European civil and civic society organically prone to establish a constitutional convention that confers democratic legitimation to “another Europe” (The European Community of Democracies) as a form of emerging democratic and socially cosmopolitan empowerment.

19

R. Bellamy and D. Castiglione, “Building the Union: The Nature of Sovereignty in the Political Architecture of Europe”, Law and Philosophy, 16, 4, 1997. 20 T. Christiansen, K. E. Jørgensen and A. Weiner, “The Social Construction of Europe”, Journal of European Public Policy, 6, 4, 1999. 21 Ulrich Beck, ”Europe’s crisis is an opportunity for democracy”, The Guardian, 28 November 2011.

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A possible conjoined treatment: immunology and/or political kinetics Using re-assimilated political nervation as a means to treat the affective infrastructure which, far from facilitating the self-gratification extracted from democratic rights, ostentatiously displays the signs of psycho politics, we can offer as a possible treatment for the blocking effects of democracy the concept of psycho politics, i.e. the ecology/economy of energy/affects expressed at a collective level; or, a therapy with the stated aim of achieving not the depoliticisation of the individual, but rather his/her de-neurotisation, as a form of politics after politics. This effect can easily be recognised in the political-philosophical interpretation of resentment, resulting in a therapeutic strategy anchored in the public sphere, a formula through which reason assimilates (by means of annexation) the de-territorialisation tendencies of capitalism, drawn towards the schizoid-revolutionary pole of events and/or personal reflections. In fact, from the standpoint of political immunology (in this case critical theory and positive notion), political philosophy delivers a psychotropic treatment as a means of substituting theodicy for egodicy. When referring to the subject of “autoimmunity”, Jaques Derrida believed that the “lexicon of immunity” as an immuniser reaction developed its authority in the (bio)logical field, resulting in the production of “antibodies” against foreign antigens. This is in fact the means by which living organisms protect themselves, by resorting to the positive virtues of “immune-depressants”, whose purpose is to limit the mechanisms of rejection and to facilitate tolerance of certain organ transplants expressed through the general logic of “autoimmunisation”.22 In the field of political philosophy, Jacques Derrida urges either an acceptance of the positive and welcome role of the “state” form (the sovereignty of the nation state) and, implicitly, of democratic citizenship as a means of protection against international violence, or the annihilation of the negative or restrictive effects of a state whose sovereignty remains a theological legacy, one that controls its own borders (closed to “noncitizens”) and has a monopoly over violence. This is because the state is both self-protective and self-destructive: antidote and poison. The pharmakon in this case is synonymous with the logic of auto-immunity.

22

J. Derrida, DeconstrucĠia politicii, Cluj: Idea Design & Print, 2005.

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For Sloterdijk23, democratic psycho politics are based on rituals/applications of “anti-misanthropic” procedures – a pretext for disguising, in a Platonic fashion, the morphological sign as a cosmological one. The immunological theory of the world views the “changes of episteme” as “multi-behavioural systems” laden with tension/pressure and with a direct impact on the connection of isolated points. A combination of the apparently opposing strategies of naturalisation and socialisation could provide the solution for what can be called a lack of space, a malady Sloterdijk explains through the fact that the global becomes inaccessible on account of the movement from one place to the next through narrow corridors without ever going outside. Translating the premises of the democratic community into Kantian terms as a by-product of citizens exercising their powers of judgement, spatial conditions envision the power of waiting as a model of democracy for building waiting rooms. This model is rooted in the first two decades of the 20th century as a reaction of the expanding collective, a new type of politics of “trans-human symbiosis”.24 Viewing political kinetics as a decisive mechanism of the modern spiral of mobilisation oriented towards plus mobility, Sloterdijk25 believes the categorial phenomenon of novelty – mobility in general – not only implies a third industrial revolution, but also modern politics, with arms races, mass movements and top-down initiatives. Plus mobility would imply the installation of processual units working towards their continuous acceleration through the desensitising automation/elimination of context and/or the progressive abolition of distances/imponderables, reinforced by the appropriation of what is foreign (logistics). These formulas of execution are equivocal to the extent that they enforce a decoupling of the process of acceleration, fuelling from within the critical aspect of the theory. Retaining the working context favourable to the study of mobility/the practice of just mobilisation, Sloterdijk proposes the principles of political kinetics as a trans-facultative and post-graduate research topic, a barometer of change within the New Social Movements, a centre of alternative culture or a new para-academic structure, i.e. a means of studying and treating demobilising effects. 23

Peter Sloterdijk, “Atmospheric Politics”, in Bruno Latour, Peter Weibel (eds.): Making Things Public. Atmospheres of Democracy, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005, p. 947. 24 Idem, “Atmospheric Politics”, in Bruno Latour, Peter Weibel (eds.): Making Things Public. Atmospheres of Democracy, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005. 25 Idem, Eurotaoism. ContribuĠii la o critică a cineticii politice, Cluj: Idea Design & Print, 2004.

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Resorting to secondary passivity, kinetic criticism demonstrates the existence of a growing organic body of automobile masses compared with the tendential decrease in the advantages of mobility, with special emphasis on the opportunity afforded by the crisis for an evolutionary revocation of the failed forays of mobilisation. On account of the transfer from modernity of the hetero mobile effect, the more extreme examples serve either to highlight relative immobilisation or to discuss the intensification of mobilisation through interaction. This leads to the kinetic reactions of a two/multi-speed Europe, or to what José Ignacio Torreblanca has described as a combination of the effect of the centrifugal force capable of splitting the EU into many pieces from outside and that of the centripetal force that threatens to split it from inside.26

Strategies/treatments: Europe 2020 Considering the effects of techno structural pressure on the modification of the “material constitution” (i.e. the reestablishment of the balance of power between society and state, between economics and politics) resulting from a “preventive political strategy” and leading to the acceptance of a “revolution from above”, Jürgen Habermas provides a solution for a possible “reinforcement of European integration”. This, in fact, involves a triple “redemocratisation”: a process based on the rehabilitation of politics to the detriment of finance, while placing control of central decisions in the hands of a reinforced parliamentary body, a return to the goal of solidarity and a reduction of the inequalities between European countries. In fact, the French model is based precisely on the subordination of “sovereign” peoples to one or more supranational structure, to the benefit of the politics of neoliberals and its strategies of “accumulation through dispossession”.27 Dedicated to overcoming the blocking constraints of the crisis through a joint effort at community level, and by endowing the EU with the smart, sustainable and inclusive attributes of a new (different) economy, the “Europe 2020 Strategy”28 aims to achieve a high-level of employment and revive productivity and economic, social and territorial cohesion through a three-pronged approach: the development of an economy based on knowledge and innovation, the promotion of a greener and more competitive 26

José Ignacio Torreblanca, “La Doctrina Zero”, El País, 25 February 2011. Etienne Balibar, “Union européenne: la révolution par en haut?”, Libération, 21 November 2011. 28 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:2020: FIN:RO:PDF, consulted on 1 March 2013. 27

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economy that uses resources more efficiently, and the fostering of a highemployment economy that generates social and territorial cohesion. The strategy introduces the new concept of flexicurity, the instrument which is best able to respond to the challenges pertaining to the need for new skills in employment and with regard to labour mobility, leading to a better correlation between supply and demand on the labour market, as well as ensuring the required acquisition of recognised competences. The recommended unblocking solutions involve specific national targets and lines of action aiming to achieve strong leadership, a firm political commitment and an efficient mechanism of implementation by means of seven flagship initiatives: innovation, education, digital society, climate change and energy, competitiveness, employment and the development of new skills, and the fight against poverty. From a political viewpoint, the consolidation of community policies, legislative acts and key instruments in terms of the internal market, industrial policy and the EU’s external economic agenda involves both a credible strategy for exiting the crisis and a more accurate country reporting mechanism/thematic approach by simultaneously focusing on the components of structural reform, macro stability and public finance. The actors involved in implementing the strategy will assume different roles: the European Council will have full responsibility and will be the focal point of the new strategy; the European Commission will monitor progress in achieving goals and will facilitate policy exchange; the European Parliament, as co-legislator, will play a key role in mobilising citizens; the interested parties, civil society (the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions), national parliaments, local and regional institutions, and social partners will be involved in the process of devising and implementing the new strategy. From a political point of view, the results envisage stronger governance and an unblocking European architecture based on thematic approaches and a more focused country surveillance mechanism, while relying on the strength of already existing coordination instruments based on the thematic approach of the flagship initiatives, requiring action at both EU level and that of member states. All these forecasts and analyses aim to translate the European political philosophical endeavour of rearranging the community fabric into a framework free of the rigid and often blocking form(ula)s of late modernity.

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In lieu of conclusions: the scenario of a republican government of the European Union (Re)activating European republicanism betrays the constant preoccupation with the political achievement of a “balance of government” and “nondominated” choice – imperatives which, in fact, define the major differences between liberalism and the traditional position of republicanism in which, despite there being no theory of natural rights, such rights are supported historically and made possible through laws and customs. The scenario of a republican government of the European Union is based on a normative-qualitative arrangement of the construction of civic space, in which citizens share the associational sense of a “communicational sphere” and regard “good governance” as tangible participation in public spheres. The republican ideas of liberty and mixed government become the central imperatives in the process of solving the problems related to the construction of European politics. In the absence of any real engagement on the part of the European civic demos (based on the acceptance of the de facto existence of an economic and functional demos), republicanism clarifies the issue of participation as a policy originating in the cultural-emotional dimension of citizenship, as a pre-existing affinity and confirmation of belonging. While, dwelling on a definition of the third concept of freedom in terms of non-domination, Pettit recognises the pluralism of cultural possibilities based on a minimum set of shared values, Eriksen,29 in justification of European civicism, notes that Europe needs to decouple the notions of “citizenship” and “nationhood” from the “main grid” of deliberative democracy, in order to (re)integrate them into a “system designed for accommodating difference”. In the case of European political constitutionalism, recent literature30 accepts a republicanism perspective reinforced by the need to articulate the concept of res publica as a community of equal citizens whose multiple interactions are meant to support a particular normative basis for public deliberation and active citizenship.

29 E. O. Eriksen and J. E. Fossum, Democracy in the European Union, London: Routledge, 2000. 30 B. Brugger, Republican Theory in Political Thought: Virtuous or Virtual (London: Macmillan, 1999); M. Ignatieff, “Republicanism, Ethnicity and Nationalism” in C. McKinnon and I. Hampsher-Monk (eds.): The Demands of Citizenship (Continuum: London, 2000); D. N. Chryssochoou, “Europe in the Republican Imagination”, Constitutionalism Web-Papers, ConWeb no.3, 2002 etc.

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The key concept of the model resides in the republican idea of civic competence – the institutional capacity of citizens to become actively involved in government policies. As a matter of fact, the European republican idea is reduced to the sui generis collection of constituent norms, principles and procedures that solely define the political life of the European Union. In the opinion of theoreticians of the European construct, political constitutionalism represents a hybrid system of rules, a way in which a composite citizen body relates to political practices/institutional processes within a constitutional order. The essential function of political constitutionalism resides precisely in the harmonisation of civic freedom with the collective reactions from within an extended public sphere. The theme of republicanism has recently undergone a revival in the field of political philosophy, but has not gone beyond the status of buzzword, albeit the use of this term in academic works confers an added note of relevance and respectability.31 Considered a radical proposal, the idea of bringing the European Union closer to a genuine res publica would involve the introduction of the principle of jus soli, thus implying a democratic criterion for the distribution of citizenship and civic inclusion. A concept such as citizining implies a process of civic involvement with a view to creating a polycentric public sphere with a populus liber driven by charitas civicum – civic competence and the right to possess rights. The practical issue of a functional general system, facilitated by the endemic scenario of a continental balance of power, of European equilibrium, in fact demonstrates that there is no real and necessary connection between the idea of balance of power and that of European integration. According to D. N. Chryssochoou,32 while recent European reforms have failed to correct the democratic deficit, thus contributing to the consolidation of a European regulatory system, European citizens have been unable to give meaning to “civic commitment” and find the independent sources of a political “input” oriented towards the legitimating of free public deliberation. Moreover, all aspects of republican citizenship (cultivated through republican education as an independent moral capacity) could only confer a real sense to civicism through the (re)balancing of a response to the

31 B. Brugger (Republican Theory in Political Thought: Virtuous or Virtual, London: Macmillan, 1999) notes with some surprise that although at the time of writing 2,510 years had passed since the foundation of the Roman Republic, this event was ignored in Europe (p.5). 32 D.N. Chryssochoou, Theorizing European Integration, London: Sage, 2001.

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perception of the “European project” as a community united by a common purpose and by a thorough understanding of the concept of freedom. In this political-semantic dilation, res publica is based on the efforts of citizens capable of reaching a decision through deliberation, for the promotion of the public good (going beyond electoral policies), by means of civic associations founded on the practices of virtue, freedom and reconciliation of diverging points of view. Therefore, while Europe has (still!) not reached its maximum potential for “political order”, Europeanism attempts to develop an internal heterogeneity based on a form of externalised liberalism. This (apparently) functional nature at European level is capable of (re)confirming the republican principles according to which the European Union is a “political community” defined by the (pre)conditions of “civic polyculturalism”.

Bibliography Aron, R. (1974), “Is Multinational Citizenship Possible”, in Social Research, 4, pp. 638- 656. Balibar, Etienne (2011), “Union européenne: la révolution par en haut?”, in Libération, 21 November. Beck, Ulrich (2011), “Europe’s crisis is an opportunity for democracy”, in The Guardian, 28 November. Bellamy R. and Castiglione, D. (1997), “Building the Union: The Nature of Sovereignty in the Political Architecture of Europe”, in Law and Philosophy, 16, 4, pp. 421-445. Blockmans, Steven, (2008), The European Union, Cambridge: T.M.C. Asser Press. Brugger, B. (1999), Republican Theory in Political Thought: Virtuous or Virtual, London: Macmillan. Christiansen, T., Jørgensen, K. E., Weiner, A. (1999), “The Social Construction of Europe”, in Journal of European Public Policy, 6, 4, pp. 528-544. Chryssochoou, D.N. (2001), Theorizing European Integration, London: Sage. Derrida, J. (2005), DeconstrucĠia politicii, Cluj: Idea Design & Print. Eriksen, E. O., Fossum, J. E. (2000), Democracy in the European Union, London: Routledge. Estlund, David (2009), Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework, Princeton: Princeton University Press. General Report on the Activities of the European Union, Directorate-General for Communication and European Commission, 26 March 2011.

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Habermas, Jürgen (1992), “Citoyenneté et identité nationale. Réflexion sur l'avenir de l'Europe”, in Lenoble, J., Dewandre, N.: L'Europe au soir du siècle. Identité et démocratie, Paris: Esprit. —. (1995), “Citizenship and National Identity. Some Reflections on the Future of Europe”, in Beiner, Ronald (ed.): Theorizing Citizenship, Albany: State University of New York Press. —. (1998), Sfera publică úi transformarea ei structurală, Studiul unei categorii a societăĠii burgheze, Bucharest: Editura Univers. —. (1999), Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought), Cambridge, Massachusetts: the MIT Press. —. (2000), ConútiinĠă morală úi acĠiune comunicativă, Bucharest: Substan‫܊‬ial All. —. (2011), Zur Verfassung Europas - Ein Essay, Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag. Hayward, Jack (1996), The Crisis of Representation in Europe, London: Routledge. Lavdas, Kostas A. (2007), A European Republican in a Polycultural Setting: Authority and Diversity in Europe's Emerging Polity, Cyprus Centre of European and International Affairs, 4 November. Lehning, Percy B. (1997), Pluralism, Contractarianism and European Union, in Lehning, B., Weale, A. (eds.): Citizenship, Democracy and Justice in the New Europe, London, New York: Routledge. Lyotard, Jean-François (2003), Condiаia postmodernă, Cluj: Idea Design. Manolache, Viorella (2012), “A Possible (Re)Active Model: The Republic between the Primate of Modelling and the Crisis”, in Romanian Review of Political Science and International Relations, vol. IX, no.1, pp. 114-129. —. (2012), “Un proiect filosofico-politic incomplet: ‘Res Publica’ mixtã”, in Revista de ùtiinĠe Politice úi RelaĠii InternaĠionale, IX, no. 2, pp. 56-64. —. (2013), “Peter Sloterdijk ‫܈‬i arhitectura psiho-politicii”, in Revista de Эtiinаe Politice Юi Relaаii Interna‫܊‬ionale, vol. X, no.1, pp. 49-58. Rancière, Jacques (2012), Ura împotriva democraаiei, Cluj: Editura Idea Design & Print. Ross, George (2011), The European Union, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sintomer, Yves (2011), Petite histoire de l'expérimentation démocratique. Tirage au sort et politique d'Athènes à nos jours, Paris: La Découverte. Sloterdijk, Peter (2000), Critica raĠiunii cinice, vol. I, Jassy: Polirom. —. (2004), Eurotaoism. ContribuĠii la o critică a cineticii politice, Cluj: Idea Design &Print. —. (2005), “Atmospheric Politics”, in Latour, Bruno, Weibel, Peter (eds.): Making Things Public. Atmospheres of Democracy, Cambridge: MIT Press.

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Sternhell, Zeev (2010), Les anti-Lumières. Une tradition du XVIIIe siècle à la guerre froide, Paris: Gallimard. Thibaud, Paul (2006), “De l’échec au projet”, in Le Débat, 140, p. 17. Torreblanca, José Ignacio (2011), “La Doctrina Zero”, in El País, 25 February. —. (2011), “El embudo democratico”, in El Pais, 7 October.

EUROPE 2020: AN AGENDA FOR CITIZENS AND STATES ADRIAN-GABRIEL CORPĂDEAN

Abstract The partial success of the Lisbon Strategy prompted the European Union to envisage a more comprehensible set of priorities to serve as guidelines for its progress within the following ten years. Amid the numerous challenges the EU is facing, socially, politically and financially, this process has proven to be quite intricate; hence its outcome remains doubtful to date. Unlike its predecessor, the new Agenda appears to be more focused on the potential of the individual, who becomes of paramount importance in the quest for growth and adaptability, on the increasingly sinuous labour market. Furthermore, it is to be noted the pivotal role attributed to member states in the process of tailoring the appropriate mechanisms meant to ensure more democracy, better education and further integration. The article studies this balance between the two complementary perspectives, so as to assess the extent to which the Europe 2020 Agenda is indeed a feasible project.

Keywords Europe 2020, member states, growth, European citizens, democracy

Premises - a comparative approach The European Union and, more particularly, the European Commission, has made a point of including its latest set of multiannual priorities in the areas of growth and development into the framework of a new strategy, predictably entitled The Europe 2020 Agenda. Whilst this enables its institutional core, along with its member states, to strive for more effective coordination, it remains doubtful whether European citizens are able to play a concrete role in the accomplishment, or at least monitoring and evaluation of the progress of this sinuous set of priorities. This poses numerous problems,

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all the more because the aforementioned initiative follows a largely debated agenda that had boldly intended no less than to transform the European Union into the “most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable growth, with more or better jobs and greater social cohesion.”1 At this point in time, we are most certainly entitled to state that the failure of the Lisbon Strategy is unquestionable, as albeit its key objectives were ambitious and summarised a course of action that Europe taken as a whole hoped to pursue, the entire framework lacked consistency and coordination.2 Amid this bleak picture, our study focuses on the endeavour which led to the creation of a veritable sequel to the Lisbon Strategy, in order to assess whether such an initiative was truly necessary and to estimate the extent to which member states, as well as their citizens, can contribute to the success of the new set of priorities the Community relies on. The perspective we intend to portray is most definitely not a Eurosceptical one, which would be at odds with our convictions, but a realistic one, taking into account the broad range of challenges the EU faces with regard to the accomplishment of the targets set by Europe 2020. To achieve this, we aim to study not only the fresh literature dedicated to this topic, but also to use qualitative research methods in analysing pertinent documents issued by various bodies of the EU. Some comparisons are deemed necessary, as part of a series of flashbacks we propose, targeted at the Lisbon Strategy, whose purpose is that of underlining elements of continuity and discontinuity between the two programmes. The simple but effective principle of learning from one’s mistakes serves as a guideline at this point and enables us to draw conclusions pertaining to the degree to which Europe 2020 is a realistic strategy in the current European and global context. A preliminary question arises, namely whether the Lisbon Strategy was a genuine agenda for EU member states, or simply for the decision-making triangle that was in place at the time of the conception of the document, roughly a decade prior to the institutional reform prompted by the Lisbon Treaty. Let it be said that the two, although bearing the same geographical denomination, show no resemblance and should not be grouped based on this simplistic criterion. Coming back to the enquiry at hand, the first aspect that comes to mind refers to the fact that the Lisbon Strategy was the brainchild of the European Council that met in March 2000 in the Portuguese capital, in 1 Laura Nistor, Public Services and the European Union: Healthcare, Health Insurance and Education Services, Springer, 2011, p. 287. 2 See: Paul Copeland, Dimitris Papadimitriou, The EU's Lisbon Strategy: Evaluating Success, Understanding Failure, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

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order to set, amongst other things, a balanced set of priorities with respect to the economic course of the Community. A soft agenda would bring soft results3, while the institutional reform took nine more years to genuinely occur. Nevertheless, the circumstances surrounding the approval of this strategy are significantly different from those referring to the Europe 2020 Agenda. While the former was an answer to the concerns centred on the economic growth of EU member states, the latter was called into question amid an unpredictable economic crisis, whose echoes can be traced to the contents of the proposal. To further expand this brief attempt at comparing the two complementary strategies, we shall emphasise several resemblances, which should probably be taken with a grain of salt, given the precarious results yielded by the Lisbon Agenda upon its completion. The leitmotivs of the two orbit around certain keywords that have become of paramount importance for the genuine concept of European integration: innovation, growth, education and environmental protection.4 The connections amongst the four guidelines are evident and desirable, although by 2010, there had not been any sustainable mechanisms that would endorse this virtuous circle in the long term. This being said, it is with some confidence that we underline the more professional manner in which the 2020 Agenda is conceived, not only in terms of whodoes-what, but also with regard to indicators and milestones. The latter, in our view, can be treated as concrete signs of partial accomplishment of various key points stipulated in the strategic document, which abide by the norms of the SMART acronym, chiefly utilised in the dynamic area of Project Cycle Management: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound.5 In fact, the idea of treating both of the agendas our article focuses on as large-scale projects or even programmes is one we are definitely in favour of, as we have already pinpointed in a previous study.6 The reason for this resides in the fact that such an approach would enable us to bring into the equation a veritable plethora of verification, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, backed by concrete indicators, all of which yield unquestionable .

3

Tania Zgajewski, Kalila Hajjar, The Lisbon Strategy: Which failure? Whose failure? And why?, Egmont Papers 6, Gent: Academia Press, 2005, pp. 23-24. 4 Maria João Rodrigues, Europe, Globalization and the Lisbon Agenda, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009, pp. 202-203. 5 Ilse Hobbs, A Practical Guide to Strategy, Sun Press, 2004, p. 20. 6 See: Adrian-Gabriel Corpădean, “Europe 2020 - A Agenda for Central and Eastern Europe?”, in The EU as a Model of Soft Power in the Eastern Neighbourhood, EURINT Conference Proceedings, Ed. of Al. I. Cuza University, Iaúi, 2013. Editors: Ramona Frunză, Gabriela Pascariu, Teodor Moga, pp. 220-230.

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data that we can then analyse in a transparent fashion. Our attempt to make use of such tools in this article is meant to shed light on the current state of the 2020 Agenda, from the standpoint of EU member states, but also that of their citizens. Hence, we shall identify patterns focusing on geographical, geopolitical and development-based criteria, on the grounds of which we should emit viable predictions pertaining to the role of the member states and their citizens in the implementation of the Europe 2020 project.

Tailoring Europe 2020 If the Europe 2020 Strategy is to overcome the setbacks its predecessor met with, it should take into consideration the expectations and potential of each of the 28 member states of the EU in the respective areas encompassed. Moreover, it should prove that the mistakes made in the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy, referring to means, feasibility, institutional coordination and monitoring indicators, amongst other elements, are not to be repeated in the hostile context that appears to dominate the decade Europe 2020 covers. A first step seems to have been made, as a prophetic formula similar to the one mentioned above, which used to be quoted whenever the Lisbon Strategy came into discussion, is absent from the terminology surrounding the newer framework. This is, of course, partly due to the difficult context in which Europe 2020 took shape, fuelled by the sovereign debt controversy and the relative uncertainty surrounding the future of the single European currency.7 The economic nature of the strategy persists, which comes as no surprise, but on this occasion, the goal of overcoming the crisis becomes part and parcel of the course of action envisaged. The means of achieving this general aim relies on the idea of competitiveness, joined by the socially-driven goal of employment. Formulated in positive terms, such general objectives correspond to genuine situations that are common amongst member states and prompt for immediate action on all levels covered by the principle of subsidiarity. Their success relies on a set of more concrete priorities, which we are tempted to name specific objectives, given the convergence between the two hierarchical levels: firstly, an increase in investments focusing on higher education, as well as research & innovation, retraces the steps pursued by the Lisbon Strategy8 and reaffirms a priority whose prominence remains undeniable. Secondly, we meet with yet another element reminiscent of the Lisbon Agenda, namely the environmental focus, this time included in the approach to sustainability that becomes specific to the new agenda. As we 7 8

Paul Copeland, Dimitris Papadimitriou, op. cit., p. 202. Maria João Rodrigues, op. cit., pp. 45-46.

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intend to show below, a set of concrete indicators measure the accomplishment of this criterion, through the lens of carbon dioxide emissions, which is a positive fact in the case of any objective upheld by an ample document such as the one submitted to our analysis at this time. Thirdly, a welcome social perspective is added to the Agenda, one that entails not only the focus on creating employment opportunities, but also that on reducing poverty - albeit the latter does pose serious problems with regard to the divergent evaluation systems currently utilised across the continent. What is innovative and most certainly a plus, compared to previous undertakings, is that Europe 2020 comes with its own set of procedures that engender an attempt to set an economic governance, i.e. a coherent mechanism of coordination between member states and EU institutions meant to help implement the economic side of the Agenda. Does this generate a more democratic interface for Europe 2020? Does it foster the active participation of citizens and, at the same time, fight the already proverbial democratic deficit? Is it in keeping with the audacious principles brought forth by the European Year of Citizens?9 These are some of the questions we intend to provide an answer to through our study, which shifts from an institutional perspective to one centred on the European citizen. It is our view that one of the commendable aspects of Europe 2020 pertains to the fact that, unlike its predecessor, it proposes a concrete set of indicators that are directly connected to the priorities mentioned above, in order to ensure their measurement not only at a central level, but also within each member state. We do not intend to turn such figures into the focus of our analysis, which we have done in a previous article, but merely to pinpoint the far-reaching nature of such milestones, which should account for significant improvements in areas such as employment, GDP ratio invested in research and development, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, increase in energy efficiency, school dropout rates, third level education and, last but not least, poverty. Some evidence of continuity is also noticeable in these indicators, if one is to consider, for instance, the fact that greenhouse gas emissions are compared to a value of reference dating back to 1990.10 Furthermore, the national targets and country specific recommendations facilitate the act of tracking the progress of each member state with regard to every objective of the Strategy. An in-depth analysis reveals, in fact, that the specific targets set for the national level are reasonable, although somewhat overly-ambitious on occasions, but they do stem from the specific nature of the economic and 9

Engin F. Isin, Michael Saward, Enacting European Citizenship, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 42. 10 Eric Marlier, David Natali, Europe 2020: Towards a More Social EU?, Peter Lang, 2010, p. 21.

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social character of each state. The support of Eurostat is undeniable in the attempts to closely monitor the progress of member states in matters germane to the Europe 2020 Strategy. To complete this outline of the merits exhibited by the Agenda, we have chosen to include the interdependency of its objectives, provided, for example, by the clear liaisons between better quality education and the needs of the labour market. To this one may add the focus on research and development, which is at its turn heavily reliant on higher education, while yielding positive results in the area of employment and technological advancement. This expands to the intricate area of environmental protection, one that needs additional investments in research - a veritable circle which is complete due to this logical approach to the overall future course of action at a Community level. The abovementioned interdependency amongst the goals established by Europe 2020 was addressed by means of the Flagship initiatives11 supported jointly by EU institutions and member states. Each of the seven endeavours has the merit of encompassing financing opportunities, as well as consultancy services meant to render them more accessible to the public. It is at this level that we encounter key emphasis on a citizen-based appraisal of needs and capabilities, listed under the three approaches to growth the Flagship initiatives rely on. Thus, the Smart growth priority comprises the support provided by the EU to the consolidation of a Digital agenda for Europe, with open calls for tenders and a particularly dynamic activity to date.12 The Innovation Union programme adds weight to this first priority area, by fostering investment in research and development, through lucrative partnerships and the promotion of a welcome active ageing campaign. Needless to say, the Youth on the move priority, also included in this comprehensive chapter, aims to further promote the successful mobility programmes whose icon remains Erasmus. The Sustainable growth flagship initiative includes the Resource-efficient Europe strategy, which covers a broad range of areas revolving around the matter of climate change, with far-reaching effects on industry, agriculture and regional development. The plethora of documents issued under the auspices of this initiative are chiefly oriented towards the future of major policy areas of the European Union, including the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and the Cohesion Policy, whereas longterm proposals have been made in the areas of carbon dioxide emissions and 11 Arno Tausch, Almas Heshmati, Globalization, the Human Condition and Sustainable Development in the Twenty-First Century: Cross-National Perspectives and European Implications, Anthem Press, 2012, pp. 10-11. 12 Massimiliano Granieri, Andrea Renda, Innovation Law and Policy in the European Union: Towards Horizon 2020, Springer, 2012, p. 84.

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energy use, stretching all the way to the year of reference 2050. The inclusion of a much-awaited proposal for a genuine Industrial Policy for the EU has also been placed under the aforementioned guidelines, with reports generated annually by member states, regarding their competitiveness and industrial perspectives. The Inclusive growth flagship initiative tackles the thorny issue of vulnerable social groups, in relation with their access to suitable employment. While unemployment remains a concern in the European Union, taken as a whole, it is even more serious in the case of such categories as women, young graduates and elderly people. In fact, among the priorities the European Commission has included in numerous programmes negotiated with member states in the context of structural instruments, we may encounter active ageing13, whose purpose is to encourage the inclusion of experienced workers, close to their retirement age, in projects, so as to take advantage of their experience, on the one hand, and enable them to remain active for longer periods of time, on the other hand. To elaborate on the aforementioned Flagship initiative, the 2020 Agenda acknowledges the need to adapt education to the change envisaged within the European Union, in a global context, which is why the emphasis lies on the development of skills which exceed the purely theoretical framework some areas of education traditionally focus on. Thus, a balanced combination of knowledge and practice becomes the basis of the reform package which is meant to serve as guidelines for the future approach to this essential chapter of development throughout the EU. This being said, it is up to the labour market, considered at a Community level, given the current and future degree of economic integration, to attempt to keep up with the changes a globalised society further imposes, if possible by maintaining a state of equilibrium between freedom and social protection. If this leads to what we may generally refer to as welfare, then the purpose we have previously stated will have been attained. Anyway, in light of the 2020 Agenda, such benefits associated with growth have to be encountered throughout the Union, which further emphasises the prominence of a strengthened Cohesion Policy in the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework.14 As previously stated, we are in favour of analysing the feasibility of this Agenda by comparing it to a project, in the sense promoted by the tools specific to Project Cycle Management. The reason for this is that by carefully reading the set of documents that make up this latest EU Strategy, we become 13

Constantinos Phellas, Aging in European Societies: Healthy Aging in Europe, Springer, 2012, pp. 26-27. 14 Luisa Pedrazzini, Renata Satiko Akiyama, From Territorial Cohesion to the New Regionalized Europe, Maggioli Editore, 2011, p. 21.

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convinced of the fact that all the means such a comparison should rely on are undoubtedly present: general and specific objectives, targets and milestones, a separation of tasks among the participants, a management structure, ways of ensuring sustainability, a budget - somewhat - attached to this multiannual perspective and, most importantly, clear-cut indicators assessing the progress of each priority on different levels. The latter can be noticed in the case of this final flagship initiative, which proposes concrete figures meant to be attained, such as a 75% employment rate for people aged between 20 and 64, a decrease in school dropout rates by 10%, a minimum of 40% of EU citizens graduating from universities and, last but not least, a reduction by at least 20 million people of those at risk of poverty and social exclusion.15 All such indicators are viable, albeit optimistic, as they may constantly be monitored, not only at an EU level, but also at that of each member state, given the country specific recommendations. Our objection at this point refers to the difficulty in expressing a uniform calculation method for poverty and social exclusion, the only indicator in this category which is depicted by an absolute value, as it is known that current methods vary from one member state to another. Some progress was made in this respect in 2010, through the program entitled The European year for combating poverty and social exclusion16, but supplementary efforts are deemed necessary at present. Since one of our hypotheses is that the Europe 2020 Agenda is bound to place more emphasis than its predecessor on democracy and the involvement of citizens, we are pleased to encounter, in the justification of such Flagship initiatives as the ones mentioned above, concrete proof that supports the course of action undertaken by the Strategy. The tools utilised by the Commission include comparisons with competitors of the EU on a global scale, such as Japan and the United States, which become the subject of parallels drawn in such areas as employment rates, productivity and working hours, in order to better understand the problems the EU is facing on the global market.17 Previsions are also present in the arguments provided by the artisans of Europe 2020, as in the case of the number of jobs which are believed to need high qualifications by 2020. These hypotheses, although difficult to prove at a factual level, are based on constants pertaining to the evolution of the single market to date and describe, to some extent, the spirit of the 2020 Agenda.

15

Annuaire Européen, Volume 58, Council of Europe, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2010, pp. 106-108. 16 Ibidem, p. 120. 17 http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/europe-2020-in-a-nutshell/priorities/smartgrowth/index_en.htm. Last access: 14 August 2013.

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In fact, if one is to corroborate the current state of the single market with the objectives of the Strategy we are focusing on, the predictions for 2020 become realistic only if a thorough reform affects this important chapter of EU integration as well. For instance, despite the considerable harmonisation of national legislation with the requirements of the single market, bureaucracy remains a potential hurdle in the freedom companies, especially small and medium-sized ones, depend on in their quest for more competitiveness. It appears to be in the spirit of Europe 2020 to encourage the development of networking at this level, according to which citizens will have at their disposal more user-friendly tools of accessing markets from all member states, as part of the single market, chiefly in the financial area, as it has been proven by the economic crisis. The idea of better and more widespread European networks encompasses a broad range of areas, all of which play an essential role in the life of any EU citizen, like: governance networks - a concept actually originating from the European Union -18, transport links, virtual connectivity, research sharing in real time, energy infrastructures and, of course, education. The stringent need for the development of such tools, possibly integrated into the generous, democratic but still unclear concept of European Communication, is heavily reliant on budgetary allocations, as in their absence, we run the risk of facing yet another Lisbon Strategy, which is overly ambitious on paper, but fails to tackle any risk management strategy such as the one needed in the event of economic hardship, which was ignored in 2000 and became a harsh reality in the latter part of the decade. For the abovementioned reason, it is our view that the artisans of Europe 2020 have to work closely with those of the multiannual financial framework which stretches between 2014 and 2020. Only by providing the necessary allocations for each of the chapters included in the Agenda can it truly become a European project, with realistic aims and worthy of being furthered. At present, it is too early to tell whether the Agenda is able to meet its targets, as the previous years have been marred by the sovereign debt controversy and there has not yet been any budgetary allocation focusing entirely on its framework. This is because the 2007-2013 multiannual budget began under the auspices of a revised Lisbon Strategy and confronted with the various fashions in which the crisis manifested itself. All things considered, the most effective way of further implementing the Europe 2020 Agenda is one guided by the principle of subsidiarity, which governs decision-making within the EU and takes into account the 18 Christopher Koliba, Jack W. Meek, Asim Zia, Governance networks in public administration and public policy, Taylor and Francis, 2009, p. 55.

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importance of regions, autonomies and, most importantly, citizens, limiting, whenever necessary, the EU’s space for manoeuvre19. Through the new negotiations carried out by the Commission with the governments of the 28 member states, there have to emerge national development plans and operational programmes which match the priorities boldly upheld by Europe 2020. Hence, structural instruments remain, in our view, the main financial mechanisms behind this Agenda, whose success is largely reliant on that of much smaller projects implemented at a regional, national and cross-border level, thus adding weight to the indicators established. What governments can accomplish in this regard is to embrace transparency when allocating money to those initiatives which ensure direct compliance with the objectives of the Agenda and have the potential to replicate their positive effects, contributing to a positive spillover effect, a transfer of know-how and best practice and a long-lasting focus on development. Moreover, as is has been properly noticed by the creators of Europe 2020, the leitmotiv of promoting growth can only of achieved if the European Union implements a set of external policy instruments.20 This entails a rebranding of all its major policies, by adding elements of openness to foreign markets, or, better yet, to the global environment, even in more rigid areas, such as the Common Agricultural Policy. Given the fact that the sensitive nature of such areas has not yet been overcome and does not seem to be taken lightly in a period of time when Euroscepticism is flourishing, this international dimension added to EU policies remains somewhat uncertain. Nevertheless, positive signals have made their presence felt in this respect, given the welcome focus on the Neighbourhood Policy, rendered official by the Lisbon Treaty.21 What remains certain is the fact that the presence of the EU and the weight of its voice have to increase in international decisionmaking forums at an economic level, where the single market can be referred to as a genuine stakeholder: the World Trade Organisation, G20, but also ASEAN, Mercosur and NAFTA. Holding one fifth of the world’s importexport activities, the EU needs to take advantage of the potential for growth provided by international trade, by focusing not only on its powerful counterparts, but also on developing countries, with which it benefits from numerous privileged partnerships.

19

Eric Marlier, David Natali, op. cit., p. 143. Thomas Renard, Sven Biscop, The European Union and Emerging Powers in the 21St Century: How Europe Can Shape a New Global Order, Ashgate Publishing, 2013, p. 16. 21 Article 8 of the Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, Official Journal of the European Union, C115/20, 09.05.2008. 20

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We have so far attempted to provide sufficient data so as to explain in depth the purpose, means and challenges pertaining to the Europe 2020 Agenda at present. Some connections to the Lisbon Strategy have been considered necessary, as it is important to understand whether the European Commission has made a point of learning from the partial failure of the latter. Furthermore, we have performed an analysis of the context surrounding the adoption and implementation of Europe 2020, as well as of its outcomes and tools, by resorting to a set of methodological means that pertain to Project Cycle Management. This approach appears to be viable, as it fosters the gradual monitoring and evaluation of its progress, while enabling us to make predictions about the strengths and weaknesses of the Strategy during the years that are left before its deadline.

Europe 2020 - between EU institutions, states and citizens How much of the Strategy is guided by the traditional decision-making structure of the European Union? Is there a significant part reserved for the national and, more importantly, regional dimension? What about EU citizens - do they play an active role in shaping the outcome of this multiannual common effort? Here are some questions we intend to tackle, in order to assess the extent to which Europe 2020 portrays a democratic view and helps combat the so-called democratic deficit that is amplifying in older and younger member states. Naturally, the level our analysis first refers to is the Community one, where we shall briefly focus on the role of the institutions and bodies whose contribution to Europe 2020 is significant. As one would expect, it is the European Council that provides general guidance. In fact, the spring summit mandatorily includes an annual progress report on the Agenda, one that considers each objective individually and monitors the targets set therein. The European Council also ensures the evaluation of the goals set by the Euro Plus Pact.22 As far as the Commission is concerned, its role is more technical - as one would expect -, as it utilises the services of Eurostat to analyse the concrete indicators showing the achievement of the goals set, which are subsequently included in an Annual Growth Survey. This becomes food for thought at the European Council’s spring summit, as shown above. The Commission’s role includes that which it does best, namely conducting negotiations with member states, in matters pertaining to Europe 2020. These procedures include the analysis of the reports generated by countries with 22 See: The Euro Plus Pact - Stronger Economic Policy Competitiveness and Convergence, Annex 1 of the European Council Conclusions of 24-25 March 2011.

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regard to the indicators of the Strategy, followed by the country specific recommendations and policy warnings, addressing particular problems at a national level.23 By reading these documents, one can understand that the Commission is extremely preoccupied with a case-by-case approach to the Agenda, which takes into account both the strengths and the weaknesses of each member state. This manner of interpreting the course of action that needs to be taken represents a major plus, as each member state can realistically evaluate its potential to contribute to the success of the indicators established. Moreover, countries benefit from guidance from the artisan of the Agenda and can ask for supplementary guidance if the case may be. The Council of Ministers plays a secondary role in the implementation of the Strategy, although national ministers in areas directly covered by it are the spokespersons of their respective governments in discussions referring to reform packages. The monitoring and peer reviewing of the Flagship initiatives described above fall within the competences of the Council, adding to better intergovernmental coordination. In the decision-making process, the Council of the European Union shares its prerogatives as legislator with the European Parliament, as most of the areas covered by Europe 2020 are subject to the ordinary legislative procedure, formerly known as co-decision. Opinions by Parliament are also taken into account as food for thought in the wider debates on the outcomes of the Agenda, as they emanate from the people of the EU, reflecting their problems and need for more democracy and transparency in this regard. In fact, the need for more involvement on the part of not only the European Parliament, but also national legislative assemblies, is paramount. The totality of procedures involved in the current implementation of the Europe 2020 Agenda is referred to as the European semester. The first half of each year is dedicated to the oversight and progress reports on this Strategy, starting with the Commission’s Annual Growth Survey, presented in January, and continuing with the debates on the findings, conducted within the Council and Parliament. The spring European Council gives the impetus for immediate priorities that should be tackled by member states, in accordance with its prerogatives, resulting in the furtherance of National Reform Programmes and Stability / Convergence Programmes, which these countries subsequently submit to the attention of the Commission. The latter issues recommendation for each member state, given the progress attained in every area of interest at that time, which are debated within the European Council 23

Verhelst Stijn, The Reform of European Economic Governance: Towards a Sustainable Monetary Union?, Egmont Papers 47, Gent: Academia Press, 2011, pp. 49-50.

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in June and then applied under the auspices of the Council of Ministers.24 This surprisingly simple methodology - given the usually sinuous legislative procedures of the Union - governs an Agenda that has to be considered at various levels, including the national, supranational, intergovernmental and democratic ones. For better closeness to the expectations of EU citizens, one of the means through which the 2020 Agenda reaches them is portrayed by the Commission’s Representations in member states, which are currently being endowed with European Semester Officers.25 Such representatives are expected to foster enhanced coordination amongst EU countries in matters pertaining to the Strategy, while supervising financial and economic factors that are likely to endanger the achievement of its objectives. In terms of democracy, these experts should have a key role in the near future, as to date it is too early to make any viable assessment of their impact, due to the fact that they act as mere liaisons among various stakeholders in areas germane to Europe 2020. Theirs is no easy task, however, as they are meant to evaluate the needs and potential of each member state in the matters covered by the Agenda, following discussions with a plethora of stakeholders: government, regional entities, the civil society and economic actors. What is equally commendable in this quest for more democracy with regard to the implementation of the Europe 2020 Agenda, from an institutional perspective, is the involvement of the two principal advisory bodies of the European Union, namely the Economic and Social Committee, as well as the Committee of the Regions. Overcoming a purely theoretical role of these otherwise useful organisms, the view of the artisans of this Agenda endows the two with specialised committees, meant to monitor and coordinate relevant aspects. The EESC, through its Europe 2020 Steering Committee26, works closely with the civil society and other national partners, in order to coordinate networking endeavours and promote more effective communication in the process. On the other hand, the CoR, thanks to its Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform, has the aim of mobilising regional and local partners in the accurate interpretation and accomplishment of Europe 2020’s goals, under the auspices of the Cohesion Policy. A useful initiative 24

Steffen Lehndorff, A triumph of failed ideas: European models of capitalism in the crisis, ETUI, 2012, p. 270. 25 http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/who-does-what/eu-institutions/index_en.htm. Last access: 14 August 2013. 26 Work programme of the Bureau's ad-hoc group "Europe 2020 Steering Committee", European Economic and Social Committee, http://www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/a_f_ces8261-2010_web_en.doc. Last access: 14 August 2013.

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stems from this body, one that envisages an implementation of Europe 2020 by means of so-called Territorial Pacts, which are forms of partnerships concluded at local, regional and national levels, with the goal of attaining the objectives of the Strategy.27 As far as the member states are concerned, they are required to assess and report on the progress of the Europe 2020 Agenda, from the perspective of its indicators, by means of two documents, presented each year, in the month of April. Their Stability / Convergence Programmes and National Reform Programmes are the two papers that prove the countries’ commitment to growth, as stipulated in the Strategy. The inclusion of such reports in the European Semester proves the importance given to each member state in the implementation and monitoring of Europe 2020. The role of local and regional authorities in this regard largely depends on the level of regionalisation of each country, since prerogatives in key areas of Europe 2020 may be granted to levels of administration that are closer to citizens. It is, however, certain that the efforts of local, regional and national administration are needed in order to contribute to the success of the Agenda, while making it more understandable for people. A guidebook has been made available by the Committee of the Regions, so as to aid local and regional authorities to find practical information on the matter, along with examples of best practices, means of financing etc.28 Last, but most certainly not least, the accomplishment of the priorities set by Europe 2020 depends on the support provided by the people of the European Union. This, in turn, is proportional to the extent to which the latter comprehend and feel represented by the endeavour, which mobilises large sums stemming from the contributors. At present, the number of NGOs, civil society bodies, unions and think tanks that have embraced the ideals of Europe 2020 is fairly limited, considering its breadth. As in the case of other previous programmes, the one we are focusing on relies on a fairly intricate institutional procedure (at least in the eyes of citizens, not necessarily compared to other legislative procedures), apparently dominated by the Community level, whilst the direct involvement of citizens is hindered by the span of the priorities set by the Agenda, as well as its macroeconomic nature. 27

Forty-first report of session 2010-12: documents considered by the Committee on 14 September 2011, Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: European Scrutiny Committee, The Stationery Office, 2011, pp. 138-139. 28 See: Handbook on the Europe 2020 strategy for cities and regions, Committee of the Regions, available at: https://portal.cor.europa.eu/europe2020/SiteCollectionDocuments/Europe%202020%2 0Handbook%20for%20Local%20and%20Regional%20Authorities.pdf. Last access: 13 August 2013.

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Conclusions The Europe 2020 Strategy or Agenda - we have used both terms to describe this endeavour, which corresponds to the definition of either - differs from all previous attempts to mobilise to such a great extent the resources and potential of the European Union, taken as a whole. Unlike the Lisbon Strategy, it is envisaged to correspond to a genuine project, one that shares more than just a purely theoretical, and somewhat idealistic priority, while benefitting from a clearer set of indicators and a better separation of tasks. The guidelines behind the Agenda follow the leitmotivs brought forth since 2000, which cover the broad spectrum of growth, with particular emphasis on the development of human resources, economic competitiveness and welfare, amid a constant interest in environmental protection. The introduction of the European Semester into the equation is a welcome feat, from an institutional or a decision-making point of view, but its downside is that such a measure may assimilate it to the usual procedure through which the EU regulates, one that is known to be less than popular. On the other hand, Europe 2020, although largely dependent on the Commission’s monitoring and the European Council’s supervision, is meant to be implemented chiefly by member states, for various reasons: some of the areas it covers, like education or poverty, are normally dealt with at a national level; the indicators are set for each state individually, and the combined results of the 28 members account for the success of the targets; the procedures established in order to monitor and support the efforts of member states in matters germane to Europe 2020, such as the Country Specific Recommendations, are given a pivotal role within the European Semester. As far as citizens are concerned, their role in the achievement of the Agenda, at a macro scale, is difficult to quantify, even though its priorities are in keeping with the needs reported by EU citizens, with regard to their quality of life. Nevertheless, measures taken by the artisans of the Agenda, pertaining to the areas of networking, benchmarking and best practice exchange, do tend to mobilise the civil society. Attempts to include debates on Europe 2020 amid the European Year of Citizens have not only produced interesting ideas, but also gathered much needed support, essential if such a Strategy is to succeed in a time of crisis. This being said, it is our view that if Europe 2020 is to thrive and avoid the fate of the Lisbon Strategy, it needs to further descend to a level which is closer to the people’s needs and expectations, as opposed to those of states and, naturally, EU institutions.

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Bibliography Copeland, Paul; Papadimitriou, Dimitris (2012), The EU's Lisbon Strategy: Evaluating Success, Understanding Failure, Palgrave Macmillan. Corpădean, Adrian-Gabriel (2013), “Europe 2020 - A Agenda for Central and Eastern Europe?”, in The EU as a Model of Soft Power in the Eastern Neighbourhood, EURINT Conference Proceedings, Iaúi: Ed. of Al. I. Cuza University. Editors: Ramona Frunză, Gabriela Pascariu, Teodor Moga. Granieri, Massimiliano; Renda, Andrea (2012), Innovation Law and Policy in the European Union: Towards Horizon 2020, Springer. Hobbs, Ilse (2004), A Practical Guide to Strategy, Sun Press. Isin, Engin F.; Saward, Michael (2013), Enacting European Citizenship, Cambridge University Press. João Rodrigues, Maria (2009), Europe, Globalization and the Lisbon Agenda, Edward Elgar Publishing. Koliba, Christopher; Meek, Jack W.; Zia, Asim (2009), Governance networks in public administration and public policy, Taylor and Francis. Lehndorff, Steffen (2012), A triumph of failed ideas: European models of capitalism in the crisis, ETUI. Marlier, Eric; Natali, David (2010), Europe 2020: Towards a More Social EU?, Peter Lang. Nistor, Laura (2011), Public Services and the European Union: Healthcare, Health Insurance and Education Services, Springer. Pedrazzini, Luisa; Satiko Akiyama, Renata (2011), From Territorial Cohesion to the New Regionalized Europe, Maggioli Editore. Phellas, Constantinos (2012), Aging in European Societies: Healthy Aging in Europe, Springer. Renard, Thomas; Biscop, Sven (2013), The European Union and Emerging Powers in the 21St Century: How Europe Can Shape a New Global Order, Ashgate Publishing. Stijn, Verhelst (2011), The Reform of European Economic Governance: Towards a Sustainable Monetary Union?, Egmont Papers 47, Gent: Academia Press. Tausch, Arno; Heshmati, Almas (2012), Globalization, the Human Condition and Sustainable Development in the Twenty-First Century: CrossNational Perspectives and European Implications, Anthem Press. Zgajewski, Tania; Hajjar, Kalila (2004), The Lisbon Strategy: Which failure? Whose failure? And why?, Egmont Papers 6, Gent: Academia Press. Annuaire Européen (2010), Volume 58, Council of Europe, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

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Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, Official Journal of the European Union, C115/20, 09.05.2008. Forty-first report of session 2010-12: documents considered by the Committee on 14 September 2011 (2011), Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: European Scrutiny Committee, The Stationery Office, pp. 138-139. The Euro Plus Pact - Stronger Economic Policy Competitiveness and Convergence, Annex 1 of the European Council Conclusions of 24-25 March 2011. Handbook on the Europe 2020 strategy for cities and regions, Committee of the Regions, https://portal.cor.europa.eu/europe2020/SiteCollectionDocuments/Europe %202020%20Handbook%20for%20Local%20and%20Regional%20 Authorities.pdf. Last access: 13 August 2013. http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/europe-2020-in-a-nutshell/priorities/ smart-growth/ index_en.htm. Last access: 14 August 2013. http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/who-does-what/eu-institutions/index _en.htm. Last access: 14 August 2013. Work programme of the Bureau's ad-hoc group "Europe 2020 Steering Committee", European Economic and Social Committee, http://www.eesc.europa.eu/resources/docs/a_f_ces8261-2010_web_en.doc. Last access: 14 August 2013.

CHAPTER THREE GLOBAL AND REGIONAL SECURITY TODAY: ACTORS, SHAPING FORCES, CURRENT APPROACHES

THE FORTHCOMING AGE OF URBAN INSURGENCY: WAYS TO COUNTERACT OCTAVIAN MANEA

Motto: “The future is hybrid and irregular conflict combining elements of crime, urban unrest, insurgency, terrorism, and state-sponsored asymmetric warfare - more Mumbai, Mogadishu, and Tivoli Gardens - and we had better start preparing for it”. (David Kilcullen)

Writing during the 1980s, in the post Vietnam Era and before Somalia and Balkan-style expeditionary interventions, General John Galvin authored a very influential article, in which he warned about the fact that: “there are many indicators that we are moving into a world in which subversive activities, civil disturbances, guerilla warfare and low-level violence will grow and multiply”1.

The same can be said about today as we move forward into uncertain times with a West that is reluctant to assume new expeditionary commitments. The problem is that insurgencies are not going to disappear. Moreover, the environment is changing in ways that render this kind of warfare more probable. Thus, what are the main assumptions about the future security environment and why are insurgencies more likely to occur? The most recent report of the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) listed a set of emerging mega-trends that have the potential not only to rattle, but also to change the world as we know it. The first one that we saw in action during the Arab Spring is the empowerment of the individual. The essence of this is related not only to the rise of a global middle class, able to buy and consume more, and at the same time to press governments for more accountability, but also to the disruption of the classic state monopoly. All in all, 1 John R. Galvin, “Uncomfortable Wars: Toward a New Paradigm,” Parameters, vol. XVI, no. 4 (1986): 5.

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“individuals and small groups will have greater access to lethal and disruptive technologies (particularly precision-strike capabilities, cyber instruments, and bioterror weaponry), enabling them to perpetrate large-scale violence - a capability formerly the monopoly of states”2.

A second mega-trend, closely linked with the first, is the dispersion, diffusion and migration of power. It is not only a geographical tendency, from the West to the rising East, from the Euro-Atlantic world to the IndoPacific region, but we are currently witnessing the slow-motion erosion of the traditional Westphalian state in favour of non-state actors (individuals, communities, cities, networks). This particular phenomenon has huge implications from the perspective of the ability of states to respond and counteract future threats. In his latest book, Moises Naim describes the essence of the problem more like a mutation, a shift from the traditional large players (Big Business, Big Government) to new, more adaptive and effective, small social entities: ”the decoupling of power from size, and thus the decoupling of the capacity to use power effectively from the control of a large Weberian bureaucracy, is changing the world”3.

The third major mega-trend that will structurally reshape the world in which we live is the nexus between demography and urbanization. The world’s population has increased exponentially since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 1750 (750 million people) to 3 billion people in 1960 and to roughly 7 billion today. Further data shows that until 2050 the planet will need to accommodate another 2.5 billion people, the same number that the entire world generated until 19604. The problem is that this increase in population will occur in urban environments concentrated mainly on the coastlines of low income countries from Africa, Latin America, The Caribbean and South-East Asia - in fact, the regions that are the least prepared from the perspective of their governance infrastructure to absorb such a huge influx of people. The interaction and the simultaneous aggregation, in some parts of the world, of all these mega-trends might have a decisive effect on the patterns of conflict and rebellions. In the end, these are 2

“Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds”, a publication of the National Intelligence Council, December 2012, 3. 3 Moises Naim, The end of power-from boardrooms to battlefields and churches to states, why being in charge isn’t what it used to be (New York: Basic Books, 2013) 52. 4 David Kilcullen, “Out of the Mountains: the coming age of the urban guerrilla”, speech at the New America Foundation, September 18th, 2013, Washington D.C., http://www.newamerica.net/events/2013/out_of_the_mountains.

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not causative mechanisms in themselves, but they should be perceived more as environmental enablers and accelerators of conflict and instability. It is more likely to see uprisings when these mega-trends converge and the ability of governance mechanisms to cope with them is eroding. It is precisely what the Arab Spring pointed out: ”The three most heavily coastline urbanized countries of the Arab Spring were Libya, Tunisia and Egypt. There is a strong connection between rapid urban growth, overstressing of urban systems and population growth, particularly youth bulge, between that kind of demographic change and the sort of conflict that we saw in the Arab Spring”5.

But the presence of all these elements is not enough to render the societal cocktail explosive.

Defining insurgent energy When we talk about insurgency, first of all, we need to have in mind what the term means. For this reason, we adhere to two basic propositions that John Mackinlay developed in his pivotal study The insurgent archipelago. For him, insurgency is not necessarily a form of warfare, but an essential political act of contesting, of rising against an established political authority. Moreover, it should not necessarily mean violence. Violence is a symptom of something much more profound embedded in the texture of a society, an upgraded stage of an initial “insurgent energy”: ”Insurgency, from the Latin word to insurge, refers to the act of rising up against a stronger authority. (…) Insurgency refers to the stages of activism and subversion that precede”6 the violent, kinetic component.

What matters for an insurgent entrepreneur is to identify this initial “insurgent energy” at grass roots level and then nurture it, enhance it, through gradual development, and channel it against the political order at that time. It is, first and foremost, a cognitive subversion. By insurgent energy we understand a very diverse cocktail of personal, political or socio-economic grievances, disaffection and alienation, which under the effect of an insurgent entrepreneur can be exponentially aggregated in the form of a mass movement. This pattern is consistent with what the history of counterinsurgencies shows: 5

Ibid. John Mackinlay, The Insurgent archipelago. From Mao to bin Laden (London: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers Ltd, 2009) 223.

6

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”insurgency remains a highly political act, arising from some sense of grievance or upon the exploitation and manipulation of grievance”7.

In this context, the role of the insurgent entrepreneur is one of modelling, shaping and refining the core raw material (the insurgent energy). For this reason, the counterinsurgency doctrine speaks so much in terms of a battle of perceptions, of winning hearts and minds, but in reverse. The purpose of the counterinsurgent is to reverse this process of cognitive subversion, by focusing first and foremost on ways of dispersing the insurgent energy (the basis of insurgency) within the local societal structures. John Mackinlay develops his conclusion and main recommendation after observing and witnessing the step-by-step evolution of a postmodernist insurgency in the UK: “the degree of disaffection had to be viewed as something more dangerous than just terrorism; it had insurgency energy, which attracted support and gained momentum and an ability to regenerate itself”8.

For him, the implication is that the weight of a counter-effort needs to be focused on the initial degrees of subversion, when the target audience is predisposed to insurgency, as well as uncommitted, passively and actively disaffected, but is increasingly becoming prepared to be mentored and operationally ready. On the other hand, John Mackinlay urges us to consider that we need to keep up with the evolution of insurgency and, most importantly, that “insurgencies reflect the societies from which they arise”9. The implication is not only that the counterinsurgent should understand the specifics of society, tailor his policies so as to match those particular ingredients, but also that from an institutional point of view, the counterinsurgent should always be flexible and agile enough to adapt his organisations to the insurgent transformation. Specifically, what we have seen over the past decade is how difficult and slow it is for a 19th century vertically structured counterinsurgent to adapt to a horizontally organised insurgency10. Paraphrasing Hillary Clinton’s 2013 farewell speech, a counterinsurgency organization should institutionalize a Frank Gehry mindset, it should have the flexibility and the agility of Gehry’s architecture, always ready to use “a dynamic mix of 7

Ian Beckett, “The Future of Insurgency”, Small Wars & Insurgencies, vol. 16, no. 1 (2005): 33. 8 John Mackinlay, Insurgent archipelago, 205. 9 Idem, “After 2015. The Next Security Era for Britain”, PRISM 3, no. 2 (2012): 60. 10 Ibid., 58.

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materials and structures” in the most unconventional and variable geometrical logic. Moreover, the challenge for the managers of a multidimensional counterinsurgent organisation is to be ready for fluid times and flexible institutional paradigms, remaining at the same time strategic: “that means that you need to find ways to deal, not with just a restructuring of government that gives you a different set of boxes for the next round, but one that doesn’t have boxes anymore, able to be dynamic and fluid, and yet have this sense of strategic direction”.

In brief, a counterinsurgent manager needs a Sillicon Valley mindset: “nobody there is thinking about the 2.0 that’s going to be 2.0 forever. There’s always a 3.0 and a 4.0 and a 5.0. How do you innovate? How do you create the ability to be flexible and imaginative but also to see over the horizon? The geniuses come when you can do that”, said James Steinberg, the Dean of Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, last year, at the launch of the latest National Intelligence Council 2030 Alternative worlds report.

But what would winning look like? It will not be anything like a decisive military victory. For David Kilcullen, the whole process is like recovering from a disease: “if you think about the last time you were sick, you may not have been able to get out of bed, you had to take medicine, you couldn’t do the things you wanted to, but you gradually got stronger and you were able to do more. You might have continued to take antibiotics for a few weeks until you were completely well, but basically, sooner or later, you will forget that you were sick”11.

There is no single large military victory, but a slow gradual improvement to the point where a society comes back to full functioning. The purpose of the counterinsurgent: “is to create an environment that is conducive to stability and societal recovery. If you think that victory is when society recovers, then what we have to do is to create an environment that fosters this recovery”12.

11

David Kilcullen, interview by Octavian Manea, Small Wars Journal, November 7, 2010, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/interview-with-dr-david-kilcullen. 12 Ibid.

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Samples from the recent past A good proxy for the insurgencies of the future can be the stages of development of a movement that was pivotal in disrupting and toppling the legitimacy of communism in Eastern Europe - “Solidarnosk”. Simplified, its formula was close to this: insurgent energy (grievances + union workers) + insurgent entrepreneurs (the dissidents) = the parallel polis/alternative cognitive universe/independent political life that challenges the established political status-quo. In his “Letters from Prison”, Adam Michnik documented the step-by-step rise of the Solidarity insurgency. He saw everything as a fight of the “organized underground society” against a state “whose teeth have been knocked-out”, one “that could no longer bite”13, but which performed skilfully one thing: “how to break up social solidarity”14 by systematically destroying all the relevant social ties and creating atomised ones. But it was not a conventional fight. In this war, the force and the bullet were not the ammunition of choice. It was in fact an effort to organise a parallel state (“the parallel polis”) outside the formal institutions. The essence of the Solidarnosk programme was to “attempt to reconstruct society, to restore social bonds outside official institutions”15 and against the latter. “It is not terrorism that Poland needs today. It is widespread underground activity that will reconstruct society, spreading throughout towns and villages, factories and research institutions, universities and high schools”16.

To manage this “reconquista”, Michnik & Co. developed a network that goes beyond the factory (where the roots of the rebellion lies) and connects this insurgent epicentre with the other important societal groups. The network was seen as critical in maintaining these links. The insurgent energy of the movement was perpetuated because the underground resistance was the expression of society’s needs. Essentially, “when those needs are not fulfilled by official institutions, people go elsewhere”17. From the very beginning, the Polish recipe for challenging the monopoly of the state was based less on an instant change and more on a long march intended to extirpate, to “liberate” inch by inch, in an evolutionary approach, societal chunks from state control. 13

Adam Michnik, Letters from prison and other essays (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) 28. 14 Ibid., 29. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 43. 17 Ibid.

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It was like a tree whose roots undermine the foundation of a house until the house collapses. Fast forward 30 years, the same mindset can be identified during the socalled Facebook Revolutions, which changed the face of the Arab world in 2011. This time, in a truly networked society, insurgent entrepreneurs used the Internet to shape, organize and direct public anger through online networks of activists in order to challenge the offline political order. In his book, “Revolution 2.0”, Wael Ghonim sees the Internet as the key “vehicle to bringing forth the first spark of change”, the glue that will bind together the salient majority of online activists. For him, the Internet: “was not a virtual world inhabited by avatars, but a means of communication that offers people in the physical world a method to organize, act and promote ideas and awareness”18.

He perceived the Internet as a force that was going to change politics in Egypt, by selling and marketing an insurgency. At the core of the future movement was the deep sentiment of moral outrage and injustice felt by many Egyptians. To some extent, activists like Ghonim aimed to create a virtual Solidarnosk, a virtual polis, able to restore the social bonds between Egyptians outside the formal institutions. With this purpose in mind, Ghonim identified the right landmark/symbol that could instantly coagulate and mobilise the anger of Egyptians against the regime: the image of Khaled Said, the young Egyptian who, on June 6th, 2010, was beaten to death by two secret police officers in Alexandria. For thousands of online activists, the image of Khaled Said became “a terrible symbol of Egypt’s condition”. For this reason, the name of the Facebook page became “KullenaKhaled Said=We are all Khaled Said”. It was a Facebook page that spoke the language of a core audience (those angered, enraged, disaffected by Mubarak’s state) and whose design aimed to build support for the cause, incentivise online activism and push it into the street. Step by step, the virtual polis started to challenge the offline state through symbolic gestures and theatrics: silent stands, sit-ins, occupation of public spaces, noisy peaceful demonstrations meant to attract attention. At some point, because of this gradual “build-up of such immense solidarity”, everyone realised that “we were finally ripe for revolution”19. In the end, everything became “a war of wits and tolerance between the government and the people”, as Rush, the hip-

18

WaelGhonim, Revolution 2.0: the power of the people is greater than the people in power, (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2012), kindle edition, location 800. 19 Ibid., location 2721.

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hop vocalist of Arabian Knightz (a Cairo-based rap band that uses both Arab and English lyrics) put it in an interview in February 2011.

Samples of the future: the “other societies” in Latin America Something very similar to a parallel cognitive polis, outside the control of the state, is developing at the peripheries of several large cities across Latin America (Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Santiago), which makes them ripe for rebellion. In his latest cartography of Latin American social movements, Territories in Resistance, Raul Zibechi points to an insurgent urban archipelago that is connecting the edge of many Latin American cities. These are territories where: “states have only a minimal presence, and conflict and violence - resulting from the disintegration of society - are part of everyday life, where youth gangs are so strong that they sometimes take control of neighbourhoods and, ultimately, these are zones where disease spreads exponentially”20.

It is the image of a space disconnected from the formal order and situated even beyond the control of the state’s law enforcement institutions, with its own particularities. The inhabitants are usually poor migrants from rural areas or highlands, in search for jobs. Gradually, at the peripheries of formal cities, they constructed their own worlds: it is a different urban space, occupied, to some extent self-resilient, full of self-constructed homes, with particular values and an economy based on survival. Some of these “settlements” or “popular neighbourhoods” go so far as to even institutionalise people’s courts and summary executions21. The tendency, when there is no formal order provided by the state, is for the settlers to create and shape their own order. Now, these “other societies”, almost self-sufficient worlds, are expanding, they are on the offensive, from the periphery towards the core of the city. Raul Zibechi suggests that these are territories that have internalised a community-centric logic of resistance (they oppose their own community, as the centre of gravity of their loyalty, to state loyalty), full of insurgent energy, against what we can generically call the Westphalian state. These postmodern slums decoupled from the formal order and from decent public services (“where sometimes the state enters only with great difficulty and must use armed force to do so”), are increasingly becoming, from the 20

Raul Zibechi, Territories in resistance. A cartography of Latin American Social Movements (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2012), 195. 21 Ibid., 225.

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perspective of the public administrator, the new lost neighbourhoods, the new ungoverned territories. History shows that when the state is unable to control its own territory, including the urban peripheries, other actors will compete for control and ultimately step in to fill the void. In the absence of a public Leviathan, it is not inconceivable that slum populations will search for other options. A weak government presence in the new peri-urban areas will incentivise the emergence of criminal networks or non-state armed groups, which will compete for the support of the local youth, “who do not lack grievances arising from their new urban circumstances or from their home villages”22. There are a myriad of different possibilities out there, beyond the traditional state, ranging from “charismatic churches and prophetic cults to ethnic militias, street gangs, and revolutionary social movements”, to “urban subsistence economies operated by street gangs, narco-traficantes, militias, and sectarian political organizations”23. Down the road, the future could be one of a feral neighbourhood, if not a feral city: ”a vast collection of blighted buildings, an immense Petri dish of both ancient and new diseases, a territory where the rule of law has long been replaced by near anarchy, in which the only security available is that which is attained through brute power”24.

It is a Hobbesian landscape, but in its urban version: a space with no social services or available safety net, where security is a matter of individual initiative, a territory where criminals, armed resistance groups, clans, tribes or neighbourhood associations compete and exert various degrees of control over portions of the city25. One of the main trends highlighted by the National Intelligence Council’s report (Global trends 2030: alternative worlds), which has the potential to decisively reshape the future security environment, is the accelerated urbanisation of the rural migrant populations that become part of mega-cities. The consequence of the booming of such “other societies” is that they will increasingly exert pressure on the existing city infrastructures, making them less able to cope with the economic, social and governance challenges triggered by their demographic expansion26. The whole administrative governance infrastructure (courts, hospitals, schools, police) can become 22

David Kilcullen, “The city as a system: future conflict and urban resilience”, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 36, no. 2 (2012): 27. 23 Mike Davis, Planet of slums (London: Verso, 2006), 202. 24 Richard Norton, “Feral cities”, Naval War College Review, no.4 (2003): 97. 25 Ibid., 98. 26 Kilcullen, “City as a system”, 26.

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overexposed, overextended and unable to handle “more people fighting over scarcer resources in crowded, under-serviced and under-governed urban areas”27. The phenomenon of these “other societies” is increasingly merging with the rise of hybrid adversaries that have the potential to challenge the state by combining “irregular tactics with advanced standoff weaponry”. Many scholars consider, in the light of what is currently happening in Latin America, especially in Colombia and Mexico, that: “the relationship of crime to conflict is the dominant factor that is changing the conduct of irregular warfare in the 21st century from what we knew in the 20th. In the 21st Century, crime, terrorism and insurgency are blending in new political and social combinations that will call for new understandings of irregular warfare and approaches in counterinsurgency”28.

John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker went further and defined the emerging hybrid in Latin America as “criminal insurgency”, a phenomenon that proliferates under the legitimacy deficit of a fragile state29. Like the classic insurgency, a criminal insurgency is challenging the state by attacking and targeting its typical symbols (police, mayors, bureaucrats from the civilian administration), but not necessarily with the purpose of conquering political power. Essentially, its emphasis is not on taking over a government, but on “weakening or disrupting the functions of the government”, in order to survive and create a safe place for its illegal activities. In the end, the “other societies” can become the perfect incubators and safe havens, the ideal environment for reproducing criminal insurgencies. Moreover, insurgent entrepreneurs can find in the other societies the ideal raw material and fertile ground. They can exploit in their favour the feeling of alienation that the other societies have internalised in their relationship with the formal state order. One such example is the case of the Shower Posse transnational gang, headed by Christopher “Dudus” Coke, who understood early the safe haven advantages that an “overpopulated and undergoverned coastal urban slum“30 like Tivoli Gardens (Kingston, Jamaica) provided. Moreover, the gang realised that by “providing community services and small benefits”31, it could 27

Ibid. Robert Killebrew, “Understanding future of irregular warfare challenges” (testimony, House Armed Services Committee hearing, March 27th, 2012). 29 John Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker, “Rethinking insurgency: criminality, spirituality, and societal warfare in the Americas”, Small Wars & Insurgencies 22, no. 5 (2011): 743. 30 Kilcullen, “City as a system”, 33. 31 Ibid. 28

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win the loyalty of the slum and use it as a protective shield against the state. Step by step, the gang became “so deeply nested within its environment”32 that it was impossible to distinguish between the community and the gang members. The community and the gang became one. In this way, to some extent, crime should be perceived as a competition in state-making, with many dark networks engaged in acting as de facto local governments: “traditional criminal organizations often take on the trappings of governance, behaving in some ways like insurgents sometimes do. An old example of this phenomenon, the paradigm of the traditional crime world, if you’d like, is the Italian Mafia: The Mafiosi didn’t declare a war against the state, didn’t want to topple the state, but for all practical purposes they provided security, norms, and enforced contracts. They extorted money, which is a form of tax collection; they could control politicians and government officials. In many ways, they really behaved like the dream outcome for an insurgency. The difference is that they didn’t put a flag and called this the Independent Republic of Mafia, but they behaved in many ways like a very successful insurgency. (…) The Taliban in Afghanistan, the Mafia in Sicily, the gangs in the slums and shantytowns, all these groups are in the business of providing socio-economic goods regardless of whether they are politically-motivated actors or just criminal enterprises. The more they do so, the more they provide order, security and economic goods, the more they behave like de facto protostate governing entities”33.

The problem is that exactly at the time when we are more likely to see a demographic explosion of the other societies and possibly the proliferation of criminal insurgencies in the midst of their societal environment ripe for rebellion, the Westphalian state is entering a time of structural weakness and downward sloping. In the big picture, this means that the ability of superempowered individuals and community groups to challenge and put pressure on the traditional Weberian state monopoly and the Westphalian order of the traditional state will grow exponentially and will be constantly enhanced, at a time when the resources of the state and its power enforcement capabilities are sure to decrease. This specific feature, associated with a tipping point symptom, made Brent Scowcroft, the former National Security Advisor of President George Bush, extremely concerned about the nature of the future security environment, amid the erosion of the old Westphalian state system: 32

Ibid. “Gangs, slums, megacities and the utility of population centric counterinsurgency: Interview with Vanda Felbab Brown”, by Octavian Manea, Small Wars Journal, October 5, 2013, http://www.brookings.edu/research/interviews/2013/10/05-gangsslums-megacities-utility-population-centric-coin-felbabbrown. 33

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“I think we are facing another seminal change. But to me, it’s of a very different character (than the one faced with the collapse of the Berlin Wall). And the change is, in a way, a quiet assault on the Westphalian nation-state system. That has been for 500 years the be-all, the end-all”, said Scowcroft at the launch of the latest National Intelligence Council Report.

At present, it is very easy to network, organize and mobilise people against the state once you have the right raw material of grievances and dissatisfaction to work with. “For most of mankind, the bulk of people lived just like their parents lived. They expect their children would live just the way they lived. There was a kind of inexorable order of things. That was the way the world was. This is a different kind of world. Now, they look at their cell phones, they look at their TV and they say, hey, that’s not the way they live, why do I have to? And I think that is undermining the whole structure of the Westphalian state system. And right now, we’re in this uneasy coexistence. And I don’t know how it’s going to end up. But it’s a different kind of inflection point than 1815, 1945 or 1990. All of them were occasioned by sharp changes in the political environment”, said Brent Scowcroft last December.

In the age of networked communities and urban riots there are always “effective techniques for outraged communities, whatever their cause to mobilise them, which cause irrepressible violence and disorder”34. Overall, this is bad news for the paradigm of state-centric counterinsurgency, which until today has been the preferred recipe/framework to deal with an insurgency. Quantitative studies also reveal that governance and state capacity (aggregated from measurements of government effectiveness, corruption, the rule of law and GDP) are the two independent variables or “enduring conditions” that tend to have the strongest explanatory power for an insurgency setting. In other words, the presence of insurgency is strongly correlated and associated with a weak state capacity and bad governance35. Overall, “insurgencies are most likely to occur in low-capacity states because financially, organisationally and politically weak central governments are less likely to prevent nascent opposition from becoming a viable insurgency. Because the state is incapable of controlling its own territory, this weakness

34

Mackinlay, The Insurgent archipelago, 58. Seth Jones and Patrick Johnston, “The Future of Insurgency”, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 36, no. 1 (2013): 4.

35

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The Forthcoming Age of Urban Insurgency: Ways to Counteract creates opportunities for insurgent groups to control these areas and challenge the state authority’s rule”36.

The implication of these findings is that the slums of the megacities are potentially ripe for insurgency, especially because we expect a low capacity of state/municipal authorities to control these territories or to expand social services, city administration and the rule of law. At the same time, we may already see evidence of “the other society” trying to shape its own governance order and a system of values that is different from the one provided by the state.

Principles from past counterinsurgency campaigns A careful survey of the history of past counterinsurgency cases, but also of the many lessons learnt by the practitioners in the field, reveal core guiding principles that should inform the intellectual construct of any future effort aimed at counteracting insurgent energy. These are people’s wars, or wars among people, so human terrain matters. In a conference held in January 1973 at the Air War College, Edward Lansdale emphasised that: “the people are the main features of the battleground. Be myopic about these people, fail to see their place in the war and you won’t win. The adherence of the people is the prime objective of the war. Whichever side gains the allegiance of the people ends up not only with the people, but also with the land they live upon, their cities, their resources and their country”37.

By observing the new dynamics in the Philippines and Vietnam during the 1950s and 1960s, he understood that in these “new wars”, people were a key variable playing a role that was as important as the one played in the past by geographical territory. In Clausewitzian terminology, people are the new centre of gravity. They are the so-called target audience. Re-bonding, reconnecting the government with its people becomes the main emphasis of the counterinsurgent effort. Years later, reflecting on what we need to learn from the post 9/11 Counterinsurgency Decade as we move forward, General David Petraeus highlighted the same principle:

36

Ibid. Edward G. Lansdale, “Peoples’ wars. Three primary lessons” (lecture, Air War College, January 15th, 1973). 37

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“the essence is frankly the importance of the human terrain in each particular situation, and the importance of understanding the terrain, having a very nuanced, detailed feel for the context of each situation, not just nationally, but sub-nationally and literally all the way down to each valley and each village. (…) I think, fundamentally, it comes back to this issue, that it is all about people, counterinsurgency operations are wars in, among, and, in essence, for the people”38.

If human terrain matters, then understanding what motivates people and the driving causal mechanisms influencing their hearts and minds, is crucial for winning their allegiance. The inherent assumption behind the populationcentric counterinsurgency theory is that people respond to incentives, but in order to craft the right incentives, one needs to learn what buttons to push39. So, what are the key variables that influence the way individuals and groups make decisions in an insurgent setting? What motivates them and makes them tick? Former ISAF Commander General Stanley McChrystal highlighted the importance of understanding the context, the political and cultural environment in which the human factor manifests itself: “most counterinsurgency is local. (…) each community, tribe, or sect is new terrain. Victory begins in the village and the neighbourhood by winning the confidence of those who live there. (…) What I saw in the cities and countryside affirmed the importance of understanding local politics, individual needs and communal motivations”40.

General David Petraeus came to a similar conclusion related to the importance of developing the knowledge to influence the political and societal dynamics of the battlefield: “developing that knowledge is very important because it helps the commander to understand the context in which the military campaign is carried out. And I do believe such understanding is possible. In the end, counterinsurgency operations depend on a keen understanding of the political, historical, cultural, economic and military situation in each area.”41 38

“Reflections on the Counterinsurgency Decade: Interview with General David Petraeus”, by Octavian Manea, Small Wars Journal, September 2013, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/reflections-on-the-counterinsurgency-decadesmall-wars-journal-interview-with-general-david. 39 Andrew Mackay and Steve Tatham, Behavioural conflict: why understanding people and their motives will prove decisive in future conflict (London: Military Studies Press, 2011), 64. 40 Ibid., introduction. 41 Petraeus interview.

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Nonetheless, what matters for the counterinsurgent before selecting the tools and deciding on the strategies of influencing local people, is the understanding of the structural context, the constraints of the setting. Because at the end of the day, as behavioural psychologists have warned us, “we must be cautious of making generalized assumptions such as characterising humans as economic, selfish, greedy. If there is one lesson learnt about human motivation it is this: motivations are contextual. Context determines what people strive for and what drives them, not a one-size-fits-all model dreamed up by men in white coats”42.

This lesson in human behaviour is consistent with what the studies focusing on decoding the traits of political leadership style show43. In an insurgency setting, the context and the right set of incentives might be responsible for activating “the small, generalisable forces that drive individuals across the spectrum of roles”44. In the end, any counterinsurgent needs to understand and take into account the bounded rationality of the local actors he intends to influence: “when you talk about rationality it should be understood as a bounded rationality, in the context that it is being exercised. In other words, it is rational in the context of the local culture, religious tradition, sectarian, customs, education level. (…) you very much have to understand the human terrain and everything that affects it. As we say, try to walk a mile in their shoes.”45

Insurgencies and counterinsurgencies are, essentially, competitions for governance. The classic statement and conventional wisdom in this regard was formulated many years ago, by Bernard Fall, a close observer of the insurgencies in Algeria and Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s. For him, the very nature of an insurgency was primarily a political, ideological and administrative issue, not a military one. As a consequence, the key question was: “can we, in Vietnam or anywhere else, save or improve the administrative or governmental structure”? When you do not have a functional, supportive 42

Mackay and Tatham, op. cit., 161. For example, although considered irrational, unreliable, without any strategic purpose, Kim Jong Il “has shifted his leadership style three times across his tenure in office, and each time the shift appears to be triggered by changes in the political context in which he finds himself” (Margaret Hermann, 2010). 44 Jon Lindsay and Roger Petersen, Varieties of insurgency and counterinsurgency in Iraq, 2003-2009 (Newport: United States Naval War College, 2012), 25. 45 Petraeus interview. 43

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administrative machinery behind your COIN effort, the insurgency will be able to “take over a country under our feet”. He is the one who created one of the central features of the contemporary COIN discourse, in an article from April 1965 published in the Naval War College Review: “when a country is being subverted it is not being outfought; it is being outadministered. Subversion is literally administration with a minus sign in front”.

We find the same emphasis in Robert Thompson’s work. Again and again, his core critique of US efforts in Vietnam had an administrative flavour: “the administrative weakness was never properly addressed by the United States. Americans never understood that to win the war they had to build a country. It could not be won by military means alone”46.

Therefore, for Thompson, the way to attack the insurgency at its core was a strategic offensive conducted not by using conventional power, but through state-building and pacification: “this strategic offensive requires an intensely practical approach in its initial stages to the rebuilding of the whole Vietnamese government machine: the selection and training of qualified administrators and technicians at all levels; the revival of the ministries and of the administrative structure from the ministries right down to the villages, so that requirements come up and action goes down; and the restoration of law and order, which requires absolute priority for a professionally qualified police force”47.

The key word he always had in mind was administrative “performance”, the ability to deliver results. He approached the Vietnam case by applying what he saw as working in his own Malaya experience: the establishment of a viable, stable, competent government and state. The key step in an effort to counter an insurgency was the establishment of a superior organization (a highly coordinated administrative machinery), able to outperform the insurgent organisation: “quite the most vital feature of revolutionary war is its organisation. If the organization is the vital factor (and not its cause), then the revolutionary 46

Robert Thompson, Make for the Hills. Memories of Far Eastern Wars, (London: Leo Cooper, 1989), 127. 47 Idem, “Squaring the error”, Foreign Affairs 46 (1968):450.

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The Forthcoming Age of Urban Insurgency: Ways to Counteract movement will not be defeated by reforms designed to eliminate the cause. It will only be defeated by establishing a superior organization and applying measures designed to break the revolutionary organization”48.

For this reason, he advocated as a main priority the creation of a “reasonably efficient government machine”49 or of a sound administrative structure, because without it, the counterinsurgent cannot hope to achieve the desired results: “the best of plans, programs and policies will remain nothing but good intentions unless the machinery exists to execute them so that they make their impact throughout the country”50.

Only when having the right organisation, one that is able to calibrate, blend and mix in different proportions all the political, social, economic, administrative and military measures that should target the insurgency, would it be possible to establish in people’s minds the winning equation51. Countering an insurgency remains at its core an approach of the whole government, an all-in effort. One of the conventional wisdoms of the counterinsurgency theory was articulated long ago by British General Frank Kitson: “there can be no such thing as a purely military solution because insurgency is not primarily a military activity. Political measures alone might have prevented the insurgency from occurring in the first place, ... [but once an insurgency] has taken hold, politics and force, backed up by economic measures will have to be harnessed together for the purpose of restoring peaceful conditions”.

The implication is that a military effort in itself can succeed only along with other societal, economic and politic initiatives and instruments harnessed together through a governmental coordinating machine. The same conclusion, which shows the comprehensiveness of the response, was highlighted by General Petraeus in my interview with him: “If you pull out the Anaconda slide you will find out that no matter what the insurgency, no matter where the insurgency is, you need the elements of the 48 Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency (London: ChattoVindus, 1967), 7-8. 49 Ibid., 51. 50 Ibid., 70. 51 Ibid., p. 68.

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Anaconda framework. At the core there are the insurgents that have certain needs to sustain the insurgency (money, ammunition, explosives, leadership, communications, popular support, ideology, command and control, sanctuaries). To deal with that, you need a comprehensive civil-military effort that aims to squeeze the life out of the insurgency like an Anaconda snake. It tries to take away from the insurgents their access to the elements vital for their survival. And for this you need a very comprehensive effort. It cannot be done by the military alone or by civilians alone, host nations forces or the international community alone. It takes all the above. You need to have some conventional forces to carry out traditional clear-hold-build operations and special mission unit forces that can conduct high-risk targeted operations. You need to have an element that is going to organize, train, equip, build infrastructure for the host nation forces (police as well as military). You have to do the same with the civilian elements for local, provincial, and national governance structures for rule of law, elements beyond police (detention, penitentiary facilities, justice and legal courts). You need to enable some form of reconciliation because, typically, you cannot kill or capture your way out of the problem. You must take away as many of the fighters and leaders from the insurgents by convincing as many of them to be part of the solution instead of continuing to be part of the problem. There have to be enticements for this. Also, you need to improve basic services, education, infrastructure, access to food, healthcare, because that is what convinces the people that the government can provide better for them than the insurgent organisation. It has to be a very comprehensive effort on all of these very different lines of operations. Now, as we move forward, we should expect that most future campaigns will be comprehensive civil-military endeavours, requiring to employ every available tool in our diplomatic, economic and defence arsenals in complementary fashion and to do so in concert with coalition partners and host-nation elements.”52

What are the options of the state? Ways to counteract the insurgent energy. The question that arises is: what are the options of an internally overexpanded weak state when dealing with these kinds of postmodernist insurgencies (hybrid adversaries plus disaffected urban populations)? The traditional answer of the classic counterinsurgency theory would be to go down to the root of the problem and try to win the hearts and minds of the alienated and disaffected “other society”, gain popular support and cut the links between the other society and the hybrid adversaries. The ideal recipe is still a comprehensive governmental approach (the projection of a networked administrative-security-law enforcement effort), but in the case of an 52

Petraeus interview.

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increasingly over-expanded weak state, the challenge is to identify and opt for the right tools. In this context, it is our conviction that the experience of the Haiti Stabilization Initiative (HSI) in dealing with the gangs in the dangerous neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince, like Cité Soleil, but also that of the British counter-radicalisation programmes implemented under the CONTEST operation, provide us with key insights into ways of recommending a path meant to deal with postmodernist insurgencies. The key variable in both initiatives is to build or help earn trust between the state and the communities at grass roots level. The venues, in both cases, consisted of initiatives through NGOs and community policing, whose purpose was to engage and empower the local community and, by doing so, to marginalise to some extent the influence of gangs or to be able to collect sensitive intelligence so as to protect the state.

Haiti Stabilization Initiative Cité Soleil is the perfect embodiment of a shanty town, of a slum settlement, developed under the pressure of a huge migrant population wave shifted from the countryside to the city, in an ad-hoc manner, without public services and where the presence of state authorities was perceived as illegitimate53. In time, speculating the permissive environment fostered by a weak state, the gangs filled the gap. Step by step, they developed an illicit survival economy. For most of the youth, gang membership became the only job opportunity and source of income. The gangs even received: “support from the population, at least at first - locals saw them as defenders of the population from a government that provided no services except abusive police”54.

Their centre of gravity was the umbilical relationship with the community. So what was the option, especially in the absence of a weak state, unable to clear-hold-build its presence in the shantytown? The HSI’s answer was to try to influence and change the relationship between the community and the gangs through soft power tools, especially social and economic programmes. The idea was not to engage the gangs to connect with the community, but to attempt to engage the community directly, by avoiding the gang interface. The purpose of the HSI was to shape the environment, through community engagement, while trying to co-opt it 53

David Becker, “Gangs, netwar and community counterinsurgency in Haiti”, PRISM 2, no. 3 (2011): 138. 54 Ibid., 141.

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“by building local groups dedicated to positive ends, empowering popular informal local leaders who were not beholden to gang leaders or political patrons”55.

The desired outcome was to “weaken violence entrepreneurs and empower social entrepreneurs”56. One of the lessons learnt during the HSI experience was that what mattered most was to incentivise the people street by street, family by family, to become responsible for their own lives, to select by themselves projects tailored to their most pressing needs. In the end, what mattered most was the process of stimulating a community to take charge of their own destiny, to make local choices: ”in a slum dominated by gangs, there was a need for inhabitants to begin to take charge of their own lives, and getting together in a meeting and hashing out priorities and selecting informal leaders was crucial”57.

Step by step, these street-by-street micro-communities discovered they had common objectives, that they needed to safeguard their projects and that a larger state footprint was required. The key aspect of this experience was to shape the environment through incentives at grass roots level, in order for the return of the state’s presence to be required and increasingly expanded. In the end, what happened was that the HSI network of initiatives began to disrupt the gangs’ support network58. The state could then conduct on this favourable ground a clear-hold-build campaign.

British CONTEST The other very important campaign that could provide insight into how to deal with postmodern insurgencies is the British CONTEST. This was a Home Office campaign institutionalised after 2002 and designed to be focused domestically on “the insurgent energy and the subversive nature of the disaffected element of the population”59 that was living predominantly in Londonistan-type neighbourhoods. The main idea was to use a crossgovernment indirect approach based on soft power tools to counter the “growing disaffection or radicalisation of Muslim communities60. The effort 55

Ibid., 145. Ibid. 57 Ibid., 146. 58 Becker, “Gangs and community counterinsurgency”, 145. 59 Mackinlay, The Insurgent archipelago, 210. 60 Ibid., 211. 56

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was premised on a concerted whole-of-government approach based on police, social, cultural and childcare services61. In brief, it was a comprehensive, multi-agency effort. But the common denominator that both HIS and CONTEST share is the emphasis on the community grass roots level. The whole CONTEST architecture was built as a reinforcement network with a basic supportive purpose of the primary mission: to engage and empower local community leaders in a myriad of initiatives and projects designed to “regain territory in the struggle for Muslim minds”62. Like HSI, the CONTEST endeavour, through a network of programmes implemented by NGOs (professional, cultural and vocational trainings), funded by the government, started to change the perception of the Muslim communities by establishing communication channels “where before there had been none” and by diverting “disaffected young Muslims away from dangerous militancy”63. At the granular level, the CONTEST campaign is based on a community policing paradigm that implies orchestrating a dense network of Safe Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs), Gold Groups, NGOs and faith-based organisations. SNTs are composed of policemen whose main tasks are to understand and identify the needs, concerns and potential grievances of the community and help with addressing the most sensitive issues64. A second level is the cultivation of a network of trusted liaisons, reuniting key community members that may establish an informal communication channel with the community. A third level of engagement is the institutionalisation of a formal communication channel with the leadership of the local faith community65. All in all, the whole process revolving around community policing was also internalised by the New York Police Department (NYPD) and it implies finding ways to build an organic relationship between police and the community, because, ultimately, “a local police that is seen as an integral part of the community will increase trust in local enforcement authorities and encourage Muslims to become the eyes and the ears of the police”66.

The logic is to involve the community in its own protection. 61

Ibid., 216. Ibid., 228. 63 Ibid., 229. 64 Christopher Brown, “Countering radicalization: refocusing responses to violent extremism within the United States” (master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, 2011), 58. 65 Ibid. 66 Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad. Terror networks in the 21st century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 166. 62

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Uruguay’s SOCATA Something very similar along the lines of HSI and British CONTEST is being developed in some parts of Latin America, especially in Uruguay, where the Ministry of Social Development is projecting grass roots initiatives with the same purpose: to regain territory in the struggle for the other societies’ minds. In the whole country there are now 75 SOCATA teamsTerritorial Coordination Services, whose task is a clearly targeted one, focusing on the other societies grown in the shantytowns of Uruguay. Their raison d’être, as pictured in the official documents, is to: “weave and coordinate throughout the country where there are problems and needs… To bring together and construct this social safety net within the territory”67.

The outcome of SOCATA is to empower the local communities by incentivising their participation in Zonal Coordination Boards, reuniting all the key actors in the setting (residents, schools, clinics) around a programme tailored to local issues and needs. What matters is that the board consisting of representatives of local schools, churches, women’s groups and neighbourhood committees - all the key local stakeholders in a neighbourhood - is the actor that defines the programme. This endeavour was immediately reinforced with resources provided by Infamilia (a ministry programme for children and adolescents). On the other hand, the state remains an invisible actor, because the whole SOCATA process is managed by an NGO. At the same time, as a good “counterinsurgency tool”, each NGO is involved in collecting granular information about the local setting in which such threats are operating. In fact, “they are constructing a participatory diagnosis that identifies the barrio’s needs (...) street by street, recording the opinions and needs of the neighbourhood activists”68.

The NGO uses statistical snapshots provided by the state to understand its environment: age, poverty indicator, level of education, birthrate, data on schools, housing and health. Step by step, the SOCATA process is becoming embedded in the local societal fabric and texture. In the end, the outcome of the whole process revolves around the idea of changing the perception of the local community from within. For insurgent anti-statist thinker Raul Zibechi, 67 68

Zibechi, Territories in resistance, 280. Ibid., 283.

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SOCATA is just another name and initiative of the state (perceived as his arch-enemy and an evil actor), aiming to govern informally and indirectly the “other society”, some sort of indirect nation-building process: “the goal of this state action is to avoid revolution. SOCATA’s practices make the state and preserve it”69. Hence, it is just another form of state-building, recreating the bond between citizens and state, an attempt to win the trust and loyalty of the local community: “the new governance aims directly at the heart of the other societies in movement. It invades their spaces without armed troops but with functionaries supported by the state. This silent invasion is just as dangerous as a military intervention and seeks to achieve the same goals in a less conspicuous manner”70.

In both the British CONTEST and Uruguay’s SOCATA, the role of NGOs was crucial. They provided a key link connecting, in slow motion, frame by frame, the “other society” with the state. It was a “neutral” interface that gave the state the opportunity to learn, understand and target with surgical precision the root of the community needs. The logic of the state in this case is very similar to the core message of a famous 2009 American movie, “The Joneses”. In it, a perfect couple (played by David Duchovny and Demi Moore) along with their perfect teenagers, move to an upper-class gated community. Step by step, they start altering and changing the behaviour of the community from within. The problem is that they are not a family at all. They are employees whose job is to sell the appearance of a perfect family, and by being a role-model family, they are supposed to earn the trust of the local community. The purpose of the whole idea was business maximisation: the community will want to emulate the behaviour of the perfect family, buy the same products and act like them. As the supervisor of the family unit puts it in the movie: “You are here to sell a lifestyle, an attitude. If people want you, they will want what you’ve got”. The mission of the planted family was to connect the consumers with the sellers, but also to create a ripple effect “where you get other people to be selling for you”. A similar marketing strategy was implemented by Colonel Sean MacFarland when shaping the environment that ultimately caused the Ramadi Awakening. Using Malcolm Gladwell’s framework, MacFarland was aware that in order to create a tipping point one needed mavens that had the necessary goods, the right salespersons and the appropriate connectors:

69 70

Ibid., 288. Ibid., 294.

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“In Ramadi, the Soldiers of the Ready First were the mavens who had the goods - in this case, the ability to form, train and equip ISF and new leaders. The brigade and battalion commanders acted as salesmen. We identified Sattar as a connector who could get the people to buy into the Awakening. All the elements were in place for transformation; we only had to decide if we trusted Sattar. When our salesmen decided to take a risk with this connector, the effect was amazing in its speed and reach”71.

In all cases discussed above (Haiti, British CONTEST, Uruguay’s SOCATA) and even in the Ramadi Awakening, the purpose of the counterinsurgent was to sell and persuade the local community with regard to the virtues of a different lifestyle than the one advertised by the competition.

Conclusions and implications for future counterinsurgency campaigns The three campaigns - Haiti Stabilization Initiative, British CONTEST and Uruguay’s SOCATA - discussed above share some common elements that could provide foundational insights into the ideal framework of dealing with the insurgent energies developing in the urban peripheries of the 21st century. In fact, we are dealing with a mix of classic and contemporary assumptions: x All programmes were designed to address “the swamp rather than the mosquitoes that continuously emerged from it”72. The emphasis was not on kill and capture or kinetic operations, but on shaping the environment that produces insurgent energy. The tools were mainly civilian-administrative in their nature (political, social and economic). x All three programmes seemed to internalise a lesson from a British classic counterinsurgent - Frank Kitson: “the battlefield is not a physical one: it lies largely in the minds of the people. In his travels to collect data, the commander has to spend less time looking through his binoculars to see what is going on and more time talking to people such as policemen, local government officials and influential members of the community, including religious leaders, teachers”.

71

Niel Smith and Sean MacFarland, “Anbar Awakens: the Tipping Point”, Military Review, March-April (2008): 72. 72 Mackinlay, The Insurgent archipelago, 49.

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Overall, people respond to incentives, but to craft the right ones, the counterinsurgent needs to learn the right levers to pull, what makes them tick, their motivational forces, as well as the key variables that shape the manner in which individuals and communities make decisions in an insurgent setting. Almost in a Lawrencian way, the counterinsurgent has to understand, work through and leverage the contextual organic legitimacy structures. x All three programmes aimed to find and win over something that was perceived as a core element for what has become known, in time, as the Galula doctrine: “the key to pacifying a population is to identify a favourable minority and leverage it against the hostile minority and to control and rally the neutral majority”73.

x All three programmes aimed, directly and indirectly, to provide “legitimate governance” on behalf of the state and fix the legitimacy deficit of the state in the eyes of the local community. x In all cases, devolution was the key to success. Tailoring the counterinsurgent programme to fit societal local conditions and the specificities of the human terrain was a must. Hence, the managers of these micro-campaigns were as close as possible to the community and the citizens they were trying to influence. The counterinsurgent was focused on understanding the needs and the issues of the human terrain at grass roots level. In the end, you win street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, while designing programmes based on incentives tailored to the causal mechanisms that are decisive in determining individual and community choices. This is also a lesson relearned by the US in both Afghanistan and Iraq over the post 9/11 counterinsurgency decade: “most counterinsurgency is local. (…) each community, tribe, or sect is new terrain. Victory begins in the village and the neighbourhood by winning the confidence of those who live there. (…) What I saw in the cities and countryside affirmed the importance of understanding local politics, individual needs and communal motivations”74. 73

David Galula, Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958 (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2006), kindle edition, location 3987. 74 Andrew Mackay and Steve Tatham, introduction to Behavioural conflict: why understanding people and their motives will prove decisive in future conflict, by General Stanley McChrystal (London, Military Studies Press, 2011).

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x All three programmes were community-centred and communitycentric. This is even more specific than the classic population-centric doctrine, because the emphasis is on the context that surrounds an individual. It is on shaping the micro-environment in which the individual lives. It is not a top-down approach, but a bottom-up one. But for this to happen, a counterinsurgent needs to place the individual in his cultural, social and economic setting, so as to be able to comprehend his needs, the causal forces that are decisive in determining his choices. In other words, he needs to find the right levers and pull them. x Building trust with the population of the other society that you want to win over on your side by defusing its insurgent energy is the foundation of the entire process. Counterinsurgency remains at its core a battle for perceptions. But the key actors in this endeavour are predominantly civilian, embedded in the societal setting that they want to influence. The most important ones are organisations with a communitycentric mindset or those which are community-sensitive, like NGOs and neighbourhood police, whose raison d’être is to mobilise and empower local communities in the quest for their own defence. During the insurgencies of the past, these roles were played by the community defence militias, but today they are played by NGOs, which are on the “frontline” of the whole counterinsurgent process and are reinforced on a case-by-case basis by state agencies. Thus, as we have seen in the case of British CONTEST and Uruguay SOCATA, counterinsurgency is most successful when it is designed as a private-public partnership between state agencies (including law-enforcement), NGOs and local communities. x COIN is simply a “team of teams” game. If we constantly relearn the same conclusion that law enforcement instruments will only set up the stage for non-military actors to achieve peace, then the key aspect of strategic leadership in a counterinsurgency campaign becomes building the right civilian organisation to do so. The challenge for the top commander pertains to synchronising the coordinating administrative machinery and to endow this diverse and initially dysfunctional orchestra of various civilian agencies (each with its own mindset and institutional loyalty) not only with the feeling that they use the same script for playing, but also with the spirit that they are part of a “team of teams”, whose mission is to project a harmonious sound. The British COIN Manual relies on a similar insight provided by a classic counterinsurgent, Frank Kitson:

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The Forthcoming Age of Urban Insurgency: Ways to Counteract “many of the people who will be most influential in determining success or failure are not in the armed forces at all. They are the politicians, civil servants, local government officials and police, in the area where the insurgency is taking place...”

They need to be taught how to fit together a “team of teams”. They have to learn how to be a “team of teams”. Moreover, in the same spirit of “all tools in”, General David Petraeus highlighted in his RUSI speech, from the summer of 2013, a lesson that is worth keeping in mind as a framework that should be adapted to local conditions: “all future operations will continue to include some mix of offense, defence and stability operations; the key is to determine the right mix to be had in each specific endeavour and each specific area. Indeed, that observation further reminds us that most future campaigns will be comprehensive civil-military endeavours, requiring us to employ every available tool in our diplomatic, economic and defence arsenals in complementary fashion - and to do so in concert with coalition partners and host nation elements”75.

x What really matters from the point of view of an organisational culture is that all state actors involved in the counterinsurgency campaign, including law-enforcement and security forces, should have a communitycentric mindset, one that puts the citizens and the population at its core. The key here is not only a process focused on rebuilding the security hardware of the state - with its military and police forces, judiciary and penitentiary systems - in lost and ungoverned territories, but it involves a much more subtle, difficult and challenging task, namely that of “changing the software of the state, the minds of its citizens”76. A good example in this context was the process of resetting the Sierra Leone Police (SLP)’s organisational culture after 2000, under British guidance, i.e. an operation of changing the software of the institution. In this sense, recruits were taught interviewing skills, how to record statements from complainants, witnesses and suspects, how to obtain accurate descriptions of people and properties. These were essentially the skills of a police officer that was becoming a public servant, i.e. someone who is genuinely in the service of the community. Another core programme, essential for changing the mindset of the organisation, was that of the Local Policing Partnership Boards (LPPBs), whose purpose was to create symbiotic 75

David Petraeus, “Reflections on the Counterinsurgency Decade” (speech, RUSI, summer 2013). 76 Paddy Ashdown, “Peace Stabilisation: The Lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina” (lecture, London School of Economics, December 8, 2003).

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linkages between the police and the community. As the first post-war local chief of the SLP stated: “when you look at policing functions, it is a partnership. Investigation is a partnership also. We changed the police from always being reactive to being proactive. That was the new concept, trying to prevent crimes before they take place. So, therefore, we said, in order for the people to assist us, we must have local policing partnership boards”77.

In itself, this statement shows a sea change in the mindset of the organisation towards a population-centric focus based on a community partnership paradigm. Ultimately, the community also had a say in the promotion and even in the recruitment process: “we go to the community, because this is where services are being delivered. The community people, how do they see their performance? So this was how they became part of the promotion board and we also make them part of the recruitment process”.

These are all samples of a new mindset that emphasises the priority of creating a connection/a bond between the state’s institutions and its people. The overall outcome of the reforming process was to foster a generation of public servants with a different set of values. x What are the implications for the military forces in a communitycentric counterinsurgency effort? They should always be prepared to reinforce and support primary local actors: police, NGOs, the civilian administrative governance infrastructure. They should be prepared to fight against a hybrid adversary, not a conventional one, while being very careful not to alienate the local urban community. They should be comfortable operating in a 21st century slum urban environment where gangs and local communities might be closely bonded and nested. The Tivoli Gardens example provides a useful contingency for which the military forces should be trained. The lessons of the post 9/11 counterinsurgency decade show us that: “we need troops who understand the cultural and legal landscape in which they will find themselves. The line between crime and war is increasingly blurred. Tomorrow’s soldiers will need to be fully integrated with law 77

Brima Acha Kamara, the first post-war local chief of the SLP, quoted in Paul Jackson and Peter Albrecht, Reconstructing Security after Conflict. Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone (Palgrave, Macmillan, 2011), 108.

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The Forthcoming Age of Urban Insurgency: Ways to Counteract enforcement to meet the complex challenges. These bad actors actively exploit our cultural and bureaucratic predispositions to bifurcate police work from military work and they find ways to operate at the edge of the gap between crime and war, for which conventional governmental organisations are not well suited”78.

Assumptions x in the age of super-empowered individuals and hybrid non-state actors, the threats of the 21st century might emanate less from states that are too strong, but from those that are too weak to deal with the governance challenges generated by the potentially new ungoverned territories, the slums and urban peripheries, feral neighbourhoods developed at the edge of the megacities in the context of a massive migrant influx of rural populations in the city; x operating in conditions of extreme cleavage between centre and periphery, the central state is a re-enforcer of last resort of the local counterinsurgent forces; the core state philosophy should be an antiPowell doctrine emphasising a light military COIN footprint; the central state will act through proxies; x the main COIN actors are NGOs at grass roots level, community police in conjunction with the local civilian-administrative governance infrastructure; x when the host nation government is too weak to act as a reenforcer of last resort for the local counterinsurgent actors, international organisations (NATO, UN, EU) or individual states (US, UK) with a strong record of expeditionary counterinsurgency might step in to advise, support, train and guide the local COIN actors.

Bibliography Ashdown, Paddy. “Peace Stabilisation: The Lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina” (lecture, London School of Economics, December 8, 2003). Becker, David. “Gangs, netwar and community counterinsurgency in Haiti”, PRISM 2, no. 3, (2011): 137-54.

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“Rebalancing the US Military for 21st century: Interview with Janine Davidson”, by Octavian Manea, Small Wars Journal, October 29th, 2012, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/rebalancing-the-us-military-for-21st-centurythreats.

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Beckett, Ian. “The Future of Insurgency”, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 16:1 (2005): 22-36. Brown, Christopher. “Countering radicalization: refocusing responses to violent extremism within the United States”, (master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, 2011), https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=699530. Davidson, Janine. “Rebalancing the US Military for 21st century: Interview with Janine Davidson.” By Octavian Manea. Small Wars Journal, October 2012, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/rebalancing-the-usmilitary-for-21st-century-threats. Davis, Mike. Planet of slums. London: Verso, 2006. Felbab-Brown, Vanda. “Gangs, slums, megacities and the utility of population centric counterinsurgency: Interview with Vanda Felbab Brown.” By Octavian Manea. Small Wars Journal, October 2013, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/gangs-slums-megacities-and-theutility-of-population-centric-coin. Galula, David. Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2006. Galvin, John. "Uncomfortable Wars: Toward a New Paradigm," Parameters, vol. XVI, no. 4 (1986). Ghonim, Wael. Revolution 2.0: the power of the people is greater than the people in power. London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2012. Seth, Jones and Johnston, Patrick. “The Future of Insurgency”, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 36:1, (2013): 1-25. Kilcullen, David. Interview by Octavian Manea, Small Wars Journal, November 2010, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/interview-with-drdavid-kilcullen. —. “The city as a system: future conflict and urban resilience”, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. 36:2 (2012): 19-39. —. “Out of the Mountains: the coming age of the urban guerrilla” (speech, New America Foundation, September 18th, 2013), http://www.newamerica.net/events/2013/out_of_the_mountains. Killbrew, Robert. “Understanding future of irregular warfare challenges” (testimony, House Armed Services Committee March 27th, 2010). Lansdale, Edward G., “Peoples’ wars. Three primary lessons” (lecture, Air War College, January 15th, 1973). Lindsay, Jon and Petersen, Roger. Varieties of insurgency and counterinsurgency in Iraq, 2003-2009. Newport: United States Naval War College, 2012. Mackay, Andrew and Tatham, Steve. Behavioural conflict: why understanding people and their motives will prove decisive in future conflict. London: Military Studies Press, 2011.

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Mackinlay, John. The Insurgent archipelago. From Mao to bin Laden. London: C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd, 2012. —. “After 2015. The Next Security Era for Britain”, PRISM 3, no. 2, (2012): 51-60. Michnik, Adam. Letters from prison and other essays. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Naim, Moises. The end of power-from boardrooms to battlefields and churches to states, why being in charge isn’t what it used to be. New York: Basic Books, 2013. Norton, Richard. “Feral cities”, Naval War College Review, No. 4, (2001): 97-106. Petraeus, David, “Reflections on the Counterinsurgency Decade” (speech, RUSI, summer 2013, for receiving the Chesney Gold Medal). —. “Reflections on the Counterinsurgency Decade: Interview with General David Petraeus”. By Octavian Manea. Small Wars Journal, September 2013, http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/reflections-on-the-counterin surgency-decade-small-wars-journal-interview-with-general-david. —. Defeating Communist Insurgency. London: Chatto Vindus, 1967. —. “Squaring the error”, Foreign Affairs 46 (1968): 442-53. —. Make for the Hills. Memories of Far Eastern Wars. London: Leo Cooper, 1989. Sageman, Marc. Leaderless Jihad. Terror networks in the 21st century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Smith, Niel and MacFarland, Sean. “Anbar Awakens: the Tipping Point”, Military Review, March-April (2008): 65-76. Sullivan, John P. and Bunker, Robert, J. “Rethinking insurgency: criminality, spirituality, and societal warfare in the Americas”, Small Wars & Insurgencies, Vol. 22, no. 5 (2011): 742-63. Zibechi, Raul. Territories in resistance. A cartography of Latin American Social Movements. Edinburgh: AK Press, 2012.

NATO IN THE 21ST CENTURY: SPREADING DEMOCRACY THROUGH SECURITY AND ASSURING SECURITY THROUGH DEMOCRACY— A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE CLAUDIU BOLCU

Introduction The international system is constantly changing. The validity of this affirmation is increasingly irrefutable, as we are witnessing recurrent shifts in the way we observe, understand and even perform international relations. Both conceptual and practical changes are occurring with global politics becoming more and more complex and interconnected. Accordingly, “security” and “democracy”, two fundamental concepts in IR seem to have long parted from their traditional understanding. For example, the “classical” way of perceiving security was state-related and military-bound: the acquisition and use of military force in order to fulfil national goals (Buzan, 1991). Yet, in today’s world “security is being more broadly defined away from the traditional state-centred focus on ‘national security’”1. This is happening because of various reasons, the most important of which being the fact that threats have become “global” (since 9/11) and increasingly diverse. Armed attacks stem now not only from states and their militaries, but also from sub-national groups, terrorist organizations and even individuals, while the nature of the attack is way beyond the definitions of “classical warfare” (cyber-attacks, suicide bombings, etc.). Naturally, states find it progressively difficult to protect their own borders alone and thus we are witnessing what David Held calls “a decentralization of security problems”, meaning a coming together of states with regard to security issues and thus a shift from individual, state-centered security, to collective, 1

Judith, Large, Timothy, D, Sisk. (editors), Democracy, Conflict and Human Security: pursuing Peace in the 21st Century, IDEA, Stockholm, Sweden, 2006, p. 13.

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regional (through NATO, EU or ASEAN) or even international security (through the UN)2. At the same time, since threats have become global, they have come to be more directly experienced by people rather than states and thus closer attention is now being paid to “human security”, focusing on the individual and not on the community (state). The safety of individuals is no longer the sole responsibility of their governments, but the duty of the entire international system. With global governance becoming a key concept in today’s politics, respect for people and international human rights, have become as important to global security as international conflicts. In other words, international security has come to encompass both hard security (international warfare, military conflicts, border safety) and soft security threats (health, environmental effects, human rights, etc.), becoming universal/globalized in the process3. Not too far off from this image we find the concept of “democracy”. Increasingly intricate, modern-day democracy has become a sort of universal value, a default system of governance, with many forms. In order to illustrate these forms, a vast number of ‘adjectives’ have been applied to the democracy ‘label’, “not so much to create new sub-types of democracy as to exemplify how it is practiced differentially in a wide variety of settings”. Some of these adjectives include: “‘authoritarian democracy’, ‘delegative democracy’, ‘neo-patrimonial democracy’, ‘military-dominated democracy’, ‘façade democracy’, ‘pseudo-democracy’”, and ‘partial democracy’4. Upon such a depiction one cannot but acknowledge the shallowness of the concept which has come to bare quite paradoxical attributes in spite of its “universal value”. Relevant in this sense are the words of Amartya Sen who states that “a country does not have to be deemed fit for democracy; rather it has to become fit through democracy”5, as if democracy is some sort of “wonder medicine” applicable anywhere and anyhow. Indeed, once it is up and running, democracy may truly be the best form of government (as it has been historically argued), but when it comes to transitioning towards democracy, this is where issues start arising and one

2 David, Held; Anthony, McGrew; David, Goldblatt; Jonathan, Perraton, Transformări globale. Politică, economie úi cultură (Global Transformations. Politics, Economy and Culture), Polirom, Iaúi, 2004, p. 86. 3 Large, Sisk, 2006 Op. Cit. p. 19. 4 Ibidem, p. 4; 132. 5 Amartya, Sen, “Democracy as Universal Value”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1999, pp. 3-17. p. 4.

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ends up using the adjectives mentioned above6. As C.L. Creighton rightfully argues, “When it comes to democracy, what seems to be lacking most is its fulfillment in practice“7. Judging from this initial account, it seems that not only “security” and “democracy” as individual concepts have shifted from their “conventional” position, but also the traditional relation between them is slowly changing. For many years democracy was thought of as a breeding ground for security. As the classical democratic peace theory states, democracies rarely fight each other, so, hypothetically speaking, if we were to have a world system comprised only of democracies, conflicts may no longer exist However, if we turn back the pages of our history books we realize that communist states rarely fought each other as well8. Also, as we saw above, we are no longer dealing with a single, universal type of democracy. Yes, theoretically, democracies are more and more widespread making up approximately 80% of all world governments (Ibid.), but, as presented previously, there is a huge difference between the democracy in a country like France and that in a country like Afghanistan. Implicitly, the security status of the two states is radically different. A transitional democracy like that in Afghanistan may be more likely to bring about insecurity and conflict rather than security and stability. As was the case in this country and many others (the most eloquent examples include former Yugoslavia and numerous African countries) such transition processes usually “alter structures and power relations, rearrange political competition and often exacerbate social problems rather than ameliorate them”9. Therefore, it would seem that achieving security through democracy is not as easy as it once was (if it ever was indeed). Also, if we are to take the reverse process, there is another myth which states that stability and security are essential pre-conditions for establishing a democratic regime10. This may undoubtedly be the case, but a stable and secure state may also be authoritarian or of any other nature, not necessarily democratic. As such, the relationship between security and democracy is far more complex than first imagined: although complementary, they do not always go hand in hand and thus establishing one with the help of the other is a very delicate task, 6

John, C. Pevehouse; Joshua S. Goldtein, International Relations, 8th Edition, Longman Publishers, New York; 2008, p. 224. 7 C. L. Creighton. The Public Participation Handbook: Making Better Decisions through Citizen Involvement, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2005, p. 1. 8 Timothy, Dunne: “Liberalism”, in Baylis, Jon/Smith, Steve (eds.), The Globalization of World Politics, Oxford, 2001, pp. 162-181; p.171. 9 Held et al., 2004, Op Cit, p. 71. 10 Large, Sisk, 2006, Op. Cit. p. 50.

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especially in an ever changing, constantly progressing world. As already discussed, state governments are no longer solely responsible for integrating the two, since democratic governance and security issues are increasingly present on the agendas of regional and even international organisms.

Security, Democracy and NATO: the Starting Point In this sense, there are very few international agents that can actually handle both security and democracy related operations. Amongst them, NATO is by far “the most operationally capable and potentially effective”11. Its suitability also stems from the fact that the Alliance’s way of functioning and its perception over military security is very much in line with the already stated “modern way” of conceptualizing security. What I mean by this is the fact that NATO, during its more than 60 years of existence, has developed a solid process of integrated military command, interoperability, standardization, common military planning and multilateral military operations consistent with the above mentioned decentralization and even collectivization of security12. Even more so, besides this security-related focus, NATO is also by definition a democratic and democracy promoting institution, which: “Through outreach and openness…seeks to preserve peace, support and promote democracy, contribute to prosperity and progress, and foster genuine partnership with and among all democratic Euro-Atlantic countries”13

Consequently, as a long standing international actor dealing both with security and with democracy as well as with their mutual implementation NATO is probably the best option when it comes to investigating the way in which security and democracy have evolved conceptually over the past decades as well as how they are being implemented through one of the international community’s most important and active proponents. Another essential aspect which this study will discuss is whether or not “democracy” and “security” do actually go hand in hand and what circumstances facilitate their mutual constitution. During the next pages I intend to analyze all these issues by looking into NATO’s evolution with regard to some of its international roles - as a security management institution (or security 11

Pevehouse, Goldstein, 2008, Op. Cit., p.224; Hugh, Miall, “Global Governance and Conflict Prevention”, in F. Cochrane, R. Duffy and J. Selby (eds), Global Governance, Conflict and Resistance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, p. 68. 12 Hilaire, McCourbey, “Kosovo, NATO and Humanitarian Law”, International Relation, Vol. 14, No. 5, 1999, p. 37. 13 Held, 2004, Op. Cit., p. 173.

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guarantor) (Wolff, 2009; Flockhart, 2010) and as a democracy promoter (Wolff, 2009) – aiming to also establish whether or not the Alliance is indeed a suitable and efficient organism in promoting both security and democracy, in what has come to be a very unpredictable world. For explanatory purposes, I must also mention that, when it comes to NATO’s security related dealings, I have decided to focus on the role of “security guarantor” as it is a broad enough depiction, which can be attributed to a wide time span and which encompasses both hard security issues as well as soft security issues14 (Flockhart’s portrayal of a “security management institution” is in my opinion strictly related to NATO’s post-Cold War attributes and its inclinations towards soft security challenges). Concerning the Alliance’s role as a democracy promoter, I believe that Wolff himself explains best what this role entails and implicitly what kind of democratic attributes NATO promotes in its missions: [the role]… “captures a whole host of activities intended to spread democratic values, encourage the adaption of Western civil society norms, spur liberal market reforms or provide humanitarian and development aid”15.

The Early Stages In order to get started, one cannot go about without referring to NATO’s security inclinations which have been indisputable to the Organization ever since its inception. Conceived as a military alliance aimed at discouraging the soviet progression towards Western Europe, NATO was among the first international agents to introduce and uphold the concept of collective security. As the Alliance’s famous article 5 states: “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them…will assist the Party or Parties”16.

14

NATO, “The Alliance’s Strategic Concept: Approved by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council”, Washington D.C., 24th of April, 1999, article 33, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27433.htm, accessed 16th of May 2013. 15 Andrew, T., Wolff, “The Structural and Political Crisis of NATO’s transformation”, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Vol. 7, No.4, pp. 476-492; 2009, p.479. 16 NATO, The North Atlantic Treaty, Washington D.C., 4th of April, 1949, article 5, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm, accessed on the 16th of July 2013.

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Yet, in spite of its external aim, that of deterring any possible outside aggression, NATO also had a far more important internal purpose also related to the idea of security. As Wolf eloquently emphasizes: “Besides resisting Soviet aggression, the alliance served another purpose, that of resolving a centuries-old crisis of security in Europe, by inserting a permanent balancer into the European security structure. Great Britainonce played this role but no longer had the resources in the twentieth century to doso. The United States took up this task after the Second World War with a programof military expenditures, extended troop presence, and political supervision thatcombined to satisfy smaller continental states’ security anxieties and adjudicatediffering security interests amongst the European great powers that had historicallybeen rivals”17.

However, as it has already been proved by constructivists and reflectivists in general, NATO was not only about securing individual states against past mistakes and a common material threat (the USSR), but also a “selfconscious coming together of like-minded entities in the name of a common idea”, or better yet, a common identity greater then themselves: the western civilization, encompassing all the democratic values of the free world18. As one of the “founding fathers” of NATO explained, “NATO purports to be far more than a defensive arrangement. It is an affirmation of the moral and spiritual values which we hold in common”19. He is completed by Ernst Bevin (British Foreign Secretary at the time) who states: “If we are to have an organism in the West, it must be a spiritual union. While, no doubt there must be treaties, or at least understandings, the union must primarily be a fusion derived from the basic freedoms and ethical principles for which we all stand”20.

This statement is confirmed by the preamble of NATO’s founding document, the Washington Treaty, where the signatory states declared that their primary purpose is that of safeguarding “the freedom, common heritage and civilization of its peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law”21. In other words, NATO aimed at protecting not only the material wellbeing of its members 17

Wolff, 2009, Op. Cit., p. 477. Patrick T, Jackson; “Defending the West: Occidentalism and the formation of NATO” The Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol.11, No.3, pp. 223-252; 2003, p. 224. 19 Dean Acheson in Ibidem. 20 Jackson, 2003, Op. Cit., p. 241 21 NATO,1949, Op. Cit, preamble. 18

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(security guarantor), but also their ideological distinctiveness, namely the democratic values which united the community (democracy promoter).If the former role was characterized through article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the latter role can be found within article 2: “The alliance will contribute towards peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions and by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded”22.

Nonetheless, the historical developments which marked the subsequent decades prevented NATO from exercising both these attributes and constrained the Alliance into focusing its entire attention on safeguarding its members against the mighty adversary in the East. As a result, during the Cold War period NATO was unable to actively carry out its role as a democracy promoter as it was forced to ideologically defend democracy from communist expansion, even within member states. Thus, in the Cold War years, NATO was more like a democracy protector than a democracy promoter. Yet, as revealed above, its role as a security guarantor was in full swing. Basically, at this stage it would seem that security was enabling democracy to work and hold its ground against threats both from within and from without. In spite of this fact, this security guarantee was limited to the “North Atlantic” arena, since the Cold War animosities were blocking any global attempt of providing international security through the collective security principles adopted after the Second World War (within the UN) and promoted by NATO. Thus, despite its complexity, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was for many years upon its birth confined to hard security issues and to the role of a defensive military alliance, somewhat trapped within its borders.

Moving Forward All this was to change along with the unexpected fall of communism and the dismantling of the USSR. This surprising event left the Alliance without a clear sense of purpose, as for many years NATO had been defined and also perceived itself in opposition to its ideological foe. Thus, with the Soviet Union collapsing, NATO’s role identity, that of a defense alliance, a security guarantor for its members became meaningless, since there was nothing left

22

Ibidem, article 2.

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(at least not that obvious) to defend from23. The international security environment was shifting towards a looser conceptualization of threats and security issues (now inclining towards soft security issues such as human rights), while NATO was still very much perceived as a “hard-core” security institution limited to military warfare. As a result, rationalistic accounts of the time predicted the Alliance’s crumbling as there was no use for it anymore (Waltz, 1990; Mearsheimer, 1991, 1994). However, what such accounts failed to grasp was exactly the Alliance’s communitarian nature and its homogenous democratic character (which had been lurking in the shadows during the Cold War)24, solidified in time and developed as part of its members’ national identity: “NATO embodies the transatlantic link by which the security of North America is permanently tied to the security of Europe. It is the practical expression of effective collective effort among its members in support of their common interests….The fundamental operating principle of the Alliance is that of common commitment and mutual co-operation among sovereign states in support of the indivisibility of security for all of its members”25.

Nevertheless, once the Soviet threat was gone and the Cold War was over, the Alliance’s geographical boundaries were left somewhat void, as was the idea of defending them. Luckily, the decades old bond between its members and the complex mechanisms already established between them, allowed NATO to adjust itself to new security missions26. Thus, along with the London Summit of 1990 and the strategic concept of 1991, NATO engaged in a process of massive transformations. The first step was to give up its defensive posture (which dominated the alliance during the Cold War) and take on a more flexible outlook characterized by an expanded geographical scope, enhanced operational roles and a new mission: that of constructing

23

Claudiu Bolcu, “Global NATO: An Identity Based Account of the Alliance in the 21st Century”, Romanian Review of International Studies, Volume 4, No.2, 2012, pp. 17-46, p. 27. 24 See previous page. 25 NATO, “The Alliance’s New Strategic Concept”, Approved by the Heads of State and Government, London, 7-8th of November, 1991, articles 16-17, available at http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_23847.htm, accessed 16th of March 2013. 26 Celeste, A., Wallander. “Institutional Assets and Adaptability: NATO after the Cold War”, International Organization Vol. 54, No. 4, Autumn, 2000, pp. 705–735; pp. 711-712.

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Europe’s post-Cold War security architecture based on NATO’s fundamental values: democracy, friendship, liberalism and the rule of law27 Already, we are able to notice that NATO’s post-Cold War security strategy was to be grounded on the Alliance’s democratic baseline, which should have helped implement and nurture security within the “Old Continent”. Thus, NATO’s overarching purpose in the 1990s would become that of assisting the slow and shady transition process of Central and Eastern European states from communism to democracy (democracy promotion) and implicitly preventing any major conflict in the region as a result of the new geopolitical rearrangements (security guarantor). According to the famous London Declaration: “Our Alliance must be even more an agent of change. It can help build the structures of a more united continent, supporting security and stability with the strength of our shared faith in democracy, the rights of the individual, and the peaceful resolution of disputes. We reaffirm that security and stability do not lie solely in the military dimension, and we intend to enhance the political component of our alliance as provided for by Article II of our Treaty”28.

Now, if during the Cold War NATO’s hard security side was in the forefront (safeguarding its members and values), in the 1990s democracy promotion became one of NATO’s essential tasks being used alongside its security prerogatives (which also shifted towards soft security issues) in order to promote peaceful change in Europe (very much in line with the international changes that came to recognize democracy and soft security concerns as increasingly important). In other words, NATO was swiftly adapting its “democracy” and “security” roles to the global transformations that affected and modified the understanding and practice of the two concepts. As such, NATO’s first actions as a democracy promoter began in 1990 when: “The alliance exchanged diplomatic liaisons with Central and Eastern European countries and invited these countries to begin political and military dialogues. A year later, NATO established its first formal outreach initiative the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC)”29.

27

Wolff, 2009, Op. Cit., p. 477. NATO, London Declaration, 6 July 1990, paragraph 2, available at http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b900706a.htm, accessed at 16th of July, 2013. 29 Wolff, 2009, Op. Cit., p. 480. 28

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This consultative body was envisaged as a forum where NATO members could meet with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and “aid in fostering a sense of security and confidence among these countries and to help them transform their societies and economies, making democratic change irreversible”30. Besides the NACC31, NATO also established other forums and programs aimed at reaching towards potential partners who would help fulfill the Alliance’s purpose of nurturing a Europe that is secure and free. Amongst the most notable arrangements we find the “Partnership for Peace” program (1994), the “Mediterranean Dialogue” (1994) and the “NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council (1997)32. All these turned out to be incredibly successful especially when it comes to NATO’s expansion towards the East. Basically, the Alliance managed to project into Central and Eastern Europe, “Western-defined liberal norms and rules of international behavior, in particular involving peaceful settlements of disputes, multilateralism and democracy and human rights promotion in the international arena”33. The reason for this success had lot to do, in my opinion, with what I have already briefly presented above, namely this sort of global democratic trend which spurred up upon the fall of communism and engulfed not only the former soviet states of Central and Eastern Europe, but many other parts of the world as well. Democracy had emerged victorious in this great ideological battle and thus its validity became unquestionable. It began spreading at a rapid pace, while NATO, who was in a process of reconceptualizing itself, climbed aboard this train and became one of democracy’s most important promoters, especially in the field of security. The Alliance was teaching its new partners “Accountability and transparency in the formulation of defence policies and budgets, the division of powers within the state in the area of security, government oversight of the military through civilian defence ministries and accountability for the armed forces”34.

30 North Atlantic Council, Final Communiqué, December 19, 1991, article 2, available at: http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c911219a.htm, accessed at 11th of August 2013. 31 The NACC was morphed into the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in 1997 32 Trine Flockhart, “NATO and the (Re)constitution of Role: ‘Self’, ‘We’ and ‘Other”, DIIS Report, No. 4, 2010, p.19. 33 Alexandra Gheciu, “Security Institutions as Agents of Socialization? NATO and the 'New Europe”, International Organization, Vol. 59, No. 4, Autumn, 2005, pp. 9731012, p. 974. 34 Ibidem.

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In other words, the Alliance was using democracy in order to promote its security standards into CEE countries and, at the same time, it was using the field of security in order to promote democracy and democratic processes into these new liberal states (providing security through democracy and democracy through security). Still, success was not necessarily immediate and in some cases even non-existent. NATO’s attempt to provide security through democracy hit its first dead end during the Bosnian conflict which basically forced the Alliance to carry out its first real operation. Theorists that have researched this intervention argue that NATO’s reaction to the conflict revealed its permanent shift from a defensive military alliance to an offensive crisis management institution35, capable of mounting more and more complex security challenges. With regard to the purpose of this paper, the Bosnian conflict shows that democracy, freedom and the whole array of westernliberal norms promoted by NATO do not necessarily grant a safe passage towards security, stability and mutual understanding. Although intricate and extremely well-designed, the Alliance’s democracy promotion tactics hit the wall and proved that transitional democracies are indeed prone to insecurity and conflict rather than security and appeasement. As Large and Sisk also noticed: “Democratic transitions are problematic. Although democracy is an indispensable goal, the process of introducing democratic practices is inherently troubled”…. “The actual process of political reform is destabilizing, and in the short term there may be real and direct threats to peace in democratizing societies as a result of the uncertainty and competition that democracy introduces into unsettled social environments, in particular at times of economic stress”36.

Consequently, instead of providing security through democracy, the Alliance was forced to take on peacekeeping operations in the region in an attempt to assure security and maybe through security, enable a smoother transition towards democracy, human rights and mutual acceptance. Although NATO was growing in complexity, its primordial task - that of a defensive alliance concerned with the safety of its members and surrounding borders seemed to remain very much alive. Yet, the unpleasantness of the situation in Bosnia did not discourage NATO from pursuing its new-found role, that of promoting democracy towards the East and beyond. Through the already mentioned Partnership for Peace andthe Membership Action Plan, NATO had "co-opted" other Central 35 36

Flockhart, 2010, Op. Cit., p. 14. Large, Sisk, 2006, Op.Cit., p. 49.

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and East European actors into activities that were to affect the waysin which the latter think and behave, “socializing” them into the "Western ways"37. Of course, some countries were more responsive than others, but, just like in the case of Bosnia, there were still many unsettled disputes especially in the Balkans. Thus, only a few years after the Bosnian conflict (where NATO was still undergoing peacekeeping operations), the Kosovo issue started arising, threatening stability in the region and even NATO’s borders (which had reached Serbia through the acceptance of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary). In this situation, the Alliance’s “hard security” alarms started ringing once more and without further ado, NATOundertook a campaign of air strikes against Serbia with the declared purpose of ending the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The conflict was perceived as a potential threat to European security and thus, undertaking its role of Europe’s security guarantor, NATO was determined to intervene (although officially the Alliance always argued that the intervention was done strictly to protect the Kosovar Albanians and to stop the actions of ethnic cleansing performed by the Milosevic regime – soft security reasons)38. The operation however, took place without any prior UN authorization (in other words unilaterally) and, as a result, sparked an entire wave of contestation with regard to the Alliance and its presumed unlawful and selfish interests in the region39. Eventually, the intervention was paradoxically classified as “legitimate but illegal” by the special Independent International Commission on Kosovo (IICK), but what is important for the purpose of this paper and what NATO realized after the intervention was that its international roles (security guarantor in Europe and democracy promoter) were beginning to bash heads. By intervening in Kosovo the way that it did NATO fulfilled its security tasks towards members and partners in Europe, but it sacrificed its credibility as a democracy promoter. Its forceful, unilateral (even authoritarian) actions raised enormous doubts with regard to NATO’s democratic nature as a whole, let alone its capacity of delivering and “teaching” democracy to others. Moreover, in practical terms, the operation’s success was only partial as it determined Milosevic to accept a form of international supervision, but it did not manage to guarantee a safer living space for the Kosovar Albanians, leaving the area neither secure, nor increasingly inclined towards a peaceful democratic settlement of the crisis40. 37

Gheciu, 2005, Op. Cit, p. 976. Karina, Z. Butler, A Critical Humanitarian Approach, Palgrave MacMillan, United Kingdom, 2011, p.5. 39 McCoubrey, 1999, Op. Cit., p. 37. 40 Ibidem, p. 38. 38

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With regard to the present paper, this event raises an important point when it comes to the relationship between security and democracy, namely the point of credibility, increasingly present upon 1990. Unlike the Cold War era, after the fall of the Berlin wall, the international environment shifted gears and growing concern was given to grave instances of human suffering along with coordinated international efforts aimed at alleviating areas of long lasting conflict. Security assistance to failed or crumbling states often took the form of democracy building, as democracy was believed to be the “ultimate system of conflict management” due to its advancement of human rights and of a thorough institutional framework41. Although not always successful in bringing about security and stability (as we have discussed above) democracy still held primacy as a solution towards conflicts and unrest, since it was believed to provide “the means for managing and resolving disputes peacefully, in an atmosphere of mutual trust42. Unfortunately, this is precisely what NATO failed to achieve in Kosovo. As Large and Sisk point out, “the success of democracy in providing security depends both on how it works in practice and what it delivers”43….in addition, when assisted through the international community a key aspect is also who delivers it, how it delivers it and if that institution or organism is credible or not. In our case, NATO had been a credible, legitimate international agent, but its intervention in Kosovo proved to be both undemocratic and somewhat unsuccessful (as we have seen previously). Thus, the operation destroyed the Alliance’s credibility as an unselfish promoter of security and democracy (working with one towards the other). The wave of contestation came as natural since NATO did what it was actually supposed to prevent and what it was teaching its new partners not to do. True, the Alliance may have been extremely capable at assuring internal democratic mechanisms and the safety of its members from outside threats, but when it came to delivering security and democracy to external areas, NATO appeared either overconfident and even ill-prepared or simply interested in pursuing its own purposes. Nevertheless, drawing the line after its first decade as a reshaped organization, the Alliance’s officials seemed to be looking on the bright side of things, content with the success of NATO’s post-Cold War transformation and its overall accomplishments: 41

Large, Sisk, 2006, Op. Cit., pp. 4-14 Kofi Annan, Why Democracy is an International Issue’, Cyril Foster Lecture, Oxford University, 19 June 2001, available at http://www.escwa.org.lb/information/press/un/2001/word-pdf/19june.pdf, accessed at 16th of July 2013; 43 Large, Sisk, 2006, Op. Cit., p. 2. 42

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NATO in the 21st Century “NATO’s mission, as we enter the 21st Century, is to…reach out, proactively, to support democracy within countries, and peaceful participation by states in international relations. And the alliance is doing that by providing to the new democracies what it has always provided its members: “mechanisms through which to work together; a table around which to discuss common challenges, and, thereby, a framework within which old historical grievances can be left behind”44.

A Tumultuous Period However, NATO’s plans for the 21st century took an unexpected turn in 2001 when the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Centre collapsed as a result of a terrorist attack. The images of the hijacked planes crashing into the towers came as a shock to people all over the world and immediately, the incident became a historic event… something “that we all shared”45. Obviously, an incident of this magnitude has, in general, important consequences when itcomes to conceptualizing and understanding security and international relations as a whole. As Francis Fukuyama noted, “world politics, it would seem, shifted gears abruptly after September 11”46. Accordingly, NATO had to change as well. In this sense, one could observe that immediately after the event, NATO modified its perspective on world politics, and, starting with the Prague Summit of November 2002, declared that: “recalling the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and our subsequent decision to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty (for the first time in history), we have approved a comprehensive package of measures, based on NATO’s Strategic Concept, to strengthen our ability to meet the challenges to the security of our forces, populations and territory, from wherever they may come”. Thus, “we commit ourselves to transforming NATO with new members, new capabilities and new relationships with our partners”47. In other words, along with 9/11, NATO’s materialistic needs kicked in again, as the Alliance started to worry once more with regard to its security. The fall of the twin towers proved the 44

General Robertson, in Wolff, 2009, Op. Cit., p. 480 Ken, Booth, Tim, Dunne, (eds), Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order, Palgrave, London; 2002, p. 1. 46 Francis, Fukuyama, “History and September 11”, in Booth, Ken, Dunne; Tim, (eds), Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order, Palgrave, London; 2002 ,p. 27. 47 NATO, Prague Summit Declaration: Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council, 21st of November, 2002, Prague, Czech Republic, articles 1-3, available at http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2002/p02-127e.htm, accessed on the 16th of May 2011. 45

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fact that threats were no longer state bound; dangers were now everywhere and defending against them in a conventional manner was obsolete. Therefore, in order to guarantee its security and protect itself against its new found enemy (terrorism), NATO needed to become global, to be able to control what was happening outside its regional sphere of influence and implicitly deter any attack, regardless of its geographical origin. However, such an adjustment proved to be much tougher in reality than it was on paper. Although a general consensus was reached with regard to NATO’s new direction (a globally potent Alliance), disputes appeared concerning “how”, or “how fast” should this transformation occur. Different members within NATO had different views on the way in which the new outlook was to be enacted. Having witnessed a security threat that was literally unconceivable in a post-Cold War era, some NATO members felt that the Alliance should switch back its priorities towards safeguarding its material integrity, leaving behind (once more) its democratic, consensus and dialogue based identity. Unlike the Cold War period where the conflict was non-explicit and thus NATO was in a permanent defensive alert, against terrorism, a well prepared Alliance should be on an offensive alert and thus capable of intervening “whenever” and “wherever” in case it feels its security is threatened. An initial step in this sense was taken ever since 2002, when NATO established a single, multinational, European-centered, NATO Response Force (NRF), trained and equipped to the highest standards and capable of acting quickly wherever it was needed (upon a decision by the NAC - NATO Advisory Council)48. Other members were more reserved with regard to such a progression and so, on the road towards its new identity, NATO was faced with what probably was one of the tensest periods in its history, a period when the supposed division between the U.S. (promoter of a more offensive, “hard” outlook) and Europe (mainly Germany and France who were supporting a more retained Alliance), escalated into a genuine rupture. Everything allegedly started with the refusal of the U.S. to accept NATO support in its Afghanistan campaign, in spite of the fact that NATO activated Article 5 of its Treaty, for the first time in history, and expressed its availability to assist any American response just 24 hours after the 9/11 incident49. This was doubled by the constant unilateral approach of the United States in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, which caused further frictions in 48 Trine, Flockhart; Kristian Søby Kristensen, “NATO and Global Partnerships: To Be Global or To Act Globally”, DIIS Report, No. 7; 2008, p.10. 49 Ellen, Williams, “Out of Area and Very Much in Business? NATO, the U.S., and the Post-9/11 International Security Environment” Comparative Strategy, No. 27, 2008, pp. 65-78; p. 68.

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North-Atlantic relations. These frictions eventually developed into a full blown crisis, when the Bush Administration tried to integrate a subsequent offensive against Iraq into the “war on terror” campaign. In this sense, the U.S. sought to involve NATO into the conflict, but was met by a vigorous refusal from the leading European members, visibly irritated by America’s one sided approach on things, ever since the 9/11 incident50. This irritation was provoked not only by the US’s actions but also by the increasing contestation with regard to the West’s bossing around in the Middle East. Discontent was expressed both by local populations (enlarging the rift between the Arab world and the Western world) and by populations from NATO European member states, who engaged themselves in massive protests against what they considered to be unjustified and abusive international involvements into the domestic politics of national states51. The whole wave of contestation brings us back to the key element in our previous “security” versus “democracy” discussion, namely credibility. Upon Kosovo and the interventions of the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq (to which NATO was associated in spite of its practical absence at the offensive per-se) the image of Western nations swiftly turned from trustworthy entities capable of leading less historically fortunate countries towards a better future, to global imperialists interested in profiting from underdeveloped, crumbling or failed states. As one of the West’s most notable proponents, NATO received the same personification, being contested both as a security guarantor (when it comes to third parties) and as a democracy promoter, thus further questioning the Alliance’s international credibility.

A Shift of Perspective In spite of these multifaceted criticisms, the Alliance remained united, surpassed its internal differences and decided to continue pursuing its global ambition, as it was the only solution to preserving its security as well as regaining its international “democratic” credibility. The Alliance’s hard security concerns in the wake of 9/11, slowly softened as a result of this unrest, NATO realizing that its security is unbreakably tied to the security and wellbeing of other states, no matter how far or how close they were and that by helping others (and not angering them) it actually helped itself as well: 50

Renee, de Nevers, “NATO’s International Security Role in the Terrorist Era”, International Security, Vol. 31, No. 4, spring, 2007, pp. 34-66; p. 52 51 BBC, “Anti-war protests span the globe”, 22nd of March 2003, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3145708.stm, accessed at 23rd of July 2013.

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“We underscore that our efforts to transform and adapt NATO should not be perceived as a threat by any country or organization, but rather as a demonstration of our determination to protect our populations, territory and forces from any armed attack, including terrorist attack, directed from abroad”52.

Therefore, in order to enact its global ambitions the Alliance needed to convince - on one hand member states (more specifically, their populations) that it needs to develop and diversify its character in order to protect them (security guarantor) - and, on the other hand, outside actors that it is acting in the interest of the international community, trying to protect universal values, oppressed peoples (democracy promoter) and, understandably, its own members and borders. Yet, this was not an easy task, as NATO’s credibility was on a downfall. Still, the Alliance accepted the challenge, knowing that it cannot act without support and without being accepted by those who call upon assistance. Thus, the Alliance’s first important “house call” came in 2003, when it took over the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) mission in Afghanistan, thus engaging itself into the biggest out of area operation in its history53. Moreover, just one year later, the Alliance became officially engaged in training Iraqi security forces, to which it also donated important military equipment54. Through these actions NATO wanted to show that it can be trusted and that it does not act only in self-interest, but in the interest of the international community in general, responding to help calls wherever they arise (increasing attention was thus given to the “humanitarian aid” prerogatives from NATO’s democracy promoting role)55 . Such actions continued as NATO reached out to more and more countries first of all through the acceptance of seven new members in 2004 - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia - and subsequently through the elevation of the Mediterranean Dialogue to a genuine partnership as well as through the creation of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (both during the 2004 Istanbul summit), which further expanded NATO’s geographical scope by adding four Middle Eastern countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates), to the Alliance’s list of

52

NATO, 2002, Op. Cit., article 4. Mark, Webber, “NATO: The United States, Transformation and the War in Afghanistan”, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 11, No.1, 2009, pp. 46-63; p. 55. 54 de Nevers, 2007, Op. Cit., p. 52-53. 55 see page 3. 53

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partners56. The main argument and reasoning for this position was that of including a “more practical cooperation” and of “fostering mutually beneficial bilateral relationships and thus enhancing security and stability”57 in the region, which was very much in line with NATO’s desired transformation as a credible international actor. Much on the same path was NATO’s initiative of creating a “Global Partnership” (NATO summit in Riga, 2006) with “likeminded” states (Australia, New Zeeland, Japan and South Korea) which have always supported and even contributed to the Alliance’s operations. Rick Olson, the U.S.’s Deputy Chief of Mission to NATO completed this position by implying that “surely there are other democratic security providers with whom we can build partnerships”58. All these measures were aimed at promoting a democratic Alliance willing to establish dialogue with outside countries and cooperate with them for a better, safer world. On the more practical side, NATO attempted to prove that it is not only willing, but also capable of aiding and providing security for others in the spirit of democracy and partnership. To give just a few examples, we may underline NATO’s humanitarian relief operation in Pakistan after the massive earthquake in 2005, its support for the victims of Hurricane Katrina in the United States, providing security and support to the 2004 and 2006 Olympics and the 2006 World Cup and assisting the African Union with strategic airlift into Darfur and Somalia on several occasions59. Upon such a vast array of engagements NATO was entitled to stress that it is able to undertake “concurrent major joint operations and smaller operations for collective defense and crisis management, on and beyond alliance territory, on its periphery and at a strategic distance”60. Even more so, the Alliance suggested that “it will remain ready, on a case-by-case basis and by consensus, to contribute to effective conflict prevention and to engage

56

Flockhart, 2010, Op. Cit., p.20. NATO, “Istanbul Declaration: Our Security in a New Era. Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council”, 28th of June, 2004, article 37 Istanbul, Turkey, available at http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2004/p04-097e.htm, accessed 16th of May 2011. 58 Olson 2007, in, Flockhart; Kristensen, 2008, Op. Cit., p. 22. 59 Daniel, Hamilton; Charles, Barry; Hans, Binnendijk; Stephen, Flanagan; Julianne Smith; James, Townsend, “Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for the 21st Century”, The Washington NATO Project, February; 2009, p.21. 60 NATO, Comprehensive Political Guidence. Endorsed by NATO Heads of State and Government, 29th of November, 2006, Riga, Latvia, available at [http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b061129e.htm,] accessed on the 29th of May 2013. 57

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actively in crisis management….stabilization operations and of military support to post-conflict reconstruction efforts”61. Through these declarations and actions NATO was stressing its capacity of carrying out missions of various types where needed and if needed, suggesting once more that it is capable of assuring and providing security anywhere in the world (security guarantor) and that its actions and operations are not only in its interest but also in the interest of the whole international community. However, as constantly discussed within this paper, international security in general and security threats in particular are ever changing. In spite of its top of the line security oriented capabilities NATO was struggling not only with regard to its credibility and democratic character (which was not entirely reinstated), but also with regard to its primordial purpose: the above mentioned provision of safety and stability. The Alliance’s failure in this sense was brought into the lime light by two unexpected events: the somewhat humiliating lengthening of the Afghanistan operation as well as Russia’s attack on Georgia, who had become a potential NATO candidate. If the “afghan problem” brought about issues with regard to NATO’s capability of handling out of area operations and actually performing a global role, the Russo-Georgian War, which revealed a humble NATO, incapable of countering Russia’s re-assertion as a regional power, questioned NATO’s essential desiderate, namely its capability of protecting all of its member states62 reintroducing into attention the “hard” security issues, which the Alliance thought it had surpassed. In this sense, Poland and Norway raised public doubts with regard to the viability of article 5 guarantees (“an attack on any member state will be considered an attack on all the states of the Alliance and will be responded to, collectively”)63 and also with regard to NATO’s extended deterrence capacities64. This was an unexpected blow to NATO, who was forced to acknowledge its lack of coordination with regard to Afghanistan as well as its total unresponsiveness concerning the developments in Georgia (to which Alliance only emphasized once more that Russia is NATO’s partner, not its foe)65. Nonetheless, NATO continued to pragmatically pursue its purpose, admitting 61

Ibidem, article 6. Bolcu, 2012, Op. Cit., p.33-34. 63 see page 3. 64 Stephen, Blank, “What Comes After the Russo-Georgian War? What’s at Stake in the CIS” American Foreign Policy Interests, Vol. 30, No. 6, pp. 379-391; 2008, p. 384. 65 Pertti, Joenniemi, “The Georgian-Russian Conflict: A Turning Point?” DIIS Working Paper, No. 2; 2010, p. 25. 62

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its mistakes but also revealing that it has learned from them. Its 2010 strategic concept is most explanatory in this sense: “We, the political leaders of NATO, are determined to continue renewal of our Alliance so that it is fit for the purpose in addressing the 21st century security challenges. We are firmly committed to preserve its effectiveness as the globe’s most successful political-military Alliance (security guarantor). Our alliance thrives as a source of hope because it is based on common values of individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law and because our common essential and enduring purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of its members. These values and objectives are universal and perpetual and we are determined to defend them through unity, solidarity, strength and resolve (democracy promoter)”66.

What such statements reveal is a security management institution that is constantly adjusting itself to the ever changing circumstances of the international environment, stepping up confidently to any challenge (even if it fails or is caught by surprise, the Alliance leads us to believe that it will definitely be ready next time). NATO suggests that it is indeed a reliable institution that can assure security and a peaceful mitigation of conflicts through democratic processes. For the Alliance, security and democracy continue to go hand in hand, both being essential to a truly safe and stable international environment; and NATO is one of the few organisms that can actually assist in delivering both.

Towards Better Days However, in spite of this confident, optimistic self-perception, NATO’s credibility as an unselfish, benevolent actor was yet to reach global recognition. Luckily, NATO got the chance to prove its worth in 2011, along with the Libyan revolt which took a violent turn once Colonel Gaddafi tried to brutally repress the protests. Nevertheless, this was a local problem that had no connection and did not pose any threat whatsoever to the security of NATO or any of its members. As such, NATO should not have had even the slightest interest to get involved in this internal strife let alone gain something from doing it. Still, in accordance with its new outlook, that of a global security guarantor, the 66 NATO, Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’ Approved by the Heads of State and Government, Lisbon, 19th of November, 2010, available at [http://www.nato.int/lisbon2010/strategic-concept-2010-eng.pdf], accessed on the 31th of July 2013, article 38. – emphasis added.

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Alliance could not simply remain indifferent, especially once the situation got out of proportion and the number of civilian casualties started growing (again the “humanitarian aid” desiderates of the Alliance’s democracy promoting role coupled with its increasing proneness towards “soft” security issues). Seen from this perspective, NATO would have every reason to intervene, as it subsequently did67. Still, NATO was not at the forefront of the operations from the beginning. The lead was taken by the United Nations’ Security Council which passed on two resolutions against Libyan leaders, the last of which, resolution 1973, invited “member states and regional organizations to take “all necessary measures” to protect civilians in Libya”68. It was only upon this official decision that NATO began its involvement in the African country, following the stabilization attempts of an international coalition made up of voluntary states and led by AFRICOM and then slowly passed on to France and the United Kingdom69. In this sense, the Alliance showed great composure by taking over the operations only after it was invited to do so, both by the UN and by the members of the above mentioned coalition. As such, by offering its services when the international community was in need of help, NATO made its capacity of acting globally (when and where it is requested) extremely clear. Also, by seizing a favourable moment, the Alliance proved that it is a reliable, uninterested actor, who can be counted on when requested. As Ian Brzezinski notes “operation Unified Protector prevented a brutal massacre in Benghazi, helped the Libyan opposition to route Qaddafi and his regime from Tripoli and thereby enhanced the prospects that Libya’s future will be decided by its citizens”70.

Now the reason why the Libya operation was so important is the fact that through it, NATO actually gained what it had been after since 2002: global recognition of the fact that it is an international security institution who acts in the interest of the international community. Having acquired this status NATO’s more materialistic needs have also been met, since being recognized 67

Bolcu, 2012, Op. Cit., p. 38. UN, Resolution Number 197, 17th of March, 2011, available at http://daccess-ddsny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N11/268/39/PDF/N1126839.pdf?OpenElement, accessed on the 28th of April, 2013. 69 Jeffrey, H., Michaels, “NATO after Libya”, The RUSI Journal, Vol. 156, No.6, December, 2011, p. 56. 70 Ian, Brzezinski, “Lessons from Libya: NATO Alliance Remains Relevant”, National Defense, November; 2009, p.18. 68

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as a sort of global security guard meant that it could also guarantee the security and survival of its members in a more efficient manner. With regard to the purposes of this paper, the situation in Libya certified the fact that the road towards democracy, especially in authoritarian countries is indeed one of length and turmoil (Kosovo and Bosnia can also be added to the list). However, the Alliance’s intervention proves that security is truly a vital bedrock with regard to a successful transition process, allowing democracy to flourish unharmed. Indeed, NATO’s actions did not bring about instant stability and democracy, but they did provide the premises for this to happen. Let us not forget that the Alliance is not a democracy builder, but a conflict/security management institution. Once the unrest was “managed” it stepped down and allowed the Libyan people to build their own democracy (as it eventually did in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan as well). Through this act alone NATO provided a valuable democratic example, repairing somewhat the undemocratic manner in which it handled the Kosovo upheaval and thus probably regained most its long lost international credibility. Consequently, the Alliance proved itself as a viable security guarantor and democracy promoter certifying the fact that democracy and security are actually complementary to one another. Certainly, achieving one with the help of the other is not a walk in the park, but what NATO’s evolution has taught us is the fact that international security is something which cannot exist without democratic, collective, credible action and “international democracy” or democracy in general can only flourish an become successful in a secure and stable environment.

Conclusion The purposes of this paper have been numerous and diverse. Taking into account the contingent nature of international relations today, this study proposed an inside perspective on security and democracy, by analyzing these concepts and their evolution, through the actions and behaviour of one of their most important proponents: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization. By investigating NATO’s responses to the security challenges of the 20th and 21st century, the paper managed to reveal that there is indeed a case for security and democracy as two complementary concepts, one being a sort of default condition for fulfilling the other. Also, what this study helped prove was that the actual success of implementing and maintaining either of the two, is context dependent as well as actor dependent (both when it comes to the agent delivering either security or democracy and also when it comes to the agent receiving or implementing them). As far as the delivering end is concerned, in the past couple of decades, NATO turned up to be an extremely

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active if not the most active entity in providing security and democracy in places and for the people that request it. Practical success however depends a lot on the “receiving end” and the situation within it. As we have seen, states transitioning towards democracy from long lasting authoritarian regimes are prone to conflict, insecurity and social struggle, manifesting a lower or higher degree of reticence towards outside assistance. The issue of credibility is very important here as local populations need to believe that NATO, or any other organism, is truly capable of providing security and enabling democratic processes. The Alliance had its ups and downs with regard to this matter, but for the time being it seems to be prevailing, having internalized this concern and adjusted accordingly. Basically this is precisely where NATO’s success stems from…its unyielding capacity of constantly adapting itself to changes in the international security environment and in the international democratic process, stepping up each and every time transformations occur with regard to our understanding and perception of concepts like security and democracy, as well as with regard to the necessary means of implementing and fulfilling such concepts in practice. True, the Alliance’s concrete achievements are up for discussion, but, as we have seen above, NATO definitely has both the means and the capacity of promoting and providing democracy through security and security through democracy, as it has confidently done throughout its entire history.

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Butler, Karina, Z. (2011), A Critical Humanitarian Approach, Palgrave MacMillan, United Kingdom; Creighton, C. L. (2005), The Public Participation Handbook: Making Better Decisions Through Citizen Involvement, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. de Nevers, Renee (2007), “NATO’s International Security Role in the Terrorist Era”, International Security, Vol. 31, No. 4, spring, pp. 34-66; Dunne, Timothy (2001): “Liberalism”, in Baylis, Jon; Smith, Steve (eds.), The Globalization of World Politics, Oxford, pp. 162-181; Flockhart, Trine, (2010), “NATO and the (Re)constitution of Role: “Self”, “We” and “Other”, DIIS Report, No. 4; Flockhart, Trine; Kristensen Kristian Søby, (2008)“NATO and Global Partnerships: To Be Global or To Act Globally”, DIIS Report, No. 7; Fukuyama, Francis, (2002), “History and September 11”, in Booth, Ken, Dunne; Tim, (eds), Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order, Palgrave, London; Gheciu, Alexandra, “Security Institutions as Agents of Socialization? NATO and the 'New Europe”, International Organization, Vol. 59, No. 4, Autumn, 2005, pp. 973-1012, p. 974. Hamilton, Daniel; Barry, Charles; Binnendijk, Hans; Flanagan, Stephen, Smith Julianne; Townsend, James; (2009), “Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for the 21st Century”, The Washington NATO Project, February; Held, David; McGrew, Anthobz; Goldblatt, David; Perraton, Jonathan (2004): Transformări globale. Politică, economie úi cultură (Global Transformations. Politics, Economy and Culture), Polirom, Iaúi; Jackson, Patrick T., (2003), “Defending the West: Occidentalism and the formation of NATO”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol.11, No.3, pp. 223-252; Joenniemi, Pertti (2010), “The Georgian-Russian Conflict: A Turning Point?” DIIS Working Paper, No. 2; Large Judith, Sisk Timothy, D. (editors) (2006), Democracy, Conflict and Human Security: pursuing Peace in the 21st Century, IDEA, Stockholm, Sweden. McCourbey, Hilaire, (1999) “Kosovo, NATO and Humanitarian Law”, International Relation, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp.29-46; Miall, Hugh, (2003) “Global Governance and Conflict Prevention”, in F. Cochrane, R. Duffy and J. Selby (eds), Global Governance, Conflict and Resistance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Michaels, Jeffrey, H. (2011), “NATO after Libya”, The RUSI Journal, Vol. 156, No.6, December; Pevehouse, Jon, C., Goldstein, Joshua S. (2008), RelaĠii InternaĠionale (International Relations) , Polirom, Iaúi, Romania;

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—. (2004) “Istanbul Declaration: Our Security in a New Era. Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council”, 28th of June, Istanbul, Turkey, available at http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2004/p04-097e.htm, accessed 16th of May 2011; —. (2006), “Comprehensive Political Guidance. Endorsed by NATO Heads of State and Government”, 29th of November, Riga, Latvia, available at http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b061129e.htm, accessed 16th of May 2011; —. (2010) “Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization”, Approved by the Heads of State and Government, Lisbon, 19th of November, available at http://www.nato.int/lisbon2010/strategic-concept-2010-eng.pdf, accessed 16th of May 2011.

HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION AND HUMAN SECURITY: SOCIOLOGICAL, CRITICAL, AND CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACHES TO (IN)SECURITY IN AFRICA LAURA M. HERlA

Abstract The traditional understanding of security overwhelmingly emanated the realist account. The realist thought in International Relations is committed to a materialist view on states’ interaction and thus to the equation of state security to both capabilities and inter-governmental relations. The political, economic and cultural framework of the Cold War provided impetus for the validation of such perspective. However, the aftermath of the Cold War was marked by the shift from inter-state wars to intra-state ones and brought along new issues for International Security Studies. The 1990’s were marked by an increase in intra-state armed conflicts and ethno-political strife, but it also witnessed innovations and developments on the field of humanitarian law. Africa represents the illustrative region for the salience of intra-state violence, humanitarian emergencies, proliferation of insurgent armed groups and civilian insecurity. The United Nations tried to cope with the new challenges in its Security Council Resolutions and its humanitarian interventions. Consequently, new threats triggered the need to revisit the concept of security and to analyze its new accommodating dimensions. The terms securitization/de-securitization, ontological security, positive/negative security, societal security and human security were designed for this purpose. It is our contention that violence in Africa and subsequent humanitarian assistance provided impetus for the re-conceptualization of security, as exemplified by the cases of Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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Keywords Civil wars, sociology of war, humanitarian intervention, human security, societal security, Africa.

Introduction The main purpose of this chapter is to highlight the features of armed conflicts in Africa and to argue that non-traditional approaches on security (especially Human Security) capture the realities of new wars (in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo) and the insecurity of individuals. For this purpose, we will first explore the literature on the new wars’ scenarios. The goal is to show how sociological approaches (centred on the sociology of violence or sociology of civil wars) contribute to understanding the dynamic and complexities of intra-state wars. Secondly, we will briefly analyze the external reaction to the violent armed conflicts resulting in humanitarian catastrophes and the development of humanitarian intervention during the 1990s. The third step will be the overview of International Security Studies (ISS) in order to underline the need to shift the understanding of in/security from national to societal and human security. Finally, the last attempt will be to briefly investigate relevant case studies which display the social nature of new forms of violence and the human insecurity.

New wars, sociology of violence, humanitarian intervention, and (in)security in Africa According to Andrew Linklater and Katie Liston, “the disciplines of sociology and international relations (IR) have long followed rather different paths of development”; while Sociology aimed at analyzing and understanding the prevailing patterns of social change within national societies, the scholarly field of IR mostly focused on “explaining relations between states” and was interested in “other phenomena insofar as they influence international political dynamics.” However, Linklater and Liston observe that “the two disciplines have moved more closely together in recent years” and “sociological explorations of state-formation led to the investigation of military competition between states though not necessarily to a serious engagement with international relations as an academic discipline. Students of international relations have responded to those developments by absorbing

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elements of historical sociology within their frameworks of analysis [...].”1 The authors argue that the high level of global interdependence inherently interconnects the two disciplines and the resulting goals of research could, inter alia, lead to combining historical sociology (or sociology centred on global processes) with the study of international relations. The research goal is setting the purpose of problematizing and analyzing the way in which human societies are confronted with violence both within and between independent political communities.2 One sociological approach on the structure and dynamic of contemporary war and genocide was undertaken by Martin Shaw who noted the traits of conventional war (traditionally waged between states by employing national armies) and the transformations that war has been suffering throughout the 20th century. While the former did not exhibit the deliberate and systematic targeting of the civilian population, the latter type of warfare implies inseparability between genocide and armed conflict.3 Shaw argues that “modern genocide is the product of modern war”, because even though “not all sides in all wars have practiced genocide, of course, the common structure of total warfare, in which mobilizing whole populations leads to these populations becoming targets, makes it easier for genocidal States and movements, in their ideologies, to designate specific groups of civilian populations as enemies in themselves.”4 Siniša Maleševiü emphasized that “warfare has been one of the most important social phenomena that has shaped the history of the world and especially the modern world” and that “studies of 464 wars fought in the last 200 years clearly demonstrate [that] war has been the most significant generator of social change.”5 The scholar indicates that the end of the Cold War’s bipolar order “triggered new violent conflicts throughout the world [...] culminating in large scale wars in Chechnya, Georgia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Central Asia” and “generated new realities in Africa with major 1

Andrew Linklater; Katie Liston, “Sociology and International Relations: The Future?”, Human Figurations, Volume 1, Issue 2, 2012, [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/11217607.0001.201/--editor-s-introductionsociology-and-international-relations?rgn=main;view=fulltext]. 2 Ibidem. 3 Martin Shaw, “War and Genocide: A Sociological Approach”, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, 2007, pp. 3-4, [http://www.massviolence.org/Article?id_article=45]. 4 Ibidem, p. 4. The examples of the author include the genocidal acts committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the attacks against civilians during the wars in Former Yugoslavia and the Rwandan Hutu nationalists’ atrocities against the Tutsi. 5 Siniša Maleševiü, Sociological Theory and Warfare, Stockholm: Swedish National Defence College, 2011, p. 4.

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wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda [...]” The argument posited herein relates to the major transformations within the analysis of warfare, since “all of these changes have given new impetus to the sociology of organised violence as there is now greater demand to provide a sociological understanding of warfare.”6

Stathis Kalyvas’s approach on the sociology of civil wars is centred on the “analytical autonomy of violence”. The scholar claims that violence is a “multifaceted social phenomenon” and insists on violence against civilians or non-combatants because “a considerable amount of violence in civil wars lacks conventional military utility and does not take place on the battlefield. If anything, there appears to be an inverse relationship between the magnitude of the conflict, as measured by the size of forces and the sophistication of the weapons used, and the magnitude of violence [...].”7

Dietrich Jung showed that despite violence in Northern Ireland, Spain and the bloody collapse of Former Yugoslavia, during the second part of the 20th century “the main theatre of warfare has been the so-called Third World” since “more than 90 percent of the 218 wars that were counted in the period between 1945 and 2001 took place in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.”8 The author pinpoints to certain traits pertaining to new forms of warfare: “The overwhelming majority of them were so-called ethnic and civil wars, which tend to last longer than classical inter-state wars and which are more difficult to end by political efforts and mediation of third parties. In these intra-state wars, physical force has become a power resource of religiously, ethnically or ideologically mobilized militias and their ‘warlords’, of various groups of organized crime, or of independently acting state security units following their own particular political and economic interests.”9

6

Ibidem, p. 8. Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 19-20. See also Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Sociology of Civil Wars: Warfare and Armed Groups, Yale University, 2003. 8 Dietrich Jung, “Introduction”, in Dietrich Jung (ed.), Shadow Globalization, Ethnic Conflicts and New Wars. A political economy of intra-state war, London, New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 1. 9 Ibidem, pp. 1-2. 7

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Over the last twenty years, the scholarly field has witnessed a vivid and refined debate regarding the transformation of warfare.10 The underlying observation of such research indicates that in the post-Second World War period the conventional, Clausewitzian model of inter-state war11 has been gradually replaced by various scenarios pertaining to intra-state wars (violence). Despite regional peculiarities, the recent armed conflicts share traits which amount to certain structural characteristics: the asymmetry of warring forces/belligerents; the gradual privatization of (armed) violence; deviation from the codified rules of war, namely for the jus in bello (as accurately described within the Geneva Conventions); and the use of force, in its utmost brutal manner, against civilians, rather than against the enemy’s military troops.12 The emergence of these features of new wars goes back to the Cold War period, when the American strategists and scholars coined them low intensity conflicts13 and certain armed conflicts in the Third World were termed proxy 10

Vide, inter alia, Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001 (or the Romanian translation Războaie noi úi vechi, Antet, 1999); Herfried Münkler, The New Wars, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Michael Ignatieff, The Warrior’s Honor. Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience, New York, 1997; Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War, New York, 1991; Reinhard Meyers, “Entstaatlichung des Krieges, Reprivatisierung der Gewalt: Der Wandel des Kriegsbildes im Zeitalter post-nationalstaatlicher Konflikte”, Studia Europaea, 23/2005, 2005, pp. 5-41; Dietrich; Klaus Schlichte, “From Inter-State War to Warlordism: Changing Forms of Collective Violence in the International System”, in Håkan Wiberg; Christian P. Scherrer (eds.), Ethnicity and Intra-State Conflict, Brookfield USA: Ashgate, 1999, pp. 35-51; Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars. The Merging of Development and Security, London and New York: Zed Books, 2001. 11 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Princeton University Press, 1989 (or the Romanian translation Carl von Clausewitz, Despre război, Filipeútii de Târg: Editura Antet, 2001) and Carl von Clausewitz, Principles on War, translated and edited by Hans W. Gatzke, [www.Abika.com]. 12 For a previous presentation of these features of new wars and for the debate on the transformation of war, see Laura M. Her‫܊‬a, „Aspecte ale sociologiei ‫܈‬i analizei rela‫܊‬iilor interna‫܊‬ionale.Dihotomia războaie noi – războaie vechi” (“Aspects of Sociology and Analysis of International Relations.The new wars – old wars dichotomy”), in Liviu ‫܉‬îrău, ‫܇‬tefan Melancu (eds.), Interferenаe euro-atlantice, ClujNapoca: EFES, 2013, pp. 444-456; Laura M. Her‫܊‬a, “The Sociology of New Wars”, in The Development of Political Science: European Practices and National Perspectives, Chernivtsi: Bukrek Publishing House, 2013, pp. 65-67. 13 The term low intensity conflict depicted the military activities of insurgents who “regarded both soldiers and civilians as legitimate targets, meanwhile striking out at governments as best they could [by] using a combination of violence and persuasion

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wars14, but there is a large agreement on the fact that the scenarios of new types of violence intensified and proliferated in the 1990s. Such wars/armed conflicts were present in Former Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina was coined the “archetype of new wars”15), but mostly in the Caucasus, Africa, South-East Asia16 where ethnic, religious, or ethno-religious groups were mobilized towards attainment of particularistic goals. The debate on the transformation of war is intertwined with nation building problematique or with the process of institutions building, because most war-torn states are either weak states, or collapsing states or failed states.17 Some states created after 1945 never had the robust structure or architecture (which the Western tradition enjoined and which is to be found in the Weberian account18). and [trying to draw] the population to the their side and intimidating the enemy.” Cf. Martin van Creveld, op. cit., pp. 59-60. According to the U.S. Army’s training manual, “Low intensity conflict is a politicalmilitary confrontation between contending states or groups below conventional war and above the routine, peaceful competition among states. It frequently involves protracted struggles of competing principles and ideologies. Low intensity conflict ranges from subversion to the use of armed force. It is waged by a combination of means, employing political, economic, informational, and military instruments. Low intensity conflicts are often localized, generally in the Third World, but contain regional and global security implications.” U.S. Army’s training manual - Field Manual 100-20 - Military Operations in Low Intensity Conflict, 1990, p. 11. 14 The term proxy war refers to the Cold War period and the internal armed conflicts within client states of the two superpowers. According to Cam Merritt, aproxy war is “a conflict instigated or supported by countries or entities that aren't directly involved in the fighting. A proxy war is a way for a country to pursue its geopolitical aims on the battlefield without going to war itself. One party empowered or authorized to act on behalf of another in certain situations is said to be a ‘proxy’ for the second party. Thus, a proxy war is one in which one party fights to the benefit of another.” [http://www.ehow.com/facts] 15 According to Kaldor, “the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina became the archetypal example, the paradigm of the new type of warfare in the 1990’s.” See Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars, Stanford University Press, 2007, p. 33 or Mary Kaldor, Războaie noi úi vechi, Editura Antet, 1999, p. 41. 16 Vide Raymond C. Taras; Rajat Ganguly, Understanding Ethnic Conflict. The International Dimension, New York: Longman, 2008. The authors extensively present the emergence of new types of wars in Chechnya, Burundi, D.R. of Congo, Rwanda, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka. 17 William Zartman (ed.),Collapsed States. The Humanitarian Challenge to the United Nations, Boulder, 1995, pp. 207-220. 18 It is the Weberians’ conception that the state represents the organization that has the territorial monopoly over the legitimate use of organized violence. According to Max Weber “a political organization is defined as a domination organization when and in so far as its existence and the validity of its practices within a given geographical

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Therefore, even though the “new states immediately took place in the world organization of the United Nations” and committed to the principles of the UN, “there can no longer be any doubt that the many processes of state formation in the Third World, or in the periphery of the First and Second World, have been a failure.”19 When such states have lost (or never properly retained) the monopoly on violence, the Clausewitz’s conception of war did not occur. Rather, what these states experienced was a re-fall of de facto monopoly on organized violence back to society, more precisely to certain sub-state groups which launched and waged their own “small wars”. Certain key features of these wars which we will emphasize in this article point to the shift from the military sector to the societal one, the changing nature of violence (wherein civilians are targeted and become war victims), and the need to focus on individuals’ security (or human security). The increase of intra-state war is directly proportional with the outbreak of violence in Africa. At the same time, most of what has often been termed in the media “humanitarian emergency”, “deteriorating crises”, “civilian suffering”, “huge refugee crisis”, “famine, hunger, and pandemics”, “violent attacks by local militias” points to the African continent. Most intra-state conflicts are internal but become internationalized due to massive refugee flows which destabilize neighbouring countries (like the case of the Rwandan genocide that triggered the Great Lakes refugee crisis in former Zaire) and due to plight of civilians hit by famine or disease.

territory are guaranteed on a regular basis by an administrative staff’s threat – and application – of physical coercion. [...] ‘Legitimate’ violence exists only to the extent that the state’s laws permit or prescribe it […]. This monopolization of legitimate violence constitutes a feature of the state just as essential to its contemporary situation as two other characteristics: its rational ‘compulsory’ jurisdiction over a territory and its continuity ‘of operation’.” Excerpt from “Political Organizations and the State,” in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Economy and Society), Johannes Winckelmann (ed.), trans. Stephen Kalberg, Tübingen: Mohr Verlag, [1922] 1976), quoted in Max Weber: Readings and Commentary on Modernity, edited by Stephen Kalberg, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, pp. 230-231. According to Weber, “the basic functions of the ‘state’ are: the enactment of law (legislative function); the protection of personal safety and public order (police); the protection of vested rights (administration of justice); the cultivation of hygienic, educational, social-welfare, and other cultural interests (the various branches of administration); and, last but not least, the organized armed protection against outside attack (military administration).” See Max Weber, Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, Guenther Roth; Claus Wittich (eds.), Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1978, p. 905. 19 Münkler, op. cit., p. 7.

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The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) focused on such trends in its reports and yearbooks. “Africa was the region with the most conflicts in the 10-year period 2000– 2009, with 12 major armed conflicts recorded [...]. During the first seven years of the 2000s there was a sharp decline in the number of major armed conflicts in the region, falling from eight to one. However, the figure increased in both 2008 and 2009 to reach four in the latter year. Only one of the 12 conflicts was fought between states: Eritrea–Ethiopia. Half of the intrastate conflicts were internationalized at some point, which distinguishes Africa from other regions [...]”20

The UCDP (Uppsala Conflict Data Program) within SIPRI accurately showed one key feature of the new wars wherein organized violence has moved from the military sector to the societal one by differentiating between armed conflict and one-sided violence: “The UCDP defines one-sided violence as the intentional use of armed force against civilians by a government or formally organized group that results in at least 25 deaths in a calendar year. One-sided violence is not armed conflict as such, as it directly and intentionally targets civilians who cannot defend themselves with arms. It is also distinct from battle-related violence that incidentally harms civilians, for example when civilians are caught in crossfire between combatants. However, the distinction is not always easy to make. While one-sided violence can also take place in a context of peace, 99 per cent of fatalities from one-sided violence occur in countries affected by armed conflict and much one-sided violence is perpetrated by combatants.”21

Mary Kaldor’s thesis of the new wars highlights the emergence of a new type of violence as a result of the globalized world. Kaldor employs the concept of war in order to show the political nature of violence, but demonstrates how the clear-cut distinctions between war, human rights and human rights violations have become blurred.22 The dramatic feature pertaining to new wars points to “the violent and intentional victimization of civilians”, according to Kalyvas, and ranges from “intentional and direct physical violence takes several forms, including pillage, robbery, vandalism, 20 Lotta Harbom; Peter Wallensteen, “Patterns of major armed conflicts, 2000–2009”, in SIPRI Year Book 2010, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2010, pp. 62-63. 21 Ekaterina Stepanova, “Trends in armed conflicts: one-sided violence against civilians”, in SIPRI Yearbook 2009: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2010, pp. 39-40. 22 Kaldor, New and Old Wars, and Războaie noi úi vechi, p. 9.

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arson, forcible displacement, kidnapping, hostage taking, detention, beating, torture, mutilation, rape, and desecration of dead bodies.”23 Also, Dietrich Jung showed how globalization contributed to global patterns of new types of warfare: “In spite of all globalizing forces, this bifurcation between democratic welfare and protracted warfare has suggested the emergence of a new global order divided in two worlds: on the one hand, into a zone of peace in which war has been ruled out as a means of conflict among democracies; on the other hand, into a zone of conflict in which political power is frequently contested by force and economic development does not make headway. The predominance of ethnic conflict and civil war in this zone led a number of scholars to claim the arrival of a kind of ‘new wars’.”24

All these trends compelled Kaldor to discuss the transformation of security which, in her argumentation line, implies the transformation of social relations during the war and of threats confronting us, rather than mere technological changes.25 Mark Duffield argued that “a country’s ability to manage the multiple problems of underdevelopment and transition [...] and, especially, to resolve antagonisms peacefully, is now a central concern within the new or wider security framework.”26 Therefore, “The ‘new’ conflicts are about identities and the status, culture and values of various groups. They are enacted in the social sphere rather than in arenas familiar to traditional security policy. As a complement to the concepts that are the common currency of traditional power politics (‘high politics’), such as security guarantees and arms control, we must now introduce concepts appropriate to the community level (‘low politics’), which have to do with preventing crises, enhancing stability and reducing the element of unpredictability in the system.”27

23

Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars, pp. 19-20. Dietrich Jung, “Introduction”, in Dietrich Jung (ed.), Shadow Globalization, Ethnic Conflicts and New Wars. A political economy of intra-state war, London, New York: Routledge, 2003, p. 2. 25 Mary Kaldor, Securitatea umană (Human Security), Cluj-Napoca: CA Publishing, 2010, p. 10. 26 Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars. The Merging of Development and Security, London and New York: Zed Books, 2001, p. 36. 27 Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Preventing Violent Conflict: A Study: Executive Summary and Recommendations, Stockholm, Sweden: Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 1997, p. 16, quoted in Mark Duffield, p. 36. 24

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As mentioned in the introductory part, the 1990s represent the decade of developments in humanitarian intervention, as a result of the new challenges in the post-Cold War period. According to Weiss and Hubert, “the definition of ‘humanitarian’, as a justification for intervention, is a high threshold of suffering. It refers to the threat or actual occurrence of large scale loss of life (including, of course, genocide), massive forced migrations, and widespread abuses of human rights. Acts that shock the conscience and elicit a basic humanitarian impulse remain politically powerful.”28 During the 1990’s the concern for humanitarian intervention intensified and approaches on the topic multiplied. Ian Holliday refers to a “humanitarian turn” and identifies two key factors that contributed to it: the United Nations and the role of the Secretary-General, and the “new” humanitarians.29 In 1992, Boutros BoutrosGhali issued his Agenda for Peace and warned the international community about the dynamics and nature of intra-state turmoil which threatened the new international order, by stressing the need to formulate and design efficient means to address such risks.30 He also emphasized the transformative role of the UN in international politics.This new active role of the UN was developed in other subsequent organization’s reports (notably the Supplement to An Agenda for Peace from 1995 and the Brahimi Report from 2000). Additionally, in 1993, the UN General Assembly issued a resolution which, inter alia, established a Department of Humanitarian Affairs and listed twelve principles for humanitarian intervention.31 All these documents mark the concern of UN for humanitarian intervention. J.L. Holzgrefe and Allen Buchanan provided a definition which includes the act of humanitarian relief and which clearly mentions the preoccupation for human rights associated with such practice: “[Humanitarian intervention] 28

Thomas G. Weiss; Don Hubert, The Responsibility to Protect: Supplementary Volume to the Report of ICISS, Ottawa: International Development Research Center, 2001, p. 15. 29 Ian Holliday, “Ethics of Intervention: Just War and the Challenge of the 21st Century”, International Relations, vol. 17(2), pp. 116-117. 30 See Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, where the terms preventive diplomacy, peace keeping, peace-making and post-conflict peace building are described as means to accommodate threats to international peace and security in the aftermath of Cold War order, [http://www.unrol.org/files/A_47_277.pdf]. 31 Holliday, op. cit., pp. 116-117. See details in Supplement to An Agenda for Peace [http://daccess-ddsny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N95/080/95/PDF], Brahimi Report [http://daccess-ddsny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N00/594/70/PDF]. See also, Paul Taylor, “The United Nations and international order”, in John Baylis; Steve Smith (eds.), The Globalization of World Politics, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, (especially the subchapter on The typology of the roles of the United Nations in 2000), pp. 347-350.

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is the threat or use of force across state borders by a state (or group of states) aimed at preventing or ending widespread and grave violations of the fundamental human rights of individuals others than its own citizens, without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied.”32 A further clarification is provided by Holzgrefe, by stating that this operational definition is meant to deliberately exclude other types of engagement occasionally associated with the term: “non-forcible interventions such as the threat or use of economic, diplomatic, or other sanctions, and forcible interventions aimed at protecting or rescuing the intervening state’s own nationals.” The purpose of this differentiation is meant to tackle the issue of “whether states may use force to protect the human rights of individuals other than their own citizens.”33 According to Michael Walzer, “humanitarian intervention is justified when it is a response (with reasonable expectations of success) to acts that ‘shock the moral conscience of mankind’.”34

International Relations and International Security Studies Ole Waever underlined that “security is, in historical terms, the field where states threaten each other, challenge each other’s sovereignty, try to impose their will on each other, defend their independence [...]”.35 In fact, preoccupations towards security provision, containment of threats, and minimization of vulnerabilities have long been not only theorized (in the scholarly field), but also politicised (in foreign policies and world politics). The realm of security studies could be roughly subdivided into traditional, military and state-centric views, on the one hand, and non-traditional approaches, on the other hand. The discipline of International Relations has, 32

J. L. Holzgrefe, “The humanitarian intervention debate”, in J. L. Holzgrefe; Robert O. Keohane, Humanitarian Intervention. Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 18; Allen Buchanan, “Reforming the international law of humanitarian intervention”, in J. L. Holzgrefe; Robert O. Keohane, Humanitarian Intervention. Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 130. 33 Ibidem. 34 Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars. A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, 4th edition, New York: Basic Books, 2006, p. 107. Walzer adds that “it is not the conscience of political leaders that one refers to in such cases. They have other things to worry about and may well be required to repress their normal feelings of indignation and outrage. The reference is to the moral convictions of ordinary men and women, acquired in the course of their everyday activities.” 35 Ole Waever, “Securitization and Desecuritization”, in Barry Buzan; Lene Hansen (eds.), International Security (volume III Widening Security), London: Sage Publications, 2007, pp. 66-98.

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ever since its inception, been centred on opposing understandings of security. Basically, different IR theories offer a wide array of answers to salient questions such as: who is the key actor of security? (or who should provide security?); which are the objects (namely the referents) of security?; how is security best attained? Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv identified some leading conceptions of security within the field of International Relations (IR) and distinguished between 1) “those stating that the concept can only be employed by the state with regard to immediate, existential threats”, and 2) “those that see security as the foundation of social life or as a human good.”36 Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen, in their master work The Evolution of International Security Studies, formulated four pivotal questions that constitute the pillars of ISS: 1) “Whose security should be protected and studied?” or “whether to privilege the state as the referent object”; 2) “Should the military be considered the primary sector of security? or, in other words, “whether to expand security beyond the military sector and the use of force”; 3) “Should security be concerned exclusively with external threats or also with domestic ones?”; and 4) “Is the only form of security politics one of threats, dangers and emergency?”37 These questions helped to structure debates within ISS since the late 1940s38 and were framed departing from four key elements: the referent object of security, the location of threats, the security sector, and the view of security politics. Drawing on the conceptual framework and the questions that constituted international security studies, Buzan and Hansen also focused on the disciplinary boundaries of ISS to see “where ISS ends and other academic disciplines, particularly IR, begin” and underlined that “[t]he boundary between ISS and IR is difficult to draw.” However, the scholars point, “in the early decades following the Second World War, the answer to this problem could have been given with some accuracy as: ‘What distinguishes ISS from the general field of IR is its focus on the use of force in international relations’.”39 The study of security produced various approaches and one demarcation line between them was centred on epistemology. Buzan and Hansen showed that a major “epistemological distinction central to ISS is the one between 36 See Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv, “Security by any other name: negative security, positive security, and a multi-actor security approach”, Review of International Studies, October 2012, volume 38, issue 4, pp. 835-839. 37 Barry Buzan; Lene Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 10-13, 21. 38 Ibidem, p. 10. 39 Ibidem, p. 16.

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objective, subjective and discursive conceptions of security.”40 The first one is based on presence/absence of threats and defines security in material terms. The second one centres on (mis)perception of threats and on “relational contexts (friends, rivals, neutrals, enemies) within which threats are framed.”41 The third one contends that security cannot be defined in objective terms and “focuses on the intersubjective process through which ‘threats’ manifest themselves as security problems on the political agenda.”42

The traditional conception of security Traditional Security Studies are often equated with Strategic Studies developed during the Cold War. The latter have strong connections with Realism and Neo-realism in IR. The traditionalist perspective is based on state-centrism, materialism, and the use of force which refers to the use of military force by states and implies the prevalence of military threats that states are confronted with.43 Therefore, in Realist Strategic Studies the concept of security defines the “state as the referent object, the use of force as the central concern, external threats as the primary ones, the politics of security as engagement with radical dangers and the adoption of emergency measures.”44 Realist Strategic Studies employ a positivist and rationalist epistemology. The Realist postulates have been dominating the field of Security Studies throughout time and especially during the Cold War, when national security became the centrepiece of concern. The realist account on national security entailed the materialist-loaded conception of states’ ability to maximize the military capabilities in order to address security issues. The Neorealist understanding of an international system governed by anarchy implied an international order wherein security from outside threats (due to the ubiquity of conflict/violence/attack) was the essence of rational thinking. The international anarchical condition turned statism and self-help into overriding principles. Such thinking cum decision-making was designed to protect the state and maximize its power; herein power was exclusively and overwhelmingly centred on military capacity. Stephan Walt showed that the issues of security are concerned with the “phenomenon of war” and with “the threat, use and control of military force.” Therefore, according to Walt and to the neorealist account, security studies is 40

Ibidem, p. 32. Ibidem p. 33. 42 Ibidem. 43 Ibidem, p. 16. 44 Ibidem, p. 21. 41

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“the study of the threat, use, and control of military force . . . [namely] the conditions that make the use of force more likely, the ways that the use of force affects individuals, states and societies, and the specific policies that states adopt in order to prepare for, prevent, or engage in war.”45 Essentially, both the Realist and the Neorealist theorizing are committed to rationalism (or rationality in decision-making) and materialism (the overwhelming role of material facts, such as power – herein military power, populations, weapons, natural resources). Neo-realism posits that states (“like-units” in Kenneth Waltz’s terms46) are mainly preoccupied with external threats and this explains the neorealist focus on safeguarding the state from military threats arising from outside its borders. Krause and Williams accurately showed the realist logic regarding security: “there can be no security in the absence of authority. The state, accordingly, becomes the primary locus of security, authority, and obligation. [...] The security of ‘citizens’ is identified with (and guaranteed by) that of the state; and, by definition, those who stand outside it represent potential or actual threats.”47

In IR literature, the Realist prescriptions about security are formulated by Stephen Walt as follows: “security studies seek cumulative knowledgeabout the role of military force” and consequently scholars are required to “follow the standard canons of scientific research.”48 However, most recent armed conflicts are not inter-state, but rather intra-state ones. As discussed in the previous section, notable scholars showed that the new wars occur within weak states which seem to lose the de facto monopoly on the use of organized violence.49 The security of the state is therefore no longer threatened by outsiders, and by their military arsenals. Instead, it is undermined from the inside. The question then was raised: how does Realism explain intra-state violence? It has often been argued that the poverty of Realism does not capture a complex dynamic of violence (as is the case with most African new wars) wherein weak states are confronted with internal fragmentation and proliferation 45

Stephan Walt, “The Renaissance of Security Studies”, International Studies Quarterly, 1991, 35 (2), p. 212. Emphasis in the original. 46 Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics, Reading: Addison Wesley, 1979. 47 Keith Krause; Michael C. Williams, “Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods”, in Barry Buzan; Lene Hansen (eds.), International Security (volume III Widening Security), London: Sage Publications, 2007, p. 138. 48 Walt, The Renaissance of Security Studies, p. 222. 49 Münkler, op. cit.

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of militias, civil war, the spill-over effects of conflicts in neighbouring states, and the incapacity to protect citizens who become tragic victims of humanitarian disasters. The reductionist worldview of Neo-realism includes, firstly, the isomorphism and the unitary state-centric approach, which solely aims at state’s defence. Here,security is understood as freedom from threat and rules out the freedom to (meaning the enabling attribute of freedom). The groups’ and the individuals’ security is not primarily addressed since state is the political unit of concern and the provider of internal security. Secondly, there has been an extensive focus on the reductionist materialist dimension built on a security-weaponry-military strength dimension which rules out other types of threats (and consequently neglects ontological security), and thirdly on the understanding of negative security with its primary concern for use of force in order to attain desecuritization.

Non-traditional understandings of security The traditional conception of security as pertaining to state action and its association with use of force (or its understanding as being the realm of the military sector) was contested, especially in the 1990s, when alternative approaches moved away the objectives of policy (and the essence of theorizing) from the military to economic, societal, environmental, and human security. Many attempts have been made to counterweigh the realist ontology and there is a valuable “literature in security studies that moves away from neorealist formulations in directions that could be called ‘critical’ or ‘constructivist’.”50 Such alternative theorizing includes a diverse range of sub-views, but overall they all focus on certain key ideas. For constructivist Alexander Wendt, interests and identities are not pre-given and exogenous to actors. Instead, Wendt argues that actors are social beings, and their interests are not static, existing prior to interaction, but they are endogenous to processes of interaction. Also, constructivists see reality or the world not as a strategic domain, but as a constitutive one that generates social actors.51 The constructivist ontology, therefore, differs from the realist one in that the reality is socially constructed. A great deal of research is based on the social construction of threats since the realist security dilemma is not a clear-cut and immutable attribute of the international structure.

50

Krause; Williams, Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods, p. 150. 51 Wendt, op. cit.

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There are several basic claims that Constructivist Security Studies, Critical Security Studies and the Copenhagen School of Security Studies share: firstly, “that ‘security’ is not an objective condition”, secondly, “that threats to it are not simply a matter of correctly perceiving a constellation of material forces”, and thirdly, “that the object of security is not stable or unchanging.”52 Therefore, central to these approaches are questions such as “how the object to be secured (nation, state, or other group) is constituted, and how particular issues (economic well-being, the risk of violence, environmental degradation) are placed under the ‘sign of security’.”53 Barry Buzan and Lene Hansen traced the growth and evolution of the “widening–deepening side of ISS” and exploredthe non-traditional branches of Security Studies, categorized as follows: Constructivist Security Studies (further sub-divided into Conventional and Critical), The Copenhagen School of Security Studies, Critical Security Studies, Feminist Security Studies, Postcolonial Security Studies, Poststructuralist Security Studies, and Human Security.54 The scholars showed that the post-Cold War period was characterized by two sorts of debates. The first one ensued between the traditionalists and the widening-deepening approaches. The second one occurred within the widening–deepening camp itself. Buzan and Hansen captured the shared ideas of the “widener–deepeners” who “argued, to different extents and in different combinations, in favour of deepening the referent object beyond the state, widening the concept of security to include other sectors than the military, giving equal emphasis to domestic and trans-border threats, and allowing for a transformation of the Realist, conflictual logic of international security.”55

The Copenhagen School In the 1990s, the non-traditional, “widening” and “deepening” debates on security were extended so as to challenge/complete the realist account. The Copenhagen School and its leading scholars Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, and Jaap de Wilderevisited the concept of security by focusing on its broadening attributes. According to Emma Rothschild, “the ubiquitous idea, in the new principles of the 1990s, is of security in an ‘extended’ sense”, and extended 52

Krause; Williams, Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods,p. 151. 53 Ibidem. 54 Buzan; Hansen, The Development of International Security Studies, pp. 35-38, 187225. 55 Ibidem, p. 188.

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security in the 1990’s implied several directions. First of all, “the concept of security is extended from the security of nations to the security of groups and individuals: it is extended downwards from nations to individuals.” Secondly, “it is extended from the security of nations to the security of the international system, or of a supranational physical environment: it is extended upwards, from the nation to the biosphere.” Thirdly, “the concept of security is extended horizontally, or to the sorts of security that are in question. Different entities (such as individuals, nations, and ‘systems’) cannot be expected to be secure or insecure in the same way; the concept of security is extended, therefore, from military to political, economic, social, environmental, or ‘human’ security.” Finally, “the political responsibility for ensuring security is itself extended [...]: it is diffused in all directions from national states, including upwards to international institutions, downwards to regional or local government, and sideways to nongovernmental organizations, to public opinion and the press.”56

The Copenhagen School scholars theorized the binary concepts securitization and desecuritization and analyzed security as a speech act. Securitization is the process of making an issue a ‘security’ issue. The securitization process transfers issues from ‘normal’ (accountable/ democratic) politics to ‘emergency’ politics. Therefore, securitization refers to the following core feature of security: “the way in which threats are discursively tackled and presented.”57 The concept entails the construction of threats following a “grammar of security” (in Barry Buzan’s terms) which indicates “an existential threat, a point of no return, and a possible way out.”58 The essence of the securitization idea is that no issue is a threat per se, but that “anything could be constructed as one.”59 The twin concept desecuritization focuses on “moving out of security”60 or “the shifting of issues out of emergency mode and into the normal bargaining process of the political 56

See Emma Rothschild, “What is security?”, in Buzan; Hansen (eds.), International Security (volume III Widening Security), p. 2. 57 Jonathan Bright, “Securitization, terror, and control: towards a theory of the breaking point”, Review of International Studies, October 2012, volume 38, issue 4, p. 863. 58 Barry Buzan; Ole Waever; Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998, p. 33. 59 Bright, op. cit., p. 866. 60 Lene Hansen, “Reconstructing desecuritization: the normative-political in the Copenhagen School and directions for how to apply it”, Review of International Studies, July 2012, volume 38, issue 3, p. 526.

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sphere”; Barry Buzan argues that this is the “optimal long-range solution.”61 As Huysmans observed, “the speech act of security draws upon a historically constituted and socially institutionalized set of meanings.”62 Ole Waever explained that a security problem emerges when a certain development is named as security issue: “What then is security? With the help of language theory, we can regard ‘security’ as a speech act. In this usage, security is not of interest as a sign that refers to something more real; the utterance itself is the act. By saying it, something is done (as in betting, giving a promise, naming a ship). By uttering ‘security’, a state-representative moves a particular development into a specific area, and thereby claims a special right to use whatever means are necessary to block it.”63

One major merit of the Copenhagen School is the revisiting of the realist mindset by distinguishing between state and society. Barry Buzan and Ole Waever argued that security studies required the incorporation of a “’duality’ of security: that it [should] combine state security, which is concerned with sovereignty, and societal security, which is concerned with identity.”64 It follows then that “at its most basic, social identity is what enables the word ‘we’ to be used as a means by which to identify collectively the ‘thing’ to be secured.”65 According to Bourbeau, the analytic framework of the securitization theory “provides the most widely applied and fully developed model of the relationship between migration and security.” At the same time though, it “has difficulties finding a place within wider categories of IR theory, as realists and neoliberal institutionalists treat [it] with polite neglect and critical theorists find [it] not critical enough.”66

On the one hand, an insightful criticism towards this framework of security centres on the reduction of society to the aggregation of its individuals. As such, Krause and Williams argue, the fact that society is 61

Buzan; Waever; de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, pp. 4, 29. Jef Huysmans, The Politics of Insecurity. Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU, London and New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 25. 63 Waever, Securitization and Desecuritization, p. 73. 64 Ole Waever et al., Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe, quoted in Krause; Williams, op. cit., p. 152. 65 Ibidem. 66 Philippe Bourbeau, The Securitization of Migration. A study of movement and order, London, New York: Routledge, 2011, p. 30. 62

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“made synonymous with the state” obscures or creates misunderstandings about “many of the most salient contemporary security dynamics” since “[i]t is not simply the identities of states that are constructed, but the entire set of practices that designates the object to be secured, the threats it is to be secured from, and the appropriate responses to these threats.”67 Bill McSweeney showed that “identity is not a fact of society; it is a process of negotiation among people and interest groups” and therefore “we cannot decide the status, or even the relevance, of identity a priori”. What is needed, McSweeney argued, is “deconstructing the process of identity formation at the sub-societal level.”68 Also, Krause and Williams showed that “making society synonymous with identity risks reifying both society and identity and, in the process, losing a critical purchase on security as a political practice.”69 Lapid and Kratochwil emphasised the failure to distance from the neorealist ontology and the uttering remnant of statism in the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory due to the equation of identity with society.70 On the other hand, Jef Huysmans showed that the widening of security was centred on the expanding sectors (economic, environmental, and societal) and it “implied differences of opinion over what kind of security rationality should define security knowledge in international relations”. However, “many wideners did not theorize the constitutive effects of language but it played a key role in shifting the question of the meaning of security in the direction of rationalities of framing.”71 One major move from this type of rationality towards one centred on human security came from Critical Security Studies, such as the theorizing of Ken Booth72 and Richard Wyn Jones.73 Huysmans believes that the latter’s “arguments for security studies that would privilege individual security or security of communities over state security [...] were [...] a claim for privileging a security knowledge that focused on an alternative rationality of security that was closely related to the human security agenda.”74 67

Krause; Williams, Broadening the Agenda of Security Studies: Politics and Methods, p. 152. 68 Bill McSweeney, “Identity and Security: Buzan and the Copenhagen School”, inBuzan; Hansen (eds.), International Security (volume III Widening Security), p. 125. 69 Krause; Williams, op. cit., p. 153. 70 Yosef Lapid; Friedrich Kratochwil (eds.), The Return of Culture and Identity in IRTheory,Boulder: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1996. 71 Huysmans, op. cit., p. 28. 72 Ken Booth (ed.), Critical Security Studies and World Politics, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005. 73 Richard Wyn Jones, Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1999. 74 Huysmans, op. cit., p. 28.

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Constructivist Security Studies Buzan and Hansen distinguished between Conventional Constructivism and Critical Constructivism. The former “was the least radical widening approach”75 and represented a counter-position to the materialist conception by privileging ideational factors such as norms, culture, beliefs, shared ideas and identity.76 The latter focuses on other collectivities than the state and “adopts narrative and sociological post-positivist methodologies.”77 The dissociation from Conventional Constructivism was built on “the linkages between the historical and discursive constitution of identities on the one hand and security policies on the other” and on the argument that Conventional Constructivism “reified the state as the object of analysis.”78

Constructivist scholars tackled the issue of need (dis)satisfaction and the way in which the realist pre-given, ubiquitous security dilemma is constructed. For instance, Alexander Wendt emphasized the social construction of fear and anxiety and explained how people experience the emotion of satisfaction when needs are met, and how they experience anxiety, fear or frustration when such needs are not met.79 Furthermore, Wendt listed five major “material needs”, physical security, ontological security, sociation, self-esteem, and transcendence, and he explains ontological security in terms of “human beings need [to have] relatively stable expectations about the natural and especially social world around them.”80 Wendt’s constructivist theorizing focused on the need to stress both physical security and ontological security in understanding world politics, since “along with the need for physical security, [ontological security] pushes human beings [...] to seek out recognition of their standing from society.”81 Jennifer Mitzen showed that the realist survival (understood in terms of physical survival) led to people’s tendency to think “about security monolithically, as physical security, or security of the body” but she

75

Buzan; Hansen, The Development of International Security Studies, p. 192 Ibidem, p. 35. 77 Ibidem, p. 36. 78 Ibidem, p. 197. 79 Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 132. 80 Ibidem, pp. 131-132. 81 Ibidem. 76

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emphasized that “there is another fundamental form of security, ontological security, or security of one’s identity.”82 For Mitzen, then, “Ontological insecurity is the deep, incapacitating fear of not being able to get by in the world, not knowing which dangers actively to ward off [...]. When you are ontologically insecure, all your energy gets bound up in immediate need-meeting, because you cannot organize your threat environment.”83

At individual level, traumatic daily experiences in an armed conflict environment or in war-torn society lead to the individuals’ perpetual anxiety and their inability to go back to who they were before the dreadful events that marked their selves, be it their physical well-being, be it their knowledge about who they are. African humanitarian disasters such as Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo or Sierra Leone showed that a large number of individuals lived in a paralyzing fear and were not only unable to protect themselves physically, but also incapacitated to control the threat environment and to acknowledge whether they were targets, victims, security referents, or waves of refugees creating a security issue. According to Mitzen, the opposite of ontological insecurity (and inability to control the threat environment) is ontological security which “is the condition that obtains when an actor feels he has reliable knowledge, even if probabilistic, about the means-ends relations that govern his social life. Armed with ontological security, the actor knows how to act and therefore how to be himself. Ontological security is the platform of agency.”84

The approach of Brent Steele is drawing on the work of sociologist Anthony Giddens, who (in his influential Modernity and Self-Identity) defines ontological security as “a sense of continuity and order in events”. Brent Steele is organizing his theorizing on ontological security by tackling first the overwhelming emphasis that mainstream IR literature places on the core of the concept of security, namely survival. The traditional account of security is based on survival, the latter being consider the prerequisite of states’ achieving their goals. Indeed, the survival element of security is ubiquitous in major realist and neorealist scholars’ accounts (such as Kenneth Waltz and 82 Jennifer Mitzen, Ontological Security in World Politics, and Implications for the Study of European Security, paper prepared for the CIDEL Workshop, Oslo, 22-23 October 2004, p. 2. 83 Ibidem, p. 3. 84 Jennifer Mitzen, “Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma”,European Journal of International Relations, September 2006, 12, pp. 341-370.

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John Mearsheimer), but it is also integrated in the work of famous English School scholar Hedley Bull. In Steele’s theorizing, though, feeling “insecure” does not necessarily mean having one’s own survival at stake (herein physical survival is implied). Rather, according to Brent Steele, insecurity refers to situations whereby “individuals are uncomfortable with who they are”; consequently, “ontological security, as opposed to security as survival, is security as being.”85 Bill McSweeney’s approach is based on linking security with society and identity and on focusing on “societal identity as the core value”, which is “vulnerable to threats and which is in need of security.”86 Also, McSweeney is preoccupied with ontological security or the form of routinized care for human needs in everyday life. Since security is also associated to feelings of stability, safety, routines, then the process of security has an intrinsic positive value and it indicates a desirable outcome which is not merely relevant for the state, but for the society, for various sub-units, and ultimately for the individuals.87 In this sense, his analysis on security is echoing human security. McSweeney’s line of argumentation dwells on the traditional understanding of security which “evokes a vision of security as a negative freedom - the absence of threat - and [which] conjures an image of tough realism familiar in the world of international politics”, but contends that “there is another image from which to begin an inquiry into the idea of security,” and “this is a positive image, evoked typically in the adjectival, rather than the nominative, form of the term.”88 The scholar shows the double connotation of positive meaning of the adjectival form versus the negative freedom from (military, material threats) as follows: “When we speak of ‘security’ in the nominative, we associate the word with objects, commodities, which have a specific function in relation to other commodities. There is a certain security, or confidence, in the fact that they are objects, tangible, visible, capable of being weighed, measured or counted. They protect things and prevent something happening. When we speak of ‘secure’, on the other hand, it suggests enabling, making something possible. (The familiar distinction between ‘freedom from’ and ‘freedom to’ illustrates the difference, and it is closely related.)”89

85 Brent J. Steele, Ontological Security in International Relations. Self-Identity and the IR State, London and New York: Routledge, 2008, p. 51. 86 Bill McSweeney, Identity and Security: Buzan and the Copenhagen School, p. 122. 87 Bill McSweeney, Security, Identity, and Interests. A Sociology of International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 88 Ibidem, p. 14. 89 Ibidem.

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Bill McSweeney’s influential constructivist approach dissociated from the neorealist account on at least two major points: it shifted the focus from the epistemology of fear to an epistemology of enabling, and it moved away from security for the state to the security for the human. It also led to other theorizing on positive and negative security. Many constructivist approaches on security are essentially preoccupied with human security.90

Positive and negative security The distinction between negative security and positive security is explained by Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv in terms of “security from (a threat)”, in the case of the former, and “security to” (in the sense of enabling), in the case of the latter. The author shows that negative security is associated with the traditional perceptions of security (i.e. Realism in IR) and employs “an epistemology of fear”, meaning that it focuses on the identification of danger, enemies, threats, and this serves as legitimacy to use force in order to remove the issue of security. Since the monopoly of force is (and should remain) located in the state, negative security is a state-centric concept. On the other hand, positive security demands the examination of how security is produce and by whom. Basically, negative security is “security from” (threat) and positive security is “freedom to”91 (or being enabled to do something). The process of security attainment is based on three main phases according to Hoogensen Gjørv: “Security is achieved when individuals and/or multiple actors have the freedom to identify risks and threats to their well-being and values (negative security), the opportunity to articulate these threats to other actors, and the capacity to determine ways to end, mitigate or adapt to those risks and threats either individually or in concert with other actors (positive security).”92

Human Security In 1994, The United Nations Development Program, through its Human Development Report, established as chief theme the shift “from nuclear security to human security,” or to “the basic concept of human security,” defined as safety from “such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression,” 90

See details in Edward Newman, “Human Security and Constructivism”, International Studies Perspectives, United Nations University, 2, 2001. 91 Hoogensen Gjørv, op. cit., pp. 836-837. 92 Ibidem, p. 835.

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and “protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions.”93 A year later, The International Commission on Global Governance was the exponent of vertically extended security94 and stated that “global security must be broadened from its traditional focus on the security of states to the security of people and the planet.”95 In 1995 the United Nations Secretary-General called for a “conceptual breakthrough,” going “beyond armed territorial security” (as in the institutions of 1945) towards enhancing or protecting “the security of people in their homes, jobs and communities.”96 In 2001, the Commission on Human Security was set up and in 2003 it released its report wherein it stated that “the demands of human security involve a broad range of interconnected issues”; consequently, the Commission has concentrated on “distinct but interrelated areas concerned with conflict and poverty, protecting people during violent conflict and in post-conflict situations, defending people who are forced to move, overcoming economic insecurities, guaranteeing the availability and affordability of essential health care, and ensuring the elimination of illiteracy and educational deprivation and of schools that promote intolerance.”97

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has associated human security to several salient issues: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political. Ramesh Thakur defined human security as follows: “Human security is concerned with the protection of people from critical and life-threatening dangers, [...] whether they lie within or outside states, and whether they are direct or structural. It is ‘human-centred’ in that its principal focus is on people both as individuals and as communal groups. It is ‘security oriented’ in that the focus is on freedom from fear, danger and threat.”98

93

Human Development Report 1994, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 3, 22-23. 94 Rothschild, op. cit., p. 3. 95 The Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighbourhood, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 78. 96 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, “Let’s get together to halt the unravelling of society”, quoted in Rothschild, op. cit., p. 3. 97 Commission on Human Security, Human Security Now, Commission on Human Security, New York, 2003, p. iv. 98 Ramesh Thakur; Edward Newman, “Introduction: Non-traditional security in Asia”, in Ramesh Thakur; Edward Newman (eds.), Broadening Asia’s Security Discourse and Agenda: Political, Social, and Environmental Perspectives, Tokyo: UN University Press, 2004, p. 4.

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Edward Newman captures four different approaches on human security. The first one, wherein “scholars of human security argue that for many people in the world [...] the greatest threats to ‘security’ come from internal conflicts, disease, hunger, environmental contamination or criminal violence”; in this approach, the focus is on the individuals’ confrontation with the threats which from their own state and not from an ‘external’ adversary. A second “approach to human security is narrower, and focuses on the human consequences of armed conflict and the dangers posed to civilians by repressive governments and situations of state failure”; in this understanding, the “increasing brutality” (if we borrow Herfried Münkler’s phrase) of the modern armed conflicts indicates that civilians are deliberate targets and conflict is associated with refugees flows, humanitarian disasters, childsoldiering, and human displacement. It follows then, that “conventional security analysis is woefully inadequate for describing and explaining the realities of armed conflict and its impact upon humanity.”99 The third approach is lacking theoretical insight, but is widespread in policy circles and “uses human security as an umbrella concept for approaching a range of ‘non-traditional’ security issues – such as HIV/AIDS, drugs, terrorism, small arms, inhumane weapons such as anti-personnel landmines, and trafficking in human beings – with the simple objective of attracting greater attention and resources for tackling them.” Finally, a theoretical approach on human security is concerned with “the nature of security threats, referents, and responses to insecurity” and problematizes sources of insecurity and criticizes the nature of the institutions which provide security. Within this final approach, the gendered aspects of security and insecurity are tackled.100 Patricia Owens argued that human security represents the “expansion of social forms of governance under capitalism” and decided “to go further than the realist and biopolitical critiques by situating all three – political realism, biopolitics, and human security – within the history and theory of the modern rise of the social realm from late eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe.”101 Leandro Oduor Ogola underlined that human security is characterized by two main aspects: 1) “safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression” and 2) “it emphasises the individual in

99 Edward Newman, “Critical human security studies”, Review of International Studies, 2010, 36, pp. 80-81. 100 Ibidem. 101 Patricia Owens, “Human Security and the Rise of the Social”, Review of International Studies, July 2012, volume 38, issue 3, p. 550.

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recognition that diseases, poverty, natural disasters, violence and human rights abuses cause more deaths than interstate wars and nuclear proliferation.102

Critical Security Studies and Feminist Security Studies Edward Newman indicated that critical security studies and human security shared certain concerns and both challenged the narrow neorealist scholarship, and most specifically “the state-centric orthodoxy of conventional international security, based upon military defence of territory against ‘external’ threats.”103 Ken Booth, Richard Wyn Jones and others equated positive security with emancipation. For Ken Booth “’Security’ means the absence of threats. Emancipation is the freeing of people (as individuals and groups) from those physical and human constraints which stop them carrying out what they would freely choose to do. War and threat of war is one of those constraints, together with poverty, poor education, political oppression and so on. Security and emancipation are two sides of the 104 same coin. Emancipation, not power or order, produces true security.”

Ken Booth and Wyn Jones became prominent voices of what became known as the Welsh School and for the “overly positive conception of security”105; therefore, the “Welsh School is strongly normative, seeing security as a means to emancipation ... [and such an] approach to critical security studies has a self-consciously reflectivist epistemology, and in some ways sees security as socially – and intersubjectively – constructed and thus contingent on power relations.”106 Booth argues against privileging the state as the referent object of security by showing that this is indicative for confusing means with ends.107 For Ken Booth “Security is what we make it. It is an epiphenomenon intersubjectively created. Different worldviews and discourses about politics deliver different 102

Leandro Oduor Ogola, “Human security in pastoralist areas of Eastern Africa”, African Security Review, issue 19:3, 2010, p. 29. 103 Newman, Critical human security studies, p. 77. 104 Ken Booth, “Security and Emancipation”, quoted in Richard Wyn Jones, Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory. 105 Cf. Rita Floyd, “Towards a Consequentialist Evaluation of Security”, quoted in Hoogensen Gjørv, op. cit., p. 837. 106 Cf. Newman, Critical human security studies, p. 86. 107 Ken Booth, “Security and Emancipation”, quoted in Richard Wyn Jones, Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory.

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views and discourses about security. New thinking about security is not simply a matter of broadening the subject matter (widening the agenda of issues beyond the merely military).”108

Steve Smith also points to the need to challenge the essentials of the concept of security, since there is “no neutral place to stand to pronounce on the meaning of the concept of security” and “all definitions are theorydependent, and all definitions reflect normative commitments.”109 Other critical approaches “explore the political limits to critical and emancipatory approaches to contemporary international relations, in particular critical and emancipatory approaches to security and conflict”110 or analyze the relationships between gender and international security, by criticizing international security theory and practice from a gendered perspective.111

Post-colonial Security Studies are preoccupied with wars in the Third World and are centred on domestic conflict. The latter was closely linked to concerns about weak or failed states or with the rise of humanitarian interventions and peace-keeping operations. These approaches “thus reinforc[ed] the long-standing interest within Peace Research about the relationship between development and (in)security.”112 Buzan and Hansen showed that “one body of Post-colonial ISS overlapped with social theory and historical sociology, and hence with Critical Constructivism, in pointing to the need for conceptualisations of security that acknowledged the specificity of the Third World.” Also, the scholars stressed that Post-colonial theories “point to the Western-centrism of ISS” and emphasized “that the study of the non-Western world requires security theories that incorporate colonial history as well as the attention to the specific state formations in the Third World.”113

108

Idem, “Security and Self: Reflections of a Fallen Realist”, in Keith Krause; Michael C. Williams (eds.), Critical Security Studies. Concepts and Cases, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997, p. 106. 109 Steve Smith, “The Contested Concept of Security”, in Ken Booth (ed.), Critical Security Studies and World Politics, p. 27. 110 Tara McCormack, Critique, Security and Power. The political limits to emancipatory approaches, London, New York: Routledge, 2010. 111 See Laura Sjoberg (ed.), Gender and International Security. Feminist perspectives, London, New York: Routledge, 2010. 112 Buzan; Hansen, The Evolution of International Security Studies, pp. 176-177. 113 Ibidem, p. 37, 176-179, 200-202.

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Problematizing in/security in Africa In the case of African conflicts, during the Cold War the responses to humanitarian crises displayed the fragmentation of the international community (for example Nigeria/Biafra114), Cold War geopolitical rationale and resulting proxy wars, and bipolar international politics incentives. In fact, Strategic Studies and Realist Security Studies were caught up in concerns about nuclear deterrence and therefore “Third World security issues were addressed almost exclusively only to the extent that they impacted on superpower relations.”115 After the Cold War, certain Constructivist Security Studies, Critical Security Studies, and especially Human Security gained ground, since they were human-centred and tried to target the plight of the individuals due to armed conflicts. In what follows, we will briefly present two African new war scenarios and we will try to identify the merits of non-traditional security studies.

DR Congo The violent conflict in DR Congo was one of the most protracted in the post Second World War history and it produced huge displacement, suffering civilians caught in refugee flows, and one of the most tragic humanitarian disasters. The huge refugee crises (especially what has become known as the Great Lakes crisis) inflicted suffering on large number of individuals, who were not only living in every-day-life fear and terror, but also were decimated by widespread disease. According to the EU Security and Defence core documents, the violence in DR Congo “reached nearly continental dimensions” and

114

Similarly to other modern civil wars or “new war” scenarios, the armed conflict in Nigeria/Biafra was an internal and internationalized one. Cold War geopolitics played a considerable role in rallying states (and subsequent arms provisions) either around the Nigerian federal government (thus resisting secessionism and African postcolonial state fragmentation), or around the Biafran self-declared state and the leader of the rebellion Chukweumeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (thus legitimizing claims of Biafrans, even though for controversial and varied reasons). 115 Ibidem, p. 19.

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“millions of people died, the whole Great Lakes region was set aflame, decades of development were destroyed and unaccounted suffering, misery and turmoil was brought upon entire populations.”116

In the case of DR Congo (like in the case of Burundi, for that matter), it was highly difficult to determine exactly how many battlefield-related deaths were direct consequences of the armed conflict. In fact, the violence in DR Congo is illustrative for a “new war” scenario, and not for a conventional war. At some point, the crisis escalated because a cholera epidemic broke out in the refugee camps of eastern Congo, prompting the largest intervention in Médecins sans Frontières’s history.117 Other sources indicate that at the end of the chaotic year 2004, another humanitarian organization, International Rescue Committee, reported that the instability in DR Congo was the “deadliest crisis” in the world and estimated that the widespread conflict was responsible for 1.000 deaths a day, of which 98% were caused by malnutrition and disease.118 With respect to the framework of the Copenhagen School’s approach on security (as illustrative for the case of Congo), it has been already argued that it is best applied on the Western states, and not on weak-states or “quasistates” (in Robert Jackson’s phrase119). Buzan focused on state managed domestic order, which was a defining characteristic of his “strong state”; in his framework, the concept of a strong state rested on the subordination of society to the stateand this is not applicable to the fragmented and weak state of DR Congo. The process of securitization implies an issue that needs to be securitized, a speech act that points to it, a political elite that explains the securitization issue to an audience, and the “optimal solution.” In this theorizing the audience represents the society, but this pinpoints to a cohesive body of the population; in the case of Congo this was hardly the case since part of the population was suffering from disease and hunger, another part was forming local warring parties whose daily routine represented looting, and other groups had volatile loyalties to outsiders. According to the Copenhagen School securitization studies “aim to gain an increasingly precise understanding of who securitizes, on what issues (threats), for whom (referent objects), why, with what results, and, not least, under what 116

EU Security and Defence. Core documents, vol. VII (compiled by Catherine Glière), Institute for Security Studies, European Union, Paris, 2006, p. 115. 117 Chris Stout, The New Humanitarians, London: Praeger, 2009, p. 15. 118 Guy Arnold, Historical Dictionary of Civil Wars in Africa, second edition, The Scarecrow Press, 2008, p. 109. 119 Robert Jackson, Quasi States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

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conditions (that is, what explains when securitization is successful).120 According to such an approach, securitising the issue of refugees does not lead to positive outcomes for the human rights of such people. Huysmans stresses that “the securitization of immigration or refugees depends on instituting credible claims that they are an important factor endangering the survival of political units.”121 The counter-effect is that many times “society is not just mobilised through security; it can be mobilised against a particular group, which in a way aids the construction of a unified identity.”122When attempting to correlate this to the problem of Tutsi refugees located in eastern Congo, the following observation is conspicuous: they became the provider of threats since the Congolese government declared them object of the securitisation process. The result is that when their mere existence is turned into a securitising issue, their own human security is neglected, if not completely annulled as concern. It is our contention that human-centred approaches are more relevant for complex dynamic of intra-state violence. As already argued, physical security of Congolese is threatened on a daily basis, but ontological insecurity completes the tragic picture; the plight leads to the individuals’ perpetual anxiety and their inability to go back to who they were before the dreadful events that marked their selves, be it their physical well-being or be it their knowledge about who they are; the perpetuating, paralyzing, intractable fear makes them unable to protect themselves physically, but also incapacitated to control the threat environment and to acknowledge whether they were targets, victims, security referents, Banyamulenge attached to Rwandan-Tutsi or Congolese citizens123, refugees who needed protection or waves of refugees creating a security issue. Therefore, I believe that constructivist approaches and the concept of ontological security offer a more accurate and larger perspective on how threats are constructed and on how enemies are depicted. Thus, violence against civilians (though sometimes random) is based on the identification of threat (belonging to opposing group). Also, we want to stress the merits of societal security approaches and the gendered approaches on security and insecurity, since in the case of DR Congo the referents of insecurity were groups, individuals, and mostly female: the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic 120

Buzan; Waever; de Wilde, op. cit., p. 32. Huysmans, op. cit., p. 47. 122 Ibidem. See also Bright, op. cit., p. 865. 123 Banyamulenge are ethnic Tutsis who had been living in the eastern part of Congo for a long time, but they became dissatisfied with Mobutu’s policy of divide and rule and with the government’s decision in 1981 to deprive them of Zairian citizenship; the result was their rebellion in 1996. 121

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of the Congo (MONUC) was supposed to provide desecuritization and to protect civilians, but to a certain extant in 2005 the Bangladeshi troops became the source of gendered insecurity. As Guy Arnold indicated that “the first months of 2005 proved a damaging time for the reputation of the United Nations forces in DRC”124, when the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) reported that MONUC troops had sexually abused women and girls.125 Arnold showed that “a report by Human Rights Watch on 7 March claimed that tens of thousands of young girls and women had been raped or subjected to other sexual violence during the 1998–2003 civil wars” and that “Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) had treated over 2,500 rape victims at its hospital in Bunia since June 2003.”126 A gendered security approach is highly relevant in showing how women and girls are deliberate targets during violent civil wars and that their torturing and raping is systematic. In the case of Congo, the providers of security turned into malice threats. The tragic situation in Congo persists, the humanitarian crisis is not solved, and the emergence of M23 (Mouvement 23) armed group, which is terrorizing the civilians in theEastern part of DR Congo (especially in North Kivu and North Goma), led to another human exodus and to a state of almost endemic insecurity. According to an ICRC Report in 2009, x “Three-fifths (61%) of the people of the DRC have had direct experience of armed conflict. This is true of both men and women, and of both young and old. x Over half (58%) of those with personal experience of conflict report that they became internally displaced persons. Almost as many (47%) say they have lost contact with close relatives – and the figure is even higher among those aged 25-34 years. x Older people (aged 45 or over) report vulnerability to displacement, to looting, to theft of food by combatants, and to serious property damage. x Sexual violence (i.e. knowing someone who has suffered this violation) has affected over a quarter of the people interviewed (28%). This figure is very similar among men (29%) and women (27%). x Similarly, a quarter (25%) say a member of their immediate family has been killed. 124

Arnold, op. cit., p. 109. A/59/661, 5 January 2005, Report on investigation into allegations of sexual exploitation/abuse in MONUC, The website of the Office of Internal Oversight Services [http://www.un.org/depts/oios/pages/other_oios_reports.html] 126 Arnold, op. cit., p. 110. 125

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x Even torture and kidnapping are reported by large numbers of people (11% in each case). One person in 12 (8%) has been imprisoned. x In these circumstances, it is perhaps surprising that ‘only’ 23% feel they have been ‘humiliated’ – but other kinds of emotional impact are mentioned far more [...]. x Indeed, psychological issues – fear, anxiety, etc. – are among the ‘other’ consequences of the conflict that people most often identify without 127 prompting. This is especially true for women.”

The civilian suffering in DR Congo does not only pertain to physical violence (even though a high percentage of Congolese are affected by it), but also to psychological distress. Traditional Security Studies do not refer to the latter type of insecurity, but the concept of ontological security is meant to capture this dimension of DR Congo’s new war scenario. Within this highly volatile security framework, individuals’ needs are both material/physical and psychological, and women are deliberately and systematically targeted. As a result, the ICRC “supplied and supported 44 counselling centres providing psychological support to victims of sexual violence in the Kivus” in 2011 and “helped 496,577 longer-term IDPs, returnees and residents recover/preserve their food/economic security through livelihood-support initiatives, while improving access to water/sanitation for 335,531 such people.”128

Somalia The case of Somalia represented a televised famine crisis, the first international humanitarian intervention, and it was linked to the first formal UN authorization of peace enforcement (under Chapter VII of the UN Charter). However, the crisis ended in debacle and most of the literature mentions the failure in Somalia. In 1991 the removal of the autocratic strongman Siad Barre left behind a power vacuum which was not filled in by another political figure (enjoying countrywide legitimacy). Consequently, Somalia turned into an archetypal example of what scholar William Zartman has coined “collapsed state”. As April Oliver pointed out, “prominent opposition groups fought, but never formally united against Siad Barre” and even though groups like Somali National Movement, Somali Salvation Democratic Front, United Somali Congress, and the Somali Patriotic Movement were “joined by their hatred of Barre, [they] were divided by clan 127

Democratic Republic of The Congo. Opinion Survey and In-Depth Research, 2009, ICRC Report, p. 20, available at [http://www.icrc.org/]. 128 ICRC Annual Report 2011, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, p. 109, available at [http://www.icrc.org/].

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and ideology as well as geography.”129 Another disturbing factor was the presence of local warlords and their increasing control over parts of the Somali territory while institutional capacity was breaking down, lawlessness and looting became an every-day experience and fear turned into an endemic feature of daily life. Scott Peterson, a journalist who witnessed atrocities in Somalia, vividly described the situation wherein humanitarian aid was hijacked or stolen and used as ransom: humanitarian agencies “[...] unloaded [...] tons of relief food, meant to help save the lives of Somalis made miserable by the reign of warlords and militia, by tempestuous gunmen [...]; these were the predators that made Somalis suffer, the militiamen who foraged to survive, abusing and looting at whim.”130

The dramatic situation in 1991 determined April Oliver to state that “Mogadishu was hell on earth” and the appalling crisis and mounting starvation shocked the international community. During 1991, for instance, the situation in Somalia deteriorated to such an extent that the humanitarian agencies withdrew their missions for security reasons. April Oliver explained why “except for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and a few NGOs, most relief groups fled Somalia during the crucial year of 1991, after Siad Barre’s departure. The UN itself was totally absent during the crucial year of 1991. Those who stayed risked their lives. As conditions deteriorated inside Somalia, so did security for the NGOs.”131

The generalized state of insecurity determined the International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) to seek protection, so “the ICRC hired armed protection for the first time in their history. They hired as many as 20.000 Somalis at some point labelling them (and their armed vehicles) ‘technical assistance’. Some ‘technicals’132 turned on the agencies themselves. Many relief workers lost their lives; others were severely injured trying to deliver or protect supplies.”133 129

Cf. April Oliver, “The Somalia Syndrome”, in Roderick von Lipsey (ed.) Breaking the Cycle, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997, p. 124. 130 Scott Peterson, Me against my Brother – At War in Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda, New York, London: Routledge, 2000, p. 5. 131 Oliver, op. cit., p. 134. 132 The term “technicals” refers to the armed trucks or other vehicles equipped with heavy guns and used for rampage rides or looting (or, in some cases in Somalia, for protection of humanitarian convoys). 133 Oliver, op. cit., p. 134.

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The anarchy which governed the Somali society in the 1990s, the prevalence of small guns, “armed vehicles”, the local militias and warlords, the looting and human suffering, all indicated the need to design a robust military operation centred on the separation of civilians from the irregulars and on the insecurity of individuals. Post-colonial Security Studies bring forward different solutions for African violent armed conflicts since Somalia’s colonial past was a centrepiece for its post-Cold War crises. A human security approach and a non-Western account of African state formation and institution building provide an insightful view of how humanitarian crises could be solved and human suffering and insecurity could be ended. Like the case of DR Congo, Somalia’s new war is still producing disastrous effects on the civilians. Due to the food insecurity that reached critical levels, in 2011 the ICRC “provided emergency food rations to more than 1.2 million people, emergency water rations to 347,000 people and shelter materials to 561,060 IDPs134.”135 Also, Médecins sans Frontières “treated over 95,000 patients for malnutrition; treated over 6,000 patients for measles and vaccinated almost 235,000 children against the disease” in the period May-December 2011 and “within its various healthcare structures MSF assisted in over 5,500 deliveries and provided over 450,000 consultations.”136 Large parts of the Somali population (especially those in South-Central part of country, often called the epicentre of the crisis) are severely affected by continuous conflict, violence, self-perpetuating insecurity, lack of food, and actually survive with emergency aid.

Bibliography Arnold, Guy (2008), Historical Dictionary of Civil Wars in Africa, second edition, The Scarecrow Press; Baker, Bruce (2010), Security in Post-Conflict Africa. The Role of Non-state Policing, London, New York: CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group; Booth, Ken (ed.) (2005), Critical Security Studies and World Politics, Boulder: Lynne Rienner; Bourbeau, Philippe (2011), The Securitization of Migration. A study of movement and order, London, New York: Routledge; Boutros-Ghali, Boutros (1992), An Agenda for Peace, 134

IDPs are internally displaced persons. ICRC Annual Report 2011, Somalia, p. 150, available at [http://www.icrc.org/]. 136 Médecins sans Frontières, Assisting the Somali Population affected by the humanitarian crisis of 2011, available at [http://www.msf.org/]. 135

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: A FORCE SHAPING THE FUTURE RAREù PATEANU

Abstract To state that Information Technology (IT) has fundamentally altered just about every aspect of life as we know it, is to state the obvious. But the best is yet to come! Many of the Information Technologies now in development will not only change more and more how we do things, but will likely have a lasting impact on how we interact, on human relationships, and on the very fabric of society. Things like piconets, real time analytics, and others will change the way humans interact with their environment and with each other, forever altering the future of our society. This paper will examine some of the major ways in which IT will affect our future, not only from the point of view of changing our daily life, but more importantly, from the point of view of how it will change society as a whole.

Introduction One of my favourite quotes is that “Predicting the future is like being in a dark room, looking for a black cat that may or may not even be there.”1 Why then, are we continuing to spend so much energy in doing precisely that? It is probably because a fundamental part of human psychology is to attempt to improve our odds when dealing with the unknown. In the area of science and technology, one might argue that such predictions should be easier to make. After all, science is dealing with facts and research, and perhaps extrapolating future developments from such a massive amount of current data should be easier. Yet the history of science is full of examples of predictions remembered for how wrong they were. Albert Einstein famously said: 1

Anonymous.

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“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”2

The above quote is but one of many such predictions made by no lesser minds than Lord Kelvin, Sir Winston Churchill, Bill Gates, and many others, which have turned out to be so far off the mark as to making these predictions famous for the wrong reasons, in spite of the impeccable credentials of the predictor. Therefore, this paper will stop short of actually predicting the future of technology, and will settle on the more modest goal to discuss seven IT developments that are very likely to have a substantial impact on society. The choice to focus on IT stems from the fact that over the years IT has evolved from being simply a field of technology, to becoming a universal enabler for many areas of science and technology. These days it is hard to imagine any new development from medicine to space exploration and everything in between that does not only rely heavily on IT, but has been indeed enabled by it. Simply put, IT often provides enormous leverage to other technologies. The seven technologies discussed in this paper range from some that may already be present in our lives, but have only just begun to make their impact on society, to some that are so esoteric (and largely experimental) that even understanding what they are is a tall order, never mind the potential impact they might have in the future. Either way, these technologies are characterized by a high degree of innovation and enormous transformative potential. Innovation occurs at the conjunction of two very important forces. Firstly, a critical mass of knowledge has to accumulate for the quantum leap to be possible, since all innovation builds on successive accumulation of such knowledge, often in several fields. Secondly, a need (or perceived need) must exist to spur on the innovation process. In recent times, almost always a series of developments in IT was needed to allow innovation. For instance, many breakthrough medical imaging technologies that have moved forward medical science in leaps and bounds would not be possible without the advancements in digital images, their computerized processing and other related IT technologies such as mass storage, etc. The level of innovation of the technologies selected for this paper puts them in a special category: disruptive technologies. “Disruptive technologies bring to market a very different value proposition than had been available previously. Generally, disruptive technologies 2

Interview, "Atom Energy Hope is Spiked By Einstein / Efforts at Loosing Vast Force is Called Fruitless" in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 29 December 1934.

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Information Technology: A Force Shaping the Future underperform established products in mainstream markets. But they have other features that a few fringe (and generally new) customers value. Products based on disruptive technologies are typically cheaper, simpler, smaller, and frequently, more convenient to use.”3

It seems perhaps counterintuitive that technology that underperforms established products can massively change afield of activity, but it is precisely because they assume a completely different value proposition (and a completely different way of using them) that such technologies completely change the playing field. Miniaturization is perhaps the simplest example of disruptive technology. By being so much smaller and emitting so much less heat, the transistor revolutionized electronics, in spite of being inferior to tubes in many specific metrics associated with performance of electronic components. Microchips in turn did the same to traditional transistors, and moved computing from the realm of the research lab and large corporations into every home. As we look at the seven technologies selected for this paper, we will examine the various advances in other areas of technology that made the next step possible, the driving forces that made it necessary, and most importantly, the impact their disruptive nature might have on the world and society.

Grid Computing During its less than 70 year-long history, computing power has grown in leaps and bounds. Empirical observation (often referred to as Moore’s Law, although what Intel’s co-founder Gordon E. Moore described in his famous 1965 paper4 was actually referring simply to transistor density) asserts that computing power roughly doubles every 18 months. What exactly “computing power” is remains a complex question, but the general implication is that the ability to execute computations at a given cost doubles over 18 months. This extraordinary growth has transformed computers from a science experiment into an indispensable and ubiquitous tool for every area of life, from science and technology to commerce and social interaction. In particular, it has allowed scientists to tackle problems with massive computational needs, such as genetics, image processing, space exploration etc. The need for such massive computational power has led to the creation of 3

Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997, p. xv. 4 Gordon E. Moore, "Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits" in Electronics, 19 April 1965, p. 114.

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so called supercomputers, such as IBM’s Deep Blue, famous for winning a chess match against world master Kasparov in 1997. Such supercomputers are however very expensive, and therefore are rarely accessible for anything but the most advanced research facilities. On the other hand, many studies indicate that server utilization is on average around the 25% mark, due to many reasons such as the need for emergency capacity, cyclical down time, etc. Considering that some estimates indicate over 2 billion computers exist at this time in the world, the computing power available from these devices is staggering. Not surprisingly, the idea of harnessing this computing power is rather attractive. Grid Computing is a form of distributed computing whereby a virtual supercomputer is “composed” of many networked computers acting together for a finite period of time to perform very large tasks. Highly specialized software is required to manage the interactions of such a large number of computers, the distribution of tasks, and the collection of results. Needless to say, Grid Computing is not a universal answer for every large computational problem. Given how it works, it is most suitable for tasks that are relatively easy to decompose into a very large number of relatively small tasks. Developments in multi-threading technologies brought about in the last decade by the creation of multi core processors were in fact a key factor in the development of Grid Computing. Another major factor is the dramatic increase in broadband communications technology, without which the vast communications needs of such a large network of computers would grind work to a halt very rapidly. Parts of the world with most advanced communication technologies currently have 30-50 Mbps internet (interesting to note that Romania is one of these countries), but at this time, the highest demonstrated speed has reached 40 Gbps5. For reference purposes, at this speed downloading a full length HD movie would take about 2 seconds. Lastly, in order to avoid another possible source for bottlenecks, Grid Computing depends on the availability of very large data storage facilities that allow each computer on the grid to store the results of their computations. Such facilities are called SAN (Storage Array Networks) and are a common presence in data centers around the world. IBM is now selling a 120PB SAN (1 petabyte = 1024 terrabytes). Grid Computing has been a reality for a while now. One of the best known examples is Einstein@Home6. It is hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Max Plank Institute for Gravitational Physics. 5

http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/13/40gbps-internet-connection-installed-inswedes-home. 6 http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu.

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If it were a supercomputer, it would rank amongst the top 20 in the world. It consists of 135,000 host computers managed by a Grid Computing platform called BOINC. It has an average performance of 470 teraflops and a peak performance of just over 1 petaflop (or 1015 floating point operations per second). It is used to perform all-sky searches for previously unknown continuous gravitational-wave (CW) sources using data from the LIGO detector instruments. The huge potential of this technology to change the future of society stems from the ability of combining the capacity of small individual computers for the purpose of resolving complex computational problems that might never be able to amass the huge funds a supercomputer requires, particularly when the problem itself might be transitory. A perfect example of possible future use is contagious disease management. In a world so interconnected as ours, where the most remote parts of the planet are but a few hours away by plane, past events like the SARS crisis in 2002-03 have demonstrated how fast contagious diseases can spread. No medical system in the world has the resources to keep a supercomputer ready just in case an epidemic breaks out. However, when it does, understanding how and where the disease is spreading is critical for the defence strategies, and compiling that information is a massive computational task. With Grid Computing, health organizations would not need the power of a supercomputer. Instead they could have a much cheaper Grid Computing management facility, and simply appeal to the population to donate computer time by joining a temporary grid. Disaster planning in general is very much a potential user of Grid Computing. Many recent examples show that in times of natural disasters, people have instinctively resorted to technology such as Facebook and Twitter to share information about events and people in the affected areas. Grid Computing deployed as a disaster management technology would allow enormous improvements in disaster response. More generally, pretty much all types of complex modelling problems, from airspace traffic modelling to medical research can benefit significantly from Grid Computing in the future. In summary, Grid Computing is in a sense a technological manifestation of a much larger social trend, namely bringing together a large community of shared interests to resolve a problem. In software development, we have the open source movement, news outlets frequently use contributions from the public - not hard to come by with every mobile phone having a camera these days -, and crowdsourcing is the hottest trend for financing small start-up companies. Just as it was hard to imagine 20 years ago that a community effort called Linux might one day rival the virtual monopoly Windows had in

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the operating systems space, it is hard to imagine now what Grid Computing might do for us in the future.

Wearable Computing The drive to make computers smaller has probably started the same day the ENIAC was first turned on in early 1946. It weighed more than 27 tons, was roughly 8 by 3 by 100 feet (2.4 m × 0.9 m × 30 m), took up 1800 square feet (167 m2), and consumed 150 kW of power. The race to smaller, faster and cheaper was on. Fast forward to 1973 when IBM Palo Alto Scientific Center developed a portable computer prototype called SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable), widely regarded as the first portable computer (although some refer to this class of computers as “luggable” since they resembled more a piece of luggage that a truly portable computer in the modern sense). It took another decade to get to the truly portable device we know as a laptop. The arrival of smart phones and tablets has taken the computer to the ultimate form of portability: pocketability. However, no matter how small and light these devices have become, they retained a fundamental characteristic, namely the need to interact with them as a separate activity that requires us by and large to drop everything else we are doing. Wearable Computing is a completely new computing paradigm that is characterized by continuous interaction with the computer concurrently with other activities, using specialized components for controlling the device, and having the computer attached to the person or their clothing as unobtrusively as possible. To make Wearable Computing reality, many important technology advancements were necessary. First and foremost miniaturization has brought the size and weight of a computer to the point where having it permanently on your person is possible with reasonably little inconvenience. Secondly, significant advances in power generation, storage and consumption were also critical. One front of this battle has been the continuous effort to increase power density in batteries, an effort driven by many other uses and industries. Another was the engineering of electronic components that consumes less and less electrical power for the same computational capability. All these would however be useless without new and innovative ways of interacting with the computer. Technologies like voice recognition and generation, gesture recognition, accelerometers and gyroscopes of appropriately small sizes have all been essential to provide means of

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controlling the Wearable Computers without the benefit of the traditional keyboard and mouse. Over time there have been many attempts (some more ridiculous than others) to create a computer we can wear. Arguably the first successful example (although not yet commercially available) is the Google Glass. As the name suggests, it takes the form factor of a pair of glasses, and it is equipped with an OMAP 4430 CPU running at 1 GHz using the Android 4 ICS operating system. It is equipped with a 5MP camera, a high resolution display equivalent to a 25” (or 63.5 cm) high definition display projecting directly on the retina, bone conduction transducer speakers, and WiFi plus Bluetooth connectivity. The infographic in Fig. 3-1 below explains how Google Glass works:7 Google has put together an interesting program called Glass Explorer, through which it has offered access to the new device to the authors of the top 2000 ideas on what to do with the device. When will the device (in whatever final form) become available is unknown at this time, but the sheer number of applicants to the program demonstrates that there is no shortage of ideas of how to use it when it does become available. The power of wearable computers does not stem from what they can do. In fact, in the true spirit of disruptive technology, what they do is definitely limited compared to their more conventional counterparts. Their key advantage is their ability to execute tasks with minimal interference from other activities, using voice and movement controls, and superimposing the surrounding reality with electronically generated images. This capability will revolutionize many areas of human activity. One of the more obvious fields to be radically changed is medicine. Imagine surgery where surgeons do not need to frequently raise their eyes from the operating theatre to look at charts, equipment readout, or monitors, because the relevant information can be brought in front of them literarily at the blink of an eye, superimposed over the real surgical theatre. Imagine nurses dispensing medicine while their wearable computer scans the barcode of the medication and the prescription chart to ensure correct medication at correct dosage. In 2000, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a report8stating that from 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur yearly due to medical errors, making medical errors the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. The report identified medication errors as the most common type of

7

Infographic by Martin Missfeldt, Feb. 2013 at www.brille-kaufen.org. L.T. Kohn, J.M. Corrigan and M.S.Donaldson, “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System” in Institute of Medicine, National Academies Press: Washington DC, 2000. 8

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error in health care. Seven thousand (7,000) deaths annually were attributed to medication errors.

Fig. 3-1

The characteristics of wearable computers make them exceptionally good candidates for prosthetics, particularly in light of the advancements of controlling technology. It is possible to imagine image output from a wearable computer bypassing the eye and connecting directly to the optic

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nerve, providing vision for people with certain kind of damages to their eyes. Interaction between wearable computers and prosthetics could bring a new degree of freedom and capability to people affected by crippling diseases. In other fields, so called e-textiles (wearable computers weaved into cloth) could improve protective clothing in dangerous professions, measuring and monitoring the environment for toxic substances and alerting the wearer when levels are dangerous. To date, social interactions and entertainment have been perhaps the most common uses of wearable computers, raising with them an entire new wave of issues related to privacy and security.

Real-time Analytics Data analytics is a field as old as data itself. After all, what is the point of collecting the data if we do not interpret it and derive meaning from it. In fact data collection for the US Census Bureau was the impetus behind Herman Hollerith’s invention of punched cards and the Electrical Tabulating Machine leading to the establishment of his Tabulating Machine Company later to become IBM. The relationship between data and computing has become a giant upward spiral. As more data is available and it needs analyzing, bigger and more powerful computers are created. They, in turn, produce ever more data, that needs analyzing, and so the spiral goes on and on. In many cases though, the timeliness of analysis is of the essence. If you are analyzing the trajectory of a space ship in order to provide input to a course correction, you have only so much time to do the analysis before the outcome is useless because the space ship flying at very high speeds has significantly changed position. Real-time analytics aims to analyze data as it becomes available, and make the results of the analysis available quasi instantaneously. The analysis consists of attempting to find patterns that can be meaningful for solving a business problem, or assisting in some activity. Data from a variety of sources is continuously harvested and the results of the analysis are provided (and updated) as new data items come in, usually in the form of sophisticated dashboards. Think the control cockpit of a modern aircraft, and you get the idea. Flying a modern jetliner is a complex process, that relies on thousands of data points like attitude, altitude, speed, temperature, heading, and many others, all of which change very rapidly, yet need to be analyzed, correlated and displayed to the pilots extremely fast. Traditionally computer engineering has to eternally assess the correct trade-off between quantity and quality, but in the case of Real-time Analytics, computers have to deal with both at the same time. Some of the critical IT

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developments that made Real-time Analytics possible have to do with maximizing the speed of running the analytical algorithms, a problem that has been approached from two sides. First, analytical research has produced significant advances in the efficiency of algorithms, but on the other hand, new IT technologies allow for ever faster data processing. PIM (or Processing In Memory) is a new technology that combines the CPU and the memory on a single chip, allowing for much faster data transfers. Putting more and more CPUs (or cores) on a single chip is another trend that has started at least a decade ago (even smart phones at the high end of the specifications spectrum sport quad processor cores these days), but in the supercomputer arena the number of cores is approaching the 10,000 count. Distributing work across such a large number of processors is commonly referred to as MPP (or Massive Parallel Programming). This approach is particularly well suited to Real-time Analytics, because of the granular nature of data analytics (running the same algorithms on very large numbers of datasets). Last but not least, significant advances have been made in memory technology (and price) allowing high end servers today to support as much as 512 GB of memory. To get a sense of the magnitude of change in this area, note that at this time, 64GB DDR2 SDRAM memory can be purchased retail for about $2,000 US. Thirty years ago IBM was selling 64KB of memory for $275. In those terms, 64GB of memory would cost about $36,000,000 US, and if we account for inflation, in today’s money that would amount to about $64,000,000 US. With so much relatively low cost memory, entire databases (or significant portions thereof) can now be loaded in memory, increasing processing speed by orders of magnitude. This new database technology is referred to as IMDB (or In Memory Data Base). Real-time Analytics is also one of technologies already present in today’s business environment. Perhaps the best known example is in the area of financial trading systems. On the trading floors of major financial institutions, considerable trading activity is now automated, and a race is on for high speed trading, where the fastest market entrant has the price advantage. Obviously this kind of trading has to be automated, and is driven by very sophisticated (and proprietary) rules engines that decide what and when to trade. Of course, these decisions have to be based on the most up to date market data. As with other technologies, using Real-time Analytics for high speed electronic trading is not without risk. On the late afternoon of April 23rd 2013, the Dow Jones Industrial Index fell about 1% in the space of two minutes. The reason? The Syrian Electronic Army (a collection of progovernment Syrian hackers widely believed to be associated with Syria’s

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President Bashar Al-Assad) hacked the Twitter account of the Associated Press, and falsely reported an attack on the White House, and the wounding of President Barack Obama. Real-time Analytics engines discovered and interpreted this information, and correctly assumed that markets will fall, and initiated substantial sale trades, which did in fact bring the Dow Jones Industrial Index down by 1%. The markets recovered quickly, and 1% might not be considered that huge a drop, but if you consider that 1% of the market measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Index amounts to about $136 billion US, and if you were on the losing side of those trades, you could be excused for having second thoughts about high speed electronic trading. What is interesting to note in this example, is the fact that social media was one of the sources of data monitored. A lot has been said and written about the ways social media has sped up the news cycle, social interactions, opinion currents, etc. Not surprisingly, many companies and businesses are increasingly interested in tapping into this massive reservoir of data. Many people have noticed that while a complaint against some practice or another of a business will likely go unanswered for weeks when complaining to traditional customer service, tweets or YouTube videos going viral generate an instantaneous reaction from the offending company. Where in the past a company wanting to launch a new product would distribute samples to a select test group of people, and collect their reaction over many months of pilot programs, in the future one might simply publish the idea, and let the social media react. Possibilities go far beyond that though. By their network nature, social media has topologies, just as networks do, and not all “nodes” are created equal. More sophisticated Realtime Analytics might detect and separate the influencers in a social network from the followers, and treat their opinions in a differentiated way. Actions might than be customized to the opinion makers, hoping to shift their opinion to a positive one, which in turn would hopefully, change the view of the majority. That is a lot more efficient and effective than blanket reactions based on weighing equally all opinions. The future will likely bring more and more sophisticated ways to analyze the events of our life, and will vastly increase the speed of our social and economic interactions. Is that a good thing? That is a topic for another article.

Ultra Low Power Computing Power usage matters in many ways in the computer industry, beyond the obvious fact that all computing devices require some form of power. As electrical current passes through electronic circuitry, it releases heat. The more current is needed for operating the device, the “hotter it runs” as the

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saying goes in the industry. In fact this very simple effect of physics has been one of the breaking forces slowing down microchip miniaturization. As we moved into the world of mobile computing and devices needed to be powered by batteries, a whole new series of engineering trade-offs were required to balance the capabilities of the devices against the battery size (and therefore the length of time we could stay mobile). Of course, the faster the processor, the brighter the screen, the bigger the wireless connectivity range, etc. the more power is needed, increasing the size of the battery (and hence the size of the device) or shortening the up time between charges. This issue can obviously be addressed from both sides: reduce power consumption per unit of work, and increase power density (i.e., increase battery capacity per unit of volume). Not surprisingly, a lot of the research went into finding ways to do the same work with less power, and we have come far indeed. It is in fact very valid to paraphrase Moore’s Law (the same we referred to earlier) in stating that the electrical efficiency of computers measured in the number of computations per KWh has also roughly doubled every 18 months for quite a while, as shown in the graph below (Fig. 3-2).9 Unfortunately I was not able to find a source extending this graph beyond 2009, but a rather unscientific comparison of today’s laptops with the ones from 5 year ago would suggest that the trend has been maintained. There is no agreed definition as to what exactly can be called Ultra Low Power Computing, but generally ULPC devices use a fraction of the computing power required by traditional devices for the same task, and often use different and unconventional sources for their power. Photovoltaic charging (commonly known as solar power, even though it is in fact any kind of light that can be used as a source of energy) is one of these new ways of powering devices. The value proposition of this energy source comes primarily from the wide availability of the power source (light) and the relative flexibility of the form factor of photovoltaic chargers. The downside is that energy density is not that great, so solar energy is used either in ULPC devices, or in conjunction with a battery for more traditional devices. As an example, an Italian company eRALOS3 has started production of a bendable flexible photovoltaic charger that can be easily incorporated into textile, clothes, backpacks, and other wearable accessories. Kinetic charging, which basically converts physical movement into energy is another great choice for ULPC devices, again because of the relatively low amount of energy that can be generated by the natural 9

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/427444/the-computing-trend-that-willchange-everything.

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movement of an individual. It is commonly used in watches, but as more devices reduce their power consumption to the levels provided by this charging approach, it is very likely that more kinetic charging devices will be part of our future.

Fig. 3-2

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Inductive charging on the other hand is not as much a new source of energy, as a new way to transmit the energy from source to consumer without the need for wiring. As a technology, it is not meant for ULPC devices. In fact, the city of Gumi in South Korea is experimenting with inductive charging for electrical buses. Charge plates embedded in the 15 mile route for about 15% of that length recharge buses on the go. Buses need much smaller batteries than otherwise needed, and use the OLEV (OnLine Electrical Vehicle) platform developed at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.10The reason induction charging is relevant for ULPC is the ability to charge very rapidly from such sources, when very little power is required. Should a widely accepted standard be adopted in the future, and deployed in many areas of high volume transit (as an example) your ULPC devices could stayed charged for ever, just because you are taking public transit, or going by other places where inductive charging plates are present, and there wouldn’t even be a need for you to stop there in order to take advantage of this source of power. Going even further, small amounts of energy can even be harvested from radio waves, of which so many fill the ether, courtesy of mobile phones, wireless internet, and other forms of communication. Last but not last, a myriad of new materials used for conductors and chargers have allowed continuous progress in the efficiency of generating and transmitting electrical energy. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review noted: “To put the matter concretely, if a modern-day MacBook Air operated at the energy efficiency of computers from 1991, its fully charged battery would last all of 2.5 seconds. Similarly, the world’s fastest supercomputer, Japan’s 10.5-petaflop Fujitsu K, currently draws an impressive 12.7 megawatts. That is enough to power a middle-sized town. But in theory, a machine equaling the K’s calculating prowess would, inside of two decades, consume only as much electricity as a toaster oven. Today’s laptops, in turn, will be matched by devices drawing only infinitesimal power.”11

The future applications for ULPC are as endless as the human imagination. Again medical devices stand to gain the most from this technology, because of the complication caused currently by the need to power implanted devices, such as pacemakers, etc. Experiments are already taking place with insulin pumps that release insulin as needed, allowing for a 10

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/08/induction-charged-buses. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/427444/the-computing-trend-that-willchange-everything.

11

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more precise and effective dosage and timing. They are now backpack sized devices, but miniaturization and ULPC technology might get us some day to a very non-intrusive version of such a device. Another topic frequently discussed is M2M (Machine to Machine) communication, otherwise known as the “Internet of Things”. More about this in the next section of this paper, but yet again, ULPC is a major factor in making M2M reality. Small objects would not likely be in a position to connect with each other if significant power would be required. On the other hand, if connectivity power needs would not exceed the power that can be harvested from radio waves, just about any object in our household could connect to any other object. If food packaging would include this technology, you could have an instant inventory of what food you have in the house. Add the ability to communicate location information, and you will never lose your glasses or keys ever again! If the trend discussed in the Technology Review quoted above were to materialize, imagine the possibilities for smart phones and tablets, which today have a considerable percentage of their volume taken up by their battery.

Piconets and M2M To state that the Internet has fundamentally changed almost every area of human activity, is to state the obvious. We live in a permanently on, permanently connected world, and that has changed the social fabric of our civilization in ways that we may not have even figured out yet. From the compulsive need to check our smart phone even in the midst of a romantic dinner, to the boundaries between work and home blurred more and more by the intrusion of the work version of the same devices, social interactions will never be the same. So, what is next in the world of connectivity? Very likely, objects will dispense with the need of a human intermediating, and will gain the ability to connect with each other on their own. Piconets are general purpose, low-powered ad-hoc radio networks. Using ULPC (see previous section) and protocols that establish a network ondemand, but stay dormant when not needed, objects can simply connect with each other, and exchange minimal sets of information, such as identity, location, etc. Piconets are characterized by low range (typically a few meters) low power (they exchange very little information over these very short distances) and low rate of data exchange (again, speed is not of the essence, given the nature of the communication). Given the ad-hoc nature of establishing a communication link, they change frequency quite often, in

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order to avoid collision. Piconets generally have a master device, while the remaining devices are slave devices that can be activated by the master device. The most critical contributing technology is ULPC (see relevant earlier section). It is simply not practical to equip a large variety of devices, with very different form factors, manufacturing technologies, and operating environments with power sources, so the ability to use one of the ULPC technologies discussed earlier is essential. Miniaturization and other specialized technologies (such as printing circuits on just about any surface) were also precursors to piconets. The most wide-spread example of piconets today is the RFID tagging (Radio Frequency Identification). RFID tags are common place on credit cards (and other payment devices such as tokens, chips, toll payment devices for automobiles, etc.). Another use for them is in implantable devices (mostly used to track animals). As an example, anyone wishing to bring a dog into the United Kingdom must have a chip the size of two grains of rice implanted by a veterinarian, and have the animal registered in the country of origin. The chip contains up to date information regarding vaccinations and health status, and it is read at customs on entry to the United Kingdom. Speaking of travel, modern passports in Europe, USA, and Canada are also RFID equipped. The RFID chip is recognized by a master device (reader) and a piconet is established for the purpose of a quick exchange of information. Stores use such a reader to identify inventory that has not been paid. Merchandise has labels with RFID tags printed on them (now replacing bar codes). At the cash register, another master device changes the label printed on the merchandise to mark it as paid. The expertise gained with RFID tags and the large volumes involved, have brought down the cost of piconet technology where it is possible to have communications capability attached to just about anything that can have a small label. Food labels could communicate with a tablet, and trigger the retrieval of recipes that can be cooked with the available foods (or with those foods available that a doctor has approved). Grocery lists could be generated, alerts could be created when food expires (or is about to), etc. Sensors could interact with devices in the home to optimize the environment, from temperature and humidity to lighting and allergen management. A vast array of personalized services could be provided by establishing piconets between smart devices. Dating services could interconnect compatible people when in proximity to each other, items could be offered on sale to people who have indicated a specific interest, and so on. Last but not least, by connecting a piconet to the internet, telecontrol of almost anything from almost anywhere becomes a possibility.

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Quantum Computing If so far we have discussed technologies that at least in some form are already present in our life, the last two are downright in the territory of science fiction (or almost). From the 27 ton ENIAC to the current MacBook Air or smart phone, the process to make computers smaller has followed the same path: 1. Construct electronic circuitry using currently available components 2. Optimize use and size of the components as far as the physical characteristics of the current technology allows 3. Devise a new type of component that is smaller and faster and start the process again This cycle has taken us so far from tubes, to transistors and to integrated circuits. Can this cycle continue, and if so, what are the components of the next turn of the cycle be made of? One answer to that takes us to the world of quantum mechanics, the branch of physics that deals with physical phenomena at microscopic scale, typically at atomic or subatomic level. Yuri Manin12and Richard Feynman13introduced in the early 1980s the idea of Quantum Computing. The idea behind Quantum Computing is to make direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena to perform operations on data. However, quantum computers are radically different from traditional ones: 1. Traditional computers use semiconductors to store bits of data; quantum computers use spinning particles called qubits for that purpose. 2. Traditional computers are deterministic (i.e., a bit takes up a value of 0 or 1, based on the two state nature of semiconductors; qubits can take up a value of 0, 1, or any quantum superposition of the two14

12

Yuri Manin, “Vychislimoe i nevychislimoe [Computable and Noncomputable]” (in Russian) in Radio, 1980, pp. 13–15. 13 Richard P. Feynman, "Simulating physics with computers" in International Journal of Theoretical Physics 21 (6) 1982, pp. 467–488. 14 Quantum superposition is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics that holds that a physical system—such as an electron—exists partly in all its particular theoretically possible states (or, configuration of its properties) simultaneously; but when measured or observed, it gives a result corresponding to only one of the possible configurations.

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3. In traditional computers computations are irreversible while in quantum computers reversing the direction of spin would reverse the computation. 4. Traditional computers are linear, in the sense that computations are executed sequentially (notwithstanding the multiple core processors) while quantum computers are inherently parallel, since quantum particles move independently of each other. 5. Traditional computers use electrical current traversing logic gates to execute computations, while quantum computers use a variety of physics effects to control particle spin (Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI and Dynamic Nuclear Polarization or DNP are the most promising so far) As a result, quantum computers are many orders of magnitude smaller and faster, and that is precisely why if realized on practical scale, quantum computers will radically alter everything about computer science. At this time, most of the quantum computing is still in the theoretical research phase, conducted under defense and intelligence research grants. The current focus of this research is on how to control nuclear spin. Some of the more promising results are experimental devices, such as the ones below: • IBM Almaden Research Center designed a 5 qubit QC using fluorine atoms controlled via radio frequency pulses15 • Waterloo Institute for Quantum Computing and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology devised methods for quantum control on a 12qubit system16 (quantum control becomes more complex as systems employ more qubits). • Canadian startup company D-Wave demonstrated a 16-qubit quantum computer.17 The computer solved a Sudoku puzzle. The main value proposition of quantum computers is really the ability to solve problems that are simply beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful supercomputers today. One typical example is the problem of factorization of very large numbers, a fundamental issue in cryptography (hence the interest of intelligence agencies in knowing if and when this problem can be addressed by computers). 15

Colin R. Johnson, "IBM quantum computer solves code cracking problem" in EE Times, http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1142044, 22 August 2000. 16 No Author, "12 Qubits Reached in Quantum Information Quest" in Science Daily, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060508164700.htm, 8 May 2006. 17 Geoff Brumfiel, "Quantum Computing at 16 Qubits" in Nature, http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070212/full/news070212-8.html, 15 February 2007.

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A very natural fit for Quantum Computing is the analysis of complex quantum systems. This would allow us unprecedented understanding of interactions at atomic and molecular level, which in turn could lead to the design of new drugs, superconductors, and many other materials with unique properties. More generally, the study of many natural phenomena is limited today by our computational capacity, because many natural phenomena are governed (or at least influenced) by a large number of parameters. When studying these phenomena today, computational limitations force researchers to limit the number of parameters they include in their study, bringing with it the risk of missing critical parameters, which in turn could limit or even invalidate the results of the research. Quantum computers on the other hand would allow massive parallel calculations, taking into account a much larger number of parameters.

Biologic Computing Another path taken in the search for a different type of components for computers has turned to biology. A biologic computer uses systems of biologically derived molecules such as DNA or proteins to perform calculations. Using synthetic or natural molecules one can engineer a biologic computer, i.e. the chemical components necessary to serve as a biological system capable of performing computations, by engineering DNA nucleotide sequences to encode for the necessary protein components much like our DNA engineers an organism. Our brain (alas, not very well understood yet) is the ultimate biologic computer. The key development that enabled the path to Biologic Computing is nanobiotechnology, defined as the design and engineering of proteins that can then be assembled into larger, functional structures. As a domain of science, nanobiotechnology is not aimed at Biologic Computing as such, but at the synthesis of various biological materials for medical and other reasons. However, the knowledge we derived from these efforts has led to very incipient experimental ways to implement the key computational components in a biologic manner. • Tom Knight from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory suggested that protein concentrations can be used as binary signals.18At or above a certain concentration of a particular biochemical product in a bio computer chemical pathway 18 http://www.fastcompany.com/3000760/tom-knight-godfather-synthetic-biologyhow-learn-something-new.

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indicates a signal that is either a 1 or a 0, and a concentration below this level indicates the other remaining signal. • A team of instructors and students at the Chinese University in Hong Kong have developed a method of storing information in bacteria DNA.19 • In March 2013, a team of bioengineers from Stanford University led by Drew Endy announced that they have created the biological equivalent of a transistor, which they dubbed a “transcriptor”.20 Together, the above three developments have demonstrated the ability of constructing all the major components of a computer (signal, storage and gates) using biological materials. While indeed Biologic Computers would also be smaller and faster than the traditional ones, their enormous potential lies elsewhere. First, given their biologic nature, they have the capability to coexist well and interact with cellular level processes (think implanted biologic computers that modify biologic processes at the cellular level, opening up the potential of delivering the equivalent of immune system responses directly to the diseased cells). Secondly, once the sequence of creating a biologic computer has been encoded (similarly to the way DNA encodes the blueprints for developing organisms), these biologic computers could be reproduced extremely fast and cheap in very large numbers (because it ultimately is nothing but cellular reproduction). As a result, we could: • Execute cell level diagnostic (perhaps direct a cancerous cell to self destruct) • Monitor effectiveness of drug therapy at the molecular level • Repair tissue • Transform passive medical implants into active / interactive ones • … and many, many other developments unimaginable today.

Conclusions In its less than 70 year-long history, computers and Information Technology have undoubtedly changed dramatically the world we live in, and with it just about every aspect of human interaction. More importantly, the rate of change is accelerating rapidly. To pick only a few examples: • The cellular phone is only 40 years old 19 20

http://digitaljournal.com/article/300831. http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2013/03/computer-inside-cell.

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• The WWW is only 20 years old • YouTube is only 8 years old • Twitter is only 7 years old If someone went into a coma 40 years ago and would be revived today, he or she would be essentially unable to function in the usual sense of the word. No wonder we are all curious what the future will bring. This paper has attempted to provide a glimpse into what that future might look like. Only time will tell how accurate this glimpse might be.

Bibliography Interview (1934), "Atom Energy Hope is Spiked By Einstein / Efforts at Loosing Vast Force is Called Fruitless" in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 29 December 1934 Christensen, Clayton M. (1997), The Innovator’s Dilemma, Boston: Harvard Business School Press Moore, Gordon E. (1965), "Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits" in Electronics, 19 April 1965 Murph, Darren (2007), “40Gbps internet connection installed in Swede's home” [http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/13/40gbps-internet-connectioninstalled-in-swedes-home/], 27 August 2013 Website, “About Einstein@Home” [http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/], 27 August 2013 Missfeldt, Martin (2013), “Infographic” [www.brille-kaufen.org], 28 August 2013 Kohn, L.T., Corrigan, J.M., Donaldson, M.S. (2000), “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System” in Institute of Medicine, National Academies Press Koomey, Jonathan (2012), “The Computing Trend that Will Change Everything” [http://www.technologyreview.com/news/427444/the-comp uting-trend-that-will-change-everything], 29 August 2013 Barry, Keith (2013), “In South Korea, Wireless Charging Powers Electric Buses” [http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/08/induction-charged-buses/ ], 30 August 2013 Manin, Yuri (1980), “Vychislimoe i nevychislimoe [Computable and Noncomputable]” (in Russian) in Radio 1980, pp. 13–15. Feynman, Richard P. (1982), "Simulating physics with computers" in International Journal of Theoretical Physics 21 (6) 1982, pp. 467–488 Johnson, Colin R. (2000), "IBM quantum computer solves code cracking problem" [http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1142044] , 2 September 2013

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No Author (2006),"12 Qubits Reached in Quantum Information Quest" [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060508164700.htm] , 2 September 2013 Brumfiel, Geoff (2007)"Quantum Computing at 16 Qubits" [http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070212/full/news070212-8.html] , 2 September 2013 Bluestein, Adam (2012), “Tom Knight, Godfather Of Synthetic Biology, On How To Learn Something New” [http://www.fastcompany.com/3000760/tom-knight-godfather-syntheticbiology-how-learn-something-new], 1 September 2013 Solar, Igor (2010), “Bacteria cells used as secure information storage device” [http://digitaljournal.com/article/300831], 1 September 2013 Service, Robert, F (2013) “A Computer Inside a Cell” [http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2013/03/computer-inside-cell], 1 September 2013

DEMOCRACY VS. ISLAM? THE RISE OF POLITICAL ISLAM IN LIBYA AND TUNISIA AND THE NEW REGIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES ECATERINA CEPOI AND MARIUS LAZĂR

Abstract Arab revolutions have led to the disappearance of autocratic systems and provided, after decades, the chance of implementation of democratic norms and values in the region. However, those politically gaining from the democratic wave in the Arab world are the Islamic (and Islamist) parties and movements which ideological claim to a different socio-political project compared to the Western one. Installed at power in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, they are placed in face of an alternative: to obey democratic standard functionality - which won the elections, or to try to shape the new field of political and public values according to their references. What the present study proposes is to highlight the complex dynamics of political Islam’s rise in Egypt and Tunisia, where the (in)ability of the new elite to assume management of state and society, together with the new authoritarian temptations and multiplication fracture intra - and inter-states, can have destabilizing effects on national and regional security.

Keywords Egypt, Tunisia, political Islam, democracy, security Arab revolutions have led to the disappearance of autocratic systems and provided, after decades, the chance of democratic norms and values implementation in the region. However, political winners from a democratic wave in the Arab world are Islamic (and Islamist) parties and movements

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which ideologically claim a different socio-political project compared to the Occidental one. Installed at power in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, they are placed in face of alternatives: to obey democratic standard functionality - which won the elections, or to try shaping the new field of political and public values according to their references. What the present study proposes is to highlight the complex dynamics of political Islam’s rise in Libya and Tunisia, where the (in)ability of the new elite to assume management of state and society, together with the new authoritarian temptations and multiplication fracture intra - and inter-states, can lead to destabilizing effects on national and regional security.

Democracy in the Middle East: the transitology paradigm and its limits There is a traditional (and yet unyielding) debate regarding compatibility between Western-like democracy, based on liberal values and human rights, and the Arabic-Muslim societies, where both political culture and influence of Muslim values have been seen as factors that affect the real institution of a democratic governance. This debate has been revived by the recent Arab revolutionary processes and attempts to replace the old autocratic systems with democratic models. The difficulties and crisis that mentioned countries experience, in different manners, make the issue of state’s democratization extremely prevailing, especially in finding ever more efficient solutions that are adapted to concrete cases.. One can find here the classical themes theorized by transitology, a discipline of the Political Sciences that follows modalities of transition from authoritarianism to democracy. According to its main representatives (Arend Lijphart, Juan Linz, Giovani Sartori, Guillermo O’Donnel), there were many waves of democratization in the post-war period, at an international level: former fascist powers from Europe (Italy, Germany) – after the war, Mediterranean countries (Portugal, Spain, Greece) – in the seventies, authoritarian regimes of Latin America – in the eighties and the former communist countries – after the nineties. Transitology attempts to elaborate a comparative endeavour, propositioning both a model of governance and institutional principles through which it is considered possible to manage the transition of non-democratic countries towards democracy as efficient as possible. In order to achieve this, it applies an inductive methodology, starting from the experience and consequences of old democratic transitions and continuing with elaboration of optimized models and institutional and constitutional recommendations for the future democratic processes. Sometimes there is an excessive formalism and a tendency to formulate prospective strategies, aiming to model new situations

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of new countries starting from the set of norms and recommendations constructed on the analysis of prior situations. Thus, the now classical collective work, coordinated by Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan (Linz and Stepan 1996), casts a paradigm of transitions based on the analysis of actor’s interactions regarding 5 segments: the political society (political actors; it must be sufficiently powerful related to civil society in order to assure a consensual and orderly transition), the civil society, the concept of state of law (the efficiency of rules that structure the political and institutional life in the post-authoritarian societies), the state itself (grouping actors like the army or security forces, that can help or block the transition process, as well as the realization of a stable transition, implying the credit of state’s bureaucratic legitimacy) and the economical society. Acknowledging the epistemological limits of transitology’s paradigm, we may ask ourselves how its model validates democracy as an absolute political reference and if it has any real applicability in a specific socio-political context as that of the Arab countries. One of the already well founded dogmas in specialized literature, although recognized and assumed as a necessary social-political model, is that democracy in its classical variant of a liberal system is difficult to implement in countries of the Middle East and Northern Africa. Starting from this argument, democratization of the Arab world stimulated geopolitical engineering and exogenous projects accelerating the implementation of democratic governance within the region. The EuroMediterranean Partnership, initiated in 1995 through the Barcelona Process, was a soft initiative of the European Union to support an inner initiation of democratization processes and opening up of Arab societies. On contrary, the 2003 American campaign in Iraq, and the subsequent project of Greater Middle East from 2004, were attempts to externally de-structure the autocratic systems and to tutelage new political reconstructions after a Western model, seen as solutions to attenuate social-political problems and numerous conflicts in the Middle East. A wave of revolutions in the Arab world after 2011 and especially its complex and unpredictable evolutions raise again discussions on the functionality and limits of a transitology model and necessity to re-adapt its theories according to new realities and specifics of the Arab political culture. In a study dedicated to democratization of the Middle East in the context of the “Arab Spring” (Linz and Stepan 2013), Alfred Stepan and Juan Linz consider that any effort of democratization within the new post-revolutionary contexts must take into account structural realities of the region: relation between religion and democracy in Muslim societies, hybrid character of regimes that mix authoritarianism with democratic elements, “sultanistic” political culture and its implications for the efficiency of transition towards

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democracy. Utilized by Max Weber, the term “sultanism” designates a system of power in which all state institutions become simple instruments serving an autocrat; the Arab world is a case in which we especially saw the development of such regimes like Libya, Syria, Saddam’s Iraq, Yemen etc. (Voll 1997, 1-16). The trajectory of post-revolutionary Arab states is yet uncertain, as central question remains: are they really situated in the direction of an efficient democratization? Or, are they inclined to transform themselves into that which some of the specialists call “hybrid regimes”, neither democratic nor authoritarian, like the model of ex-Soviet countries in Central Asia or postcommunist Europe? (Levitsky and Way 2010). Theorists of the “hybrid regime” concept are sceptical concerning a transitology and a formal appliance of democracy rules (especially implementation of democratic institutions). Furthermore, they are sceptical that the implementation democratically determines and models the behaviour of political and social actors over the transition period. For them, the concrete reality of political practices can overlap, neutralize or manipulate the rules of democratic institutions. Once more, we must rise to question the specifics of the ArabMuslim political culture and the validity of theories referring to nonpermeability of the Arab world to implementation of a real democracy. There is a classical conflict here, between those who come from the domain of Political Sciences and International Relations, who tend to certify the universal validity and functionality of democratic norms, seen as an absolute reference that can transcend particular conditionings (cultural, historical etc.), and the researchers of what is called Middle Eastern Studies. For the latter, there are certain characteristics of the Arab-Muslim world (social, cultural, religious, political, ideological, tribal etc.) that transcend and modify the political values in a certain manner, including democratic norms and functionalities. The tendency towards authoritarian, patriarchal culture, structure of power starting from particular solidarities (in the Islamic political sociology called asabiyya), perpetuation of a climate of continued rivalry for power and generalization of political violence as an instrument of seizing or contesting power etc., confer together a certain hallmark to the region and its continuity to contemporary period makes some observers to reify all these characteristics in a pattern of social and political behaviour specific to Arab world. The ambiguous or slow democratic evolution and even the devolution that characterizes at this moment post-revolutionary Arab countries seem to validate this thesis.

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The difficulties of transition in post-Qadhafi Libya Unlike Tunisia or Egypt, where there already were some mechanisms and institutions with limited, minimal but accepted democracy and where there was a partial autonomy of civil society and different public institutions (justice, army), in Libya, the political modernity was almost non-existent. Codification of a power system is mixed with a patriarchal absolute authoritarianism, specific to the Arab world, with an apparent autonomy of communities – but not of individuals, in the measure in which “direct democracy” was only a conceptual formula with modern appearance that legitimized traditional forms of local authority, of the tribal leaders or urban notables – confirmed in their public status according to loyalty towards the supreme leader (Anderson 1987, Deeb and Deeb 1982, Al-Werfali 2012). After the fall of Tripoli on August 20th, 2011 and elimination of Qadhafi on the October 20th, Libya ended the civil conflict after half of a year, which led to disappearance of a totally original regime and political order, called Jamahiriyya, built in the 42 leadership years of the “Leader of The Revolution”. Old power structures, political and military institutions, influence networks of a political, tribal, ethnic, economical client-based system are violently de-structured during the revolution and especially their memory is, as of now, attached to a negative representation that makes reconciliation and re-accepting of the society and new post-revolutionary institutions very difficult (Chivvis 2012). They are substituted by new political, military, social, economic actors that are in a fierce competition and rivalry for power and resources; the extreme complexity and fragmentation of this new landscape, a geopolitical patchwork with continuous dynamics, complicates any coherent and programmatic attempt of implementing certain programs of national reconstruction. There are multiple rivalries and conflicts: between revolutionary cities and those that backed the Qadhafi regime, between cities and tribes, between different tribes, between new political and military authorities, and groups and militias that appeared during the revolution or even afterwards, between new elites and old representatives of power, and so on. (Brenton and Cantu 2012). Once more, in this regard Libya is different from other Maghreb states that went through similar revolutionary processes. Thus, if on one hand in Tunisia and Egypt the rivalry for power took place firstly within the Islamist forces (The Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic parties, Salafist movements) and the secular military or political elites, on the other hand, a characteristic that essentially defines Libyan post-revolutionary period is the multiplication of power centres at local level and where, correlatively, the main themes of conflict and political and social-economical de-stabilizing revolve around the

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dynamics of power between the three levels: national, regional and local (Lacher 2013). Libya owes tribute here to its own political tradition, that of a fragile state in which central authority the national institutions were built with difficulty and permanently threatened by regional and local centrifugal tendencies. On top of this, there is also a culture of community fragmenting and folding-over on tribal, regional, urban basis that characterises Libyan territories for centuries. Through its system of “direct democracy”, based on the instalment of a “state of the masses”, Qadhafi tried to conciliate the modernization of Libyan society with the reality of a regime centred on an absolute decision authority exercised by him. Like most of the states within the Arab world, pre-revolutionary Libya was a system in which power is personalized par excellence and official institutions only formally distribute and manage the decisions taken by the supreme ruler that is identified to the state itself. What complicates the current post-revolutionary transitions in the Middle East is especially the difficulty of evolving from this political culture which is specific- towards a pluralist political, social, economic system modelled as in democracies of the Western tradition. Difficulties arise when the implementation and especially the compliance with this universal political normativity is attempted, which is specific to any modern democratic system, in the states of the Arab-Muslim world. Just like Iraq, Egypt or Yemen, postrevolutionary Libya is confronted with these difficulties, in the process of transitioning from a culture of divisions and one of a patrimonial and autocratic political system, to Western inspired governance. The crisis and violence that accompanies this transition process, the conflicts between different actors that have now appeared on the Libyan stage, identity fragmentation and multiple polarizations according to political, ideological, financial etc. interests, are a result of the disappearance of a coercive and autocratic system, of the dissolution of institutions and furthermore the result of a real impossibility of rebuilding them as rapidly and efficiently as possible, leaving a political and security vacuum which the new authorities attempt to annul with great difficulty. The efficiency of re-instalment of political, social and security order in current Libya is limited by lack of unity and profound tension faults that traverse the post-Qadhafi society. They are numerous and, at this moment, seem hard to appease. In general, one can consider that the Libyan transition is characterized by four main problems: fight for power between the local and national actors, difficulty of the security recovery, reconstruction of justice system, and competition for control of economic resources (el-Katiri 2012, Barah 2012). At the level of new political life, camps are polarized according to the numerous subjects of dispute, reflecting the faults and conflicts that appeared along the difficult and violent revolution period. First political structuring of

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the Qadhafi regime took place in the very first moments of the Libyan protest movements, on February 17th, 2011. Now already, the importance of actors at local level is fundamental: the local and military councils, revolutionary brigades, tribal leaders impose themselves in different cities or regions, as the new structures of power that try to eliminate or substitute official authorities (International Crisis Group 2011). At national level, the representative instance that is instituted as an alternative to the Qadhafi regime is the National Transition Council (NTS), formed by the members of exiled opposition as well as different leaders of the regime, who distanced themselves. The Council had appeared actually since February/March 2011, in Benghazi, earns international recognition and will function as a government led by Mahmoud Jibril. Its major problem, as of any postrevolutionary central authority, was its incapacity to control the ensemble of numerous local power centres that appear on background of the revolution, across Libyan territory. The situation is aggravated after a definitive fall of the Qadhafi regime in November 2011, when the NTS members which were part in the old power structures are contested by revolutionaries (Salem and Kadlec 2012). The first free elections in modern Libyan history took place in July 2012; they led to formation of the National General Congress (NGC), which functions as a parliament and its president, the role of chief of state: Mohammed Magariaf was the first to hold this position, until May 2013, when he resigned following the vote on law referring to the exclusion of old regime members, being replaced by Nouri Abusahmain, member of the imazighen community and supported by the Justice and Development Party,a political expression of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. NGC will have designated a new government led by Ali Zeidan in October, especially supported by the Alliance of National Forces and a large number of independents, being seen as an effort to limit the influence of Islamists. Composition of the NGC reflects a powerfully fragmented character of the Libyan political class and, in general, that of the entire society. The only political forces with a national program and reach are those belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and to the Salafi movements, rest of the political class being powerfully conditioned by local, regional, tribal, clan or economic interests. The alliances are roughly made out of interest, without much preoccupation on ideological or political identities and there is a permanent dynamic of the politicians or political groups, according to different momentary necessities. Precisely for trying to offer a coherent solution to this heterogenic political environment and the fragility and instability of the new parties, January 2012 electoral law instituted a quota: three fifths of the 200 NGC members are to be elected from independent candidates and two fifths

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from party lists. Most of the independents, with the exception of eminent personas and those close to Islamism forces represent groups of interests and power at a local level (cities, regions, tribes, families). As a consequence, their faithfulness and support are not directed towards national projects but rather to projects of those that they represent and those that have supported their political ascension. The significant number of independents makes the impact of local asabiyya extremely important and influential and will affect the whole process of distributing political and administrative functions at the level of nationwide institutions and especially in key offices (army, internal, justice, economy). Some of the independents were financially and logistically supported by political parties (Mühlberger 2013).

The Libyan disorder: revolutionaries, Islamists and militias Like most of the Arab countries that experienced revolutionary processes, political Islam has become visible and influential in post-Qadhafi Libya. The Islamic and Islamism accent, manifesting both at the NGC and official institutions levels, is in its turn fragmented and there are many rivalries between personalities, ideologies, political strategies and divergent actions, tutelages and external influences. However, the great Islamic forces, Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi, develop programs with a national dimension and take advantage of their anchorage in trans-national networks to which they are affiliated or collaborate with. At the same time, we must mention personalities like the great Mufti Sadeq al-Ghariani, the most influent Islamic figure, or Ali Sallabi, the theologian who is close to Youssuf al-Qaradawi and the international network of the Muslim Brotherhood who represented, at the beginning of the revolution, one of the relays that spread Qatar’s influence in Libya (Ashour 2012). The Muslim Brotherhood exerts a significant influence among several central or local institutions and authorities (Tripoli, Benghazi), especially in the domain of security. The same prevails for numerous revolutionary brigades, whose emergence and financial/ logistic support was sustained, during the conflict, with the help of local infrastructure and especially external links of the Brotherhood networks and powers that supported them. The Brotherhood exercises an influence through its present members, in the new collaboration structures of the brigades (The Union of Revolutionary Brigades, The Commission for Combatant Issues etc.); they plead for development of former revolutionaries reintegration programs, the implementation of which would mean access to very important financial resources, hence the important stakes of controlling these associations.

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Correlatively, the number of those that declare a revolutionary status becomes even greater; precisely in order to benefit from the privileges resulted from it. The Islamist discourse and references are largely assumed by the revolutionary brigades and different militias which are present in almost all great Libyan cities; they are an equally facile and ambiguous identity hallmark. As a consequence, the Muslim Brotherhood and Libyan Islamic Fighting Group do not own an absolute monopoly over them and many of them have own autonomy and interests. Another extremely important segment of the Islamism, with a great media visibility, is that of Salafist-jihadi revolutionary brigades. Like in the rest of Maghreb countries, jihadi movements have been present in Libya since early nineties, following the return of old combatants from Afghanistan, Bosnia or Chechnya, their most well-known manifestation being the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya), considered to be an al-Qaeda affiliate (although permanently denied by the LIFG leaders). Still, many of the most important members and leaders were alQaida affiliates (Abu Yahia al-Libi, Abu Laith al-Libi, Atiyah Abd alRahman, Abdel Hakim Belhadj). The LIFG was in the nineties the most important internal rival of the Qadhafi regime; imprisoned, a part of their members was released in 2008 and 2010 at the insistence of Saif al-Islam (Kabir 2011, Kohlman 2007). At the moment of the revolution, LIFG members would have joined the revolutionary groups and form their own structure, the Libyan Islamic Movement. Abdel Hakim Belhadj becomes commander of the Military Council of Tripoli and the LIFG network will be present in almost all of the great confrontations against Qadhafi’s forces. After its fall, many structure members will integrate themselves into new political and military structures, both at central and local level; the movement disappears as name and the diverging interests that arise between different leaders avert from a unified strategy. From within their offices still, they have the possibility to direct resources and support towards clients; this complicity explaining the persistency and especially recrudescence of numerous jihadi brigades and groups that have appeared since 2011. From these, the most visible are Ansar al-Sharia, Abu Obeida Ibn al-Jarrah, the Abu Slim Martyr Brigade – in Benghazi and Darna, the Faruq Brigade – in Misrata, the group led by Rabi’ al-Madkhali – in the North-West, the main attackers of Sufi monuments. Attached to a radical ideology and structurally centred on a combat militancy, the jihadi groups represent some of the most important vectors of instability for post-Qadhafi Libya. Refusing to integrate in the new official security structures (but benefiting from within support of their allies), in connection with regional (al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb) or international (al-Qaida) jihadi networks, they manifest a violent reactivity towards Western

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interests and presence in Libya, initiating several attacks and bombings (most known case is the attack of diplomatic American residence in Benghazi on September 11th, 2012 which led to death of the US ambassador, Christophen Stevens). A large number of their members participate in the Syrian civil conflict, representing, from a national point of view, the most important group of foreign jihadists that take part in the fight against Assad's regime. Through ideological attachment and perseverance with which they follow political projects that aim at installing an Islamic state in Libya, through their fluid and clandestine character, the international relations with the new power elites, through extremely important internal and external financing and programmatic violence that defines their activism, all these Salafi-jihadist groups and brigades position themselves as alternative structures of power that block the recovery of political and especially security environments in Libya. The violent revolution spawned many combatant groups and militias, all of them adding the designation of thuwar (revolutionary) to their name. The relative unity of anti-Qadhafi offensive moments will later turn to a competition for resources, power and influence, combined with rivalries between leaders, cities and regions (McQuinn 2012 [a]). Due to extreme heterogeneity and divergent interests, the attempts of unifying revolutionary groups that do not have the capacity to be efficient at a national level, remain the expression of the different local initiatives specific to the important urban centres (especially Misrata, Zintan, Tripoli). Hence the impossibility of elaborative nation-wide functional policies that would reconcile the expectations of different brigades and militias and, correlatively, the often violent contesting reactions (the attacks on the headquarters of the ministries, of public institutions, officials) against Libya’s new political and security elites, which are accused to be not open to their requests (maintaining of current structure and recognition of their role as new security and public order authorities, grants of armament and financial support, rewards for taking place in the revolution etc.) (McQuinn 2012 [b]). The tension between state institutions (some of them represented by ex-combatants) and the thuwar groups is a definitive factor of post-Qadhafi transition. Intentions of the Zeidan government to dissolve the armed groups and many local or neighbourhood militias and to force their integration in the new official military and security structures (or to re-orient them towards civilian life) meets opposition, because in this way they lose their whole status, privileges, access to armament and resources and the possibility to implement operations according to own interests. Sometimes, the post-revolutionary brigades are used by political or military leaders in power in order to exercise pressure or to combat the influence of their rivals (International Crisis Group 2012).

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The disarmament of groups and militias, and finding efficient modalities to integrate them in the new military or security structures or civilian environment remains one of the biggest problems for Libya’s transition. After instalment of new authorities, there were constant efforts being made for the dissolution of revolutionary groups that still remained active, through the integration of their members in traditional structures (army, police) or in the new temporary forms that would assure coordination and a gradual take-over by the state. The assimilation or dissolution of numerous brigades and militias remained separte from the new security structures, excluding especially those that programmatically refuse to integrate themselves in the new system and furthermore, some violently contesting it – like the jihadi groups. It is one of the keys of Libya’s recovery.

Tunisian “exceptionalism”: between modernity, authoritarianism and Islam Tunisia had a particular trajectory within the Arab-Muslim world, especially in the Maghreb, as a result of both its socio-political history and its modernizing reform initiated by the first president after independence has beed obtained, Habib Bourguiba. Since the medieval period following centuries of continued political and religious instability, with the Hafsid dynasty (1236-1574), a stable political structure and identity were created on the current Tunisian territory. Setting the capital in Tunis and maintaining an intense trade with Mediterranean Italian and Spanish cities, the Hafsids helped shape a Tunisian specific community which becomes visible with the Turks inability to dominate Tunisia, after 1574. The local dynasties of Beys exercised political authority while formally recognizing the nominal Ottoman suzerainty. Husainid Bey family will rule Tunisia for two and half centuries, from 1705 to 1957. In the mid-nineteenth century, they will initiate a process of modernization, marked by the adoption of a constitution in 1861. After transforming Tunisia in French protectorate in 1881, the European influence is becoming more important for the administrative and educational systems, and for the local public and intellectual life (Sraieb 1987). As in the rest of colonial Maghreb, at the early twentieth century Tunisian nationalist movement becomes more active, first with the Young Tunisians (1907), then with the party Destour (1920) which will splint in 1934, into a traditional wing that kept a strong Islamic identity, and a neo-Destour wing, led by Habib Bourguiba, who assumes a secular program modeled on European parties tradition. After World War II, both Husainid dynasty and French colonial system are increasingly challenged by the nationalist movement, amid a general trend of riots and anti-colonial struggle that

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engulfed Maghreb, especially Algeria and Morocco. France recognized the independence of Tunisia on March 20th, 1956; leading the war for independence, the neo-Destour and Bourguiba become heroes of this process and gain elections for the Constituent Assembly, concentrating the main political functions. The monarchy is abolished, Tunisia becoming a republic in 1957 and two years later, Bourguiba is elected president. As in the cases of Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, post-colonial Tunisia is characterized by a trenching of political elite that led the liberation movements (or revolutions) which served over decades as a source of absolute legitimacy and justified their indefinite perpetuation in power. Since 1963, neo-Destour becomes the only recognized political force, while others, especially the Communist Party, were banned. However, unlike other Arab leaders, Bourguiba was marked by a profound reformist attitude inspired by the Western model and showed a much lower sensitivity to cultural and traditional values of Arab society. He was rather fond of French modernity in which he will dig for ideological resources aimed to model Tunisian society. Without ignoring the Tunisian Muslim cultural and religious tradition, he implemented, often in a brutal manner, a series of reforms that restricted the social influence and values of Islam. Such were the school reform dated in 1958, when the whole political system is put under state control, eliminating influence exercised by theological institutions, especially the famous academy from Zitouna. The Civil Code, enacted in 1956, had the largest impact, causing a real trauma in Tunisian society permeated by patriarchal traditions, because the new law of full equality between spouses, forbade polygamy, the state was the sole source of marriage legitimacy, etc. In fact, as in Egypt under Nasser, Tunisian Islam becomes nationalized; state now controls the entire contents of religious discourse, especially its specific manifestations, both institutional and individual. Since the Hafsid period, and especially under Husainid dynasty, Tunisian Islam completes its specific coloration inspired by the Maliki Sunni juridical school, where the stringency of religious law (fiqh) is doubled by the local customary codes. During this period, political power is, at least theoretically, under the authority of religious class, who provide legitimacy but, in fact, they work almost in parallel interfering only at functional level. Legal authorities, theologians and jurists, control almost entirely and autonomous the exertion of law, which is theological encoded according to the Maliki juridical school rules, while political authority is confined to governing. Nineteenth century attenuated the independence of religious power, which underwent a process of reform and adaptation to modernity. But now, with Bourguiba, the state claims absolute authority to control and interpret the official Islam, meaning that the president gets often to make decisions in relation to various legal-theological or religious issues

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close to assuming the status of mujtahid, the authority to interpret Islamic law (Cherif 1994). Despite the secularization policy imposed following the French model, Tunisia's Bourguiba did not eliminate religion, he only limited its presence and social function, and gave it use as an auxiliary tool through which state exercises control over the community and individuals. Bourguiba was essentially a reformer which used all available resources, including religion, in order to implement his own vision and values (Frégosi 2005). The overlap between state and his own personality that intensified especially in the 1970s was one of the reasons that have led to an increasing separation between important population segments, due to successive failures of different strategies (socialism, pan-Arabism) and a deepening economic crisis. Turned into an autocrat, in a manner so typical for regimes in the Middle East, he gradually lost the support and enthusiasm that have accompanied the struggle for independence and its first years in power. In 1975, Bourguiba declares himself president for life. As in other countries that have taken a modernizing and reformist model (Algeria, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt), changes in Tunisia, in the beginning, marshaled large popular support that effectively contributed to the emergence of new social segments that assumed the secular ethos promoted by Bourguiba. Popular euphoria fades away leaving room to increasingly grievances. The 1970s are a period of social, economic and political crisis, and of structuring new social forces that increasingly take action against Tunisian realities. Among these new social forces, the most important are Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT) - the main union in the country, and the Tunisian League of Human Rights (1976), the first of its kind in the Arab world. The situation worsens in the eighties, especially due to Bourguiba's health degradation, lack of economic and political coherence of the regime that entered into a chronic crisis which is completely identified with the fate of its leader. Political liberalization announced is now an illusion, because the power is for nearly three decades, owned by the circle around Bourguiba that fully controls all state institutions and functions; an increasingly violent and repressive regime is substituted with the inability of official propaganda to garner social support. As in Egypt and Algeria, economic degradation is accompanied by popular uprisings and police repression. Political prisoners become common. It’s the same context that, as in other Arab-Muslim regimes, falls into a structural crisis which promotes and accelerates the structuring of a Tunisian Islamist movement. The emergence of re-Islamization currents in contemporary Tunisia falls in line with the ones in entire Middle East and North Africa; similarities are striking to what is happening in Egypt and Algeria. The reasons for this

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return to Islamic values and themes, including a militant and political dimension are multiple, and most have origins in the failure of modernization and development projects initiated by the post-colonial regimes, in the depletion of mobilizing potential of Arab nationalist ideologies, and in the economic, social, existential crisis affecting more and more new generations, especially amid a massive urbanization process and generalized education (Lamchichi 1989). The causes are therefore both domestic situation in Tunisia and influence of historical trends of Islamism, mainly from Egypt, Pakistan and then Iran. Seemingly paradoxical, and as in Egypt during the same period, first openings to reacceptance of symbols and religious discourse in public space were initiated by the power structure in the early 1970s, due to growing influence of leftist movements. Islamic values are seen as a counterweight to militant communism and socialism spread among students and intellectuals (Abdelkader 1979). These pressed the power to soft-open to Muslim cultural associations and mosques, greater permissiveness towards Muslim symbols in public space, and acceptance of proselytizing from outside, especially through networks of preachers from Pakistan, Egypt and Gulf States (Camau 1981). Gradually, however, Islamic activism took a more nuanced political dimension, especially after the assimilation and dissemination of the theses of classical Islamist ideologues such as Sayyid Qutb and al-Mawdudi. In student quarters, the influence of Islamist discourse extends to the middle classes, especially among disadvantaged suburban centers, each finding in the message of Islam the solution to their problems. After the «bread riots» of 1978, followed by banning of UGTT union, contestation of the regime and its increasingly authoritarian and economically disastrous policies is assumed by Islamist movements. The Islamic revolution in Iran has a decisive impact, becoming an ideological inspiration and source for action for many Islamist currents in the Muslim world, including Tunisia. Already in 1978, the main representatives of Tunisian Islamism (Abdelfattah Mourou, Ghodbani Hassan, Habib Mokni, Rached Ghannouchi) will group into the Islamic renewal movement, which advocates a return to Shari’a at juridical and political level, but excluding violent ways to achieve this project. Gradually, Ghannouchi becomes the main ideologue and charismatic leader; in 1981 he will form his own group, the Islamic Tendency Movement (Harakat al-Ittijah al-Islami) – ITM (Esposito and Voll 2001, 91-117). In the 1980s, ITM was the main receptacle that attracted those disillusioned by the failure of Bourguiba modernist project and who see Islam as the key to solving the social, economic, political and crisis that was shaking all over Tunisian society.

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However, in the early years of ITM, Ghannouchi showed pragmatism and flexibility, trying to adapt their speech and actions to limits allowed by the regime, and did not propose a radical program, nor a strategy of power change, following the Iranian model or radical groups that now draw themselves from Sayyid Qutb's thesis (Burgat 1986). Thus, in 1981, the movement tries to be recognized as a political party and participates in elections and political opening toward multiparty system announced by the M'Zali government; Bourguiba would oppose this trend, however, and an increasing repression starts against Islamist movements, whose mass impact is considered as threatening the regime's stability. ITM is outlawed, its leaders and members are imprisoned and released following the changing interest of political power, including Ghannouchi. Bourguiba, sick and less connected to the realities of Tunisian society, is committed to a strategy of suppressing the radical Islamist movements and eliminating their leaders; more cautious, some of the political power members prefer to keep a moderate attitude due to the spreading influence of Islam in the wider population. However, the arrest of main leaders, repression policies and restrictions ended with radicalization of some factions inside ITM. In 1987, the movement tried to provoke a coup, infiltrating the military and other official institutions; exposed, those directly involved are sentenced to capital punishment and Ghannouchi is imprisoned for life. All these events have accelerated the shift in power: on November 7th, 1987, Bourguiba will be forced to resign for health reasons by General Ben Ali, Prime Minister at the time. First year of the new regime was marked by political liberalization and democratic openness and what appeared to be a total break with Bourguiba legacy. ITM members are released from prison. A National Pact in November 1988 between the ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Assembly, and other political forces, legal or illegal, made the promise of their acceptance into politics. Since May 1988, the electoral law banned political parties from making reference to religion, race, region, etc., the moderate faction of ITM decided to change the name of the party, which is now Hezb Ennahda (Renaissance Party). But the growing influence and especially the events in Algeria, where the Islamic Salvation Front was about to seize political power as a result of first Algerian elections, have produced a radical change in attitude of Ben Ali regime. Ennahda is not accepted as a political party after the elections in April 1989, which were won entirely by the president's party, the Islamist movement - like other political forces are once again banned and repressed (Anderson 1991). To escape arrest, Ghannouchi preferred to take refuge in Algeria and then in the UK in 1991. The departure of its ideological and charismatic leader weakened the movement, whose representatives and supporters suffered in the 1990s,

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waves of arrests and convictions, for the simple reason of belonging to Ennahda. A large number of leaders and members made it to exile, mostly in France, Belgium, UK, where they contribute to the penetration and structuring of Muslim associations that aim to represent the interests of Muslims in European countries. This contact with Western political and cultural environment, the relations with other Tunisian opposition groups in exile, or with the structures that challenge country's regime, modulated the Tunisian Islamist programs and strategies. In fact, what characterizes ITM and then Ennahda is ideological pragmatism and flexibility in action. Ennahda resembles what served as inspiration since its formation, namely the Muslim Brotherhood networks. Like these networks, Ennahda favored a re-Islamisation strategy from the bottom, through propaganda, social activism, and formal integration in the political arena. Radical dimension appears here only as last resort, often in response to the violent regime's crackdown. From ideological point of view, arguments developed by Ghannouchi focus on the classical idea of Islamism, about Islam as an integral solution not only for individuals but also as a doctrinal support for the social, legal and political principles and behaviors. Thus, in 1988, he believed that what needs to be added in the new Constitution proposed by Ben Ali, are two main principles: that all laws are compatible with Islamic Shari’a and the creation of an Islamic Council whose role is just to check the compatibility of laws with the Muslim rules. In the 1980s and 1990s, the concept of „Islamic democracy” is often used in writings and public discourse of Ennahda, being understood precisely as a political formula which proposes the set up of a democratic system based on popular sovereignty and political instances legitimized by elections, but all this is in line with the Shari’a imposed normativity, understood as “the supreme legislative authority” (Tamini 2001, 63-104). This programmatic openness to democratic tenets facilitated dialogue with other Tunisian opposition forces beyond ideological differences. Ben Ali regime's digging in, the suppress all contesting voices regardless of their orientation, the need to build a unified front to fight against autocratic excesses of government and its liberal-like policies and the need to show the world the true Tunisian reality, motivated contacts, both within the country and abroad, among exile. In 2005, along with Democratic Progressive Party and Communist Party of the Workers of Tunisia, Ennahda lays the foundation of “October 18th Movement”, whose schedule was intended to restore civil liberties in Tunisia. Ennahda now publicly renounced much of its dogmatic thesis and opened to the subjects until then covered in a Muslim manner: freedom of religion, separation of state and religion, gender equality, etc. (Haugbølle and Cavatorta 2001).

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The Tunisian revolution and the rise of political Islam Tunisia was the first country in which the revolutionary process extended to the rest of the Arab world. After three weeks of protests and unsuccessful repression attempts by the Ministry of Interior and security services, Ben Ali regime fell, especially due to a lack of support from the army. After a few weeks of unrest, in which elements of the former regime still tried to settle in new forms of the interim government, finally, street pressure and revolutionary forces established a transition process that will make Tunisia the successful case for the rest of countries that had difficult trajectories. To this situation contributed several factors related to the very nature of the Tunisian society, to characteristics of the change process and its later evolution. The Ben Ali regime was a classic authoritarian political system, so specific to post-colonial Arab states where neo-liberal policies and Western modernity were trying to give out the image of a state attached to democratic values. In reality, the gap between state and society had become irreconcilable, for the political power tried to seize not only the decision field but the entire economic and financial resources, constructing a network of customers oriented almost exclusively towards the benefits of opening up the country to capitalism (Lamloum and Ravenel 2002). But what differentiated Tunisia from many other Arab states, and what explains the relative success of revolution, is the existence of a more structured and active civil society that is aware of its potential and role. This is just a consequence of Tunisian modernity, of the Western-bent that has characterized it as a result of the ambitions of Bourguiba, and of the Ben Ali intentions to use this facade to hide the typical “oriental” character of his exclusive and embedded power. Despite this absolute political dominance, coupled with control and patronage use of state resources, the Tunisian state system still retained some relative autonomy and functionality that were not entirely vitiated by power interests. Public institutions have operated in a consistent manner and have not been affected so much by the chaos specific to Arab countries; geographical and cultural proximity to European countries and widespread involvement in collaboration programs with European states have contributed to the development of a professional bureaucracy. Revolutionary mutations did not affect this institutional framework, and it has been instrumental in ensuring functional transitions, unlike Libya, where civil conflict has led to almost complete disaggregation of institutions and to almost insurmountable difficulties (Boose 2012). Equally important, Tunisia has experienced over decades, the emergence of a civil society, an expression of both the intellectual circles of the middle class and especially the labor movements, mainly the UGTT union, which was and remains the main social

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force opposed to power biases and especially a space of awareness and attempt to cope for democratic shortcomings and for various economic and social problems. As noted above, since the nineteenth century, Tunisia had a more accelerated and specific path to modernity, to which contributed both French influence and, especially, the desire of Tunisian elite to participate to the Western valuesǤHere is the difference to Algeria and Libya, and even Morocco, where a certain attachment to the cultural and traditional values combined with a traumatic memory of the colonial period led to a schizophrenic relationship with the Western modernity, especially with its democratic values. Post-colonial Arab political elites were able to permanently instrumentalise this ambiguous discourse on the West and use it pragmatically, both internally and externally, to legitimize the status of various ideological and socio-economic development models taken from Western tradition but ending, most often, in being perverted by an oriental touch. Tunisia has always been considered as the most Western Arab state just because of the relative success of its opening to European norms and behaviors, as proposed by the political elites and assumed by a large part of the society. However, the negative effects of this prescribed or desired modernity did not fail to appear, especially in the economic and social arenas, as they upset in recent decades, some parts of Tunisian society and its traditional values or, conversely, have accelerated the emergence of alternative models that seek resources in Islam. Aggressive liberalization that accompanied Ben Ali period led to increased social fracture, disparities between wealth and poor classes. These doubled, and correlated with an increasing distance between urban and rural areas, the latter being increasingly neglected and suffering a continuous impoverishment. Beyond the bright window offered to the West, especially as tourist paradise, Tunisia in the recent years was in a deep economic, social and identity crisis, and its disillusionment towards modernity, increasingly considered an import product, facilitated the permanence and amplified the return to Islam, seen as a resource that can provide more authentic and effective solutions to all problems, individual or collective, including political ones, that affect Tunisia and the rest of the Arab-Muslim countries in general (Camau and Geisser 2003).Hence the surprise, of an apparently unexpected and massive success in the period immediately after revolution, that Ennahda and, later, Salafi movements, enjoyed. Disappearance of the Ben Ali regime and democratization of the political field has allowed the return from exile of Ennahda leaders as early as January. Reattaching to the local realities led to the installation of a new management structure of the movement: Ghannouchi remains president while

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Hamadi Jebali is elected general secretary. On March 1st the party is legalized and begins its electoral offensive and efforts to restore territorial networks of influence, especially through mosques, and with the discrete financial support. In a traditional manner, like the Muslim Brotherhood, Ghannouchi preferred to assume the status of party guide and not be directly involved in politics; in the same time a Majlis al-shura (consultative assembly) grouped the movement leaders and decision makers. Although displaying the image of a modernist and united party, following the model of AK Partisi in Turkey, Ennahda is not without internal dynamics; in general two groups are emerging within the party: a radical traditionalist one, represented mainly by Ghannouchi, and another one, more moderate, represented by Hamadi Jebali. However, throughout the period beyond 2011, Ennahda showed a greater cohesion and discipline than other parties, which secured its electoral effectiveness and its ability to control members and supporters across the whole country. What many become critical for, in the Ennahda case, as in the Egyptian Brotherhood during former president Mohammed Morsi, is precisely the doubling of the official decision-making field, of government and other institutions, with an informal power controlled by the Islamist movement, that of Ennahda leaders of Majlis al-shura, and especially of Ghannouchi. Finally, as in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, one of the most important features of the post-revolutionary Tunisia is widespread emergence and development of Salafi movements. Estimated at over 100,000, the Salafi sympathizers are attached to a more conservative version of Islam than historical Islamist movements, and exhibit structural rigidity to accept only its own values, excluding modernity and Western values. With the financial support of Saudi Arabia and various public and private institutions from the Gulf areas, Salafism has traditionally a political position but through activism and continued position taking against political and social situations as well as against cultural change in the new Tunisia, it is one of the most important public actors. However, Salafism is a heterogeneous conglomerate with multiple ideological directions and action projects. There is a pietist (or purist) Salafism, which focuses on propaganda and education, a political Salafism that validates the need for involvement in the decision field to speed changes included in the Salafi movement program, and a jihadist Salafism, which calls for a violent disintegration of the political order deemed illegitimate, and for seizure of power by force (Torelli et al. 2012) . All these can be found now in post-revolutionary Tunisia and they are a real threat to future stability of the country and democratic transition process. Similarly to Egypt, the Islamist movements were the main winners of authoritarian regime's fall. The freedom to participate in political and public

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life after decades of repression and restriction of their activities represented an opportunity and a challenge to move from a discourse and activism of contestation to assuming the management of power and integration into democratic context. For a long time, especially in scientific and academic circles in the West, there has been a wide debate and contention on the path of political Islam within a democratic environment. For some, this was seen as a more desirable option to autocratic regimes and the pragmatism and flexibility of movements or parties like the Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda, Refah, and AK Partisi, and especially their permeability relative to the capitalist market economy, made them look like credible actors in open political systems. For others, however, political Islam was considered too attached to its ethical, legal, social and political representations abstracted from the interpretation of the more or less modernist Islamic traditions which that made it less conciliatory towards the plurality of values and towards the socio-political or ideological options posed by a democratic state. For the latter, Islam, not just the radical but including its moderate forms, which recognizes the legitimacy of democratic norms and the rule of law in a classical manner, is unable to become a driver of democracy and will tend to sustain new autocracies, which claim supremacy of the Islamic values they promote. Thus, Tunisia, like Egypt, is a laboratory where we can see the validity of both paradigms, likewise, theories of transition inspired by the Western schools of thought. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has proven unable to provide coherent and effective governance and its ambitions to exclusive domination of power and to implement ideological projects, especially regarding the role of Shari’a in the Constitution and legislation, finally led to the loss of a significant part of popular support and coup carried out by the army. In Tunisia, however, the complicated dialectic between the goals and Islamic constraints of Ennahda, and assuming a democratic management of the state was more nuanced. Tunisia offers here a special case, where social pressure has a permanent role to weight powers excess and where Islamist movement itself is playing, once again, its pragmatic skills and ability to adapt to present realities by modeling its maximalist ideological dimension and harnessing its ability to provide a duplicitous speech (Hachemaoui 2013).

Ennahda in power: towards an Islamic authoritarianism? After several interim governments, in which the participation of former members of the Ben Ali regime became more rarefied, and continued pressure from the street and revolutionaries, on October 23rd, 2011 the first free elections in the history of modern Tunisia were held. A National

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Constituent Assembly (NCA) is elected now, with 217 members, having as main objective to draft a new constitution within a year. Election results confirmed rise of post-revolutionary elected Ennahda, which gets the most seats (41% - 89 members), followed by two secular parties, one from the center, Congress for the Republic (CPR) - 29 seats, and another leftist, the Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties (Ettakatol) - 20 seats. These were followed by parties of lesser influence, which occupied the remaining seats. Lacking an absolute majority, Ennahda is required to make an alliance with the two parties that have succeeded it; this Troika will assume from now the task of managing transition and new post-revolutionary Tunisia. A political compromise is assumed by the three partners who share state functions: Hamadi Jebali, secretary general of Ennahda was prime-minister, Moncef Marzouki, leader of the CPR, became the new president and Mustapha Ben Jaafar of the Ettakatol, got the parliament presidency. Seen as an alliance between «moderate Islamists» and «moderate secularists», the Troika, however, cannot conceal the fact, as we shall see in the next period, that Ennahda took over the field while partners’ positions are more symbolic. Important ministries are seized by the Islamist party and, later, almost all administrative appointments at central and local level, even the most insignificant positions, were assigned to Ennahda members or sympathizers. This re-politisation of bureaucracy and reconstitution of a new patrimonial system contributed to damage the transition process. The Islamist party temptation to control broad and exclusive the political power arose due to fragility and lack of cohesion of the two partners. From the first negotiation moments for the interim general law (announced on December 6, 2011) and which replaced the Constitution, until the final version was to be drafted, Ennahda manages to impose its point of view: the President and the Parliament receive fewer privileges and their authority is rather representative, NCA receives an unlimited term task of organizing new institutions and public authorities, even though officially , its primary role was to safeguard the constitution drafting within a year. With all the prestige and international influence of Moncef Marzouki and Ben Jafaar, their parties will lose a large part of members and MPs, due to awkward position and compromises that the alliance entailed with the Islamist party (Bauchard 2013). On the other hand, Ennahda is bound to adapt to this climate of cooperation with partners that are placed on totally different ideological positions; the impossibility to fully control the decision field has led to the need for compromise within the Troika. It was, first, the controversy concerning the status of Shari’a in the new Constitution; before the 2011 elections, Ennahda program and its official positions seemed to be in line

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with the public attitudes adopted since 2005, when it accepted the distance between religion and state and the principle of secularism. Now, once in power, the party seems to balance towards assuming its classic thesis; a group of MPs, among conservative and traditionalist wing, propose now Shari’a to be considered one of the law sources for Constitution and legal codes. The project has provoked immediate reactions of the secular civil society and the Ennnahda’s coalition partners. Finally, in order not to destroy the Troika relations and to defend its image as a moderate party, Ennahda announced on March 26th, 2012, the text of Article 1 of the Constitution will remain in the version originally established: “Tunisia is a free, independent, sovereign state; Islam is its religion; Arabic is its language; and the Republic is its form of government”. However, this pragmatic concession did not limit Islamic party's offensive; final draft of the Constitution, completed only in the summer of 2013, states, in Article 140, that in the future is impossible for any constitutional reform to question the status of Islam as a religion of state. Insisting on the intrinsic dimension of the Islamic state, the question arises around the secularist principle of Article 2 of the Constitution, which states that “Tunisia is a civil state based on citizenship, popular will and the rule of law”. Moreover, Article 5 of the constitution stipulates that the state is the “guardian of religion”; through all these fireworks, Ennahda manages to stay attached to its ideological theses on the need for bigger state dependence on the normativity in relation to religious principles. This was seen in the positions taken against two other issues that cross, traditionally, the programs of all Islamist movements: sensitivity to public attitudes in relation to religious issues, and the status of women. In the first case, Ennahda has put pressure on coalition partners, helped by the pressure of the Salafi movements, to criminalize, in the text of the new Constitution, the blasphemy and any harm to Muslim religious values “insulting, profanity, derision and representation of Allah and Muhammad”. This raised the opposition of the secularist media, including government partners, who see here an infringement of freedom of expression. In the second case, the condition of women is a central obsession of all Islamist movements. Trying to give an Islamic dimension to the civil code, some Ennahda lawmakers tried, during 2012, to amend the text regarding “the equality” between men and women with a variant in which the woman is considered “a complementary” to the man. Again, this intention caused a generalized wave of contestation, especially from the civil society organizations allied with UGTT; in the end, the project was removed from the final version of the Constitution in June 2013. All these have proven, however, that far from showing flexibility and willingness to compromise, that characterized the pre-2011 period, Ennahda seeks to become more attached to its Islamist program, coupled with a very

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pragmatic policy to seize the widest possible field of decision-making and to entrench the already gained positions and benefits. Another important topic of debate in drafting the Constitution was state's government. Ennahda has advocated the need for a parliamentary system while the CPR and Ettakatol have insisted on a semi-presidential one, based on the French model. Again, a long negotiation period was marked by continuous pressure from Ennahda hardliners. Finally, even if Ennahda accepted the election of the president by universal suffrage, the final draft of the Constitution significantly limits its powers in favor of the prime minister, who has actual authority over most domestic and foreign policy decisions. Although far from the political convulsions and the social, economic and institutional crisis, affecting the transitions in other Arab countries, the postrevolutionary trajectory of Tunisia is also marked by a difficult climate and an uncertain future. Robust civil society and coherent institutions were factors that facilitated the transition to a democratic system, but Ennahda's political rise and continuing pressures especially from the emerging Islam lines, in the form of radical Salafi-jihadists, constantly put under question future trajectories of the country in a regional context marked by profound instability. The Tunisian political climate is contaminated with the intensification of violence, particularly through assassination of known opposition members (Chokri Belaïd - February 6, 2013, Mohamed Brahmi July 25, 2013), increased aggression from the popular militia (the Leagues for the protection of revolution) encouraged and supported by Ennahda - which provides impunity for their actions against political opponents of the Islamist movement, and especially the widespread emergence of Salafi activism and militancy. Fragmented and marked by ideological rivalries between leaders, the secular opposition begins to reconstruct and to be consistent in his actions only during 2013, when structured around two poles, Union for Tunisia and the Popular Front, will receive the support of civil society and especially of the UGTT. Pressures on Ennahda led to the acceleration and completion of the constitutional text and to an agreement between government and opposition to start the program of implementation for the new Constitution and to organize elections (Antonakis-Nashif 2013). However, the future of Tunisia is still marked by uncertainty. Ennahda temptation to perpetuate its power by any means, ambiguous relationships that it maintains with the Salafi movement, which, although officially criticized, are often uses for political or strategic purposes against rivals, puts under question the compatibility of political Islam and a real democracy, as value for political governance. Currently, the country is in a political crisis, complemented by a weak economic recovery, the rise of radical Islam and increasing rigidity of the public institutions in relation to individual freedoms.

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There are several possible scenarios for the situation but they are simple projections depending on the dynamic of Tunisian political and social forces. The perpetuation of current situation of uncertainty and instability can lead to a situation similar to that in Egypt, where Islamist regime's excesses worsened the fracture between his supporters and the rest of political forces and civil society. Another is that Ennahda governance will transform into an authoritarian regime, effectively controlling political power and institutions, forcing the implementation of rigorous Islamic political and social rules. Unlikely now, due to the significant resistance of opposition forces, present climate can have disastrous consequences, for it would bring the country to a pre-revolutionary situation, of complaint and opposition, on which Ennahda based its ascension and electoral success. Finally, the democratization scenario involves providing a more efficient implementation of a real democratic governance and independence for institutions and powers, limitation of current autocratic power temptations, especially by forming a new non-partisan government, effective management of political and economic issues and especially coordinating a clear timetable of the transition processes that are already long delayed: adoption of the Constitution, election of a new parliament, etc.

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Africa, edited by John Entelis, 1-16. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

CIVIL WAR AND PROXY WAR IN SYRIA: THE UGLY FACE OF THE ARAB SPRING FROM “ARAB SPRING” TO CIVIL WAR ùERBAN CIOCULESCU

Abstract The so-called “Arab Spring” is a complex socio-political, economic and strategic phenomenon which tends to eliminate dictatorships from the Middle East and North Africa and to allow the introduction of various necessary reforms. This could lead either to democracy and pluralism or to Islamist governances dressed in democratic clothes, as we can now see in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. When the governments resist the popular claim for reforms and resorts to deadly violence against its citizens, there is a real risk of civil war, especially in countries with deep ethno-religious and tribal cleavages. Libya and Syria are the two examples of revolutions turning into civil wars. Statistics show that civil wars became more numerous after the Second World War but following the end of Cold War, they are largely dominant in terms of duration, size and number of victims, compared to classic inter-state wars. As we know from other cases – Lebanon, Algeria, Irak, Yemen etc. - there is a tradition of such wars in the broader Middle East and they tend to be repeated, generating spillover effects in the neighborhoods, through forced or voluntary population movement across borders. The Syrian war started as an insurection against the rough dictatorship of President Bashar Assad and then turned into a protracted bloody civil clash, with a tendency towards radicalisation of its means: massacres, forced cleasning of populations on sectarian grounds and probable use of chemical weapons. As much as 70.000 people were killed between the spring of 2011 and May 2013, and some millions displaced. A lot of valuable archeological sites have been destroyed. Now, the conflict is carried out along religious lines (the Alawi and Shia population generally supports Assad, while the more numerous Sunni Syrians favour the rebels), there are fighters coming from other states (Lebanon, Irak,

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Jordan, Iran, but also Muslims from EU countries) and there is also a proxy war. States such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are sending weapons, money and instructors to the opposing camps in Syria, thus they indirectly fight, in remote areas, by instrumentalising the Syrian forces. Russia is protecting the Assad regime (like Iran), fearing that otherwise it would lose a valuable geopolitical partner and the maritime base of Tartrus. Transnational extremist groups like Hizbollah and Al Qaeda affiliates are already present in the Syrian conflict. A crucial role could be played by Israel, which is currently defending itself, often in a pre-emptive way, against possible aggressors from Syria. In the end, either Assad’s regime will be eliminated and the rebels will form a government, or the president will manage to survive and silence his enemies for a long time. It is also possible that Syria will split in two or more pieces, mainly on a religious cleavege line, accomdating both the interests of Assad and those of the rebels. The main lesson learnt is that the necessary Arab Spring, if improperly managed by the various local actors, could turn extremely deadly and prevent democratisation and a normal life for people.

Keywords Syria, war, religion, insurgency, Middle East, Arab Spring, sectarian violence, militias, foreign intervention The Arab Spring is a complex phenomenon, initiated at the end of 2010 – the beginning of 2011 in several states located in the Middle East and North Africa, in an attempt of a segment of the population to change the dictatorial, corrupt and often highly repressive regimes and implement the necessary political and economic reforms that dictators had hindered for decades. The fuelling factors of the Arab Spring are numerous and relatively wellknown: the lack of freedom, the regimes’ rigidity, unemployment and poor economic situation, the huge socio-economic inequality between the elites holding the power and the common people, generalised corruption and the lack of perspective in the long run.1 If in Egypt and Tunisia, the pressure of the masses and the desertion of some state officials and military staff, who joined the rebels’ side, eventually led to the peaceful overthrow of the dictators and to the setting of free elections (of course, Egypt later experienced a military coup against the winner of the 2012 presidential election, Mohamed Morsi), in other cases, the 1 Dumitru Chican, Jihad sau drumul spre Djanna, Bucharest: Ed. Corint, 2011, p. 208.

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harsh resistance of the governments to the legitimate claims of the people and the bloody violence against civilians allowed street clashes to turn into civil wars. First Libya and then Syria are typical examples of this unfortunate turn of events. Both had been republics led by presidents (in fact, dictators) who claimed to have leftist ideologies and carry out socio-economic reforms and distanced themselves from the Islamist message even by harassing and killing some Islamists, so as to ‘teach’ the other potential rebels ‘a lesson’. Thus, in these cases, the transformation of street protests and clashes and the lack of dialogue between the opposition and the power holders may raise the following legitimate question: were these genuine ‘revolutions’ (thawra in Arabic) or not?2 Other countries had also been confronted with rebellions which seemed to have heralded civil wars: Yemen (which had already gone through a civil war in 1994) and Bahrain (January-March 2011), but their leaders have so far managed to avoid such a terrible outcome, i.e. the fall into total chaos, in the latter case through the external military intervention of Saudi Arabia3. One can easily see that the traditional kingdoms from the Gulf and the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) have so far succeeded in avoiding the transformation of domestic street troubles into civil wars, the classic cases being Jordan and Morocco, where street protests were constructively managed, with moderation. On the other hand, fragile republics in their transition towards democracy such as Iraq and Lebanon are quite close to experiencing new civil wars. They are not the only corrupt and despotic states faced with popular movements of protest; Turkey, an example of a successful democracy – in fact the only functional democracy in MENA (according to western standards) – had to deal with huge street protests in June 2013 because of the change of the urban aspect of Taksim Square in Istanbul and the pro-Islamic authoritarianism of the AKP government (Adalet ve KalkÕnma Partisi - Party of Justice and Development, a moderate Islamist force) over the last decade. Brazil, a non-Islamic state, was also shaken by huge street 2

Laura Sitaru, “Siria, un caz particular al Primăverii arabe”, 21 February 2013, http://www.revista22.ro/siria-un-caz-particular-al-primaverii-arabe-15599.html. 3 In March 2011, about 2000 troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates entered Bahrain, under the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The GCC is dominated by Sunni Muslim regimes and is based on the petrodollars of the Sunni kingdoms of the Gulf. The Saudi King and his UAE counterpart believed that a Shiite political victory in Bahrain would benefit Iran and provoke turmoil among the Shia population of Saudi Arabia itself and Kuwait. See E. Bronner, M. Slackman, “Saudi Troops Enter Bahrain to Help Put Down Unrest”, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/middleeast/15bahrain.html?pagewanted=a ll, 14 March 2011.

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turbulences in its main cities, suggesting that in the “global south” area on all continents, there is a critical mass of young unemployed and poor people, frustrated with their socio-economic situation and the alleged authoritarianism of the elites. Young Arabs generally use internet-based social networks, such as Twitter or Facebook, to communicate among themselves and prepare their demonstrations. However, what exactly is a civil war? According to classic definition, a civil war can be minimally defined as “armed combat within the boundaries of a recognized sovereign entity between parties subject to a common authority at the outset of the hostilities.”4 Statistically, civil wars became more frequent after 1945. Especially after the Cold War, they were largely dominant in number, duration and intensity, compared to inter-state wars.5 While in the early years of the century, military confrontations such as those involving the USA and Great Britain vs. Iraq (2003) or between Georgia and the Russian Federation (2008) were mainly exceptions, there are countries in Africa, Asia, but also Europe (in the Caucasus, Transnistria and the Western Balkans) which have experienced devastating civil wars over the last two decades. It remains unclear whether some of the Syrian rebels and the partisans of the Assad’s regime are conversant with history and willing to learn lessons from the past. I mean it is quite likely they know facts about other civil wars in history, mainly those waged by their neighbouring states, and realise that their war is not the first of its kind. Maybe they compare theirs with the war in Libya, which had a happy ending for the insurgents and allowed for to oust a long-time dictator. As Daniel Byman explains, civil war is a common feature in the Greater Middle East; one could recall the wars waged in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Oman, Syria and Yemen. These wars are often repetitive, cyclical, they produce spillover effects in their neighbouring areas (by the forced displacement of populations or their voluntary movement across borders); they lead to the radicalisation of large segments of the population and, by strengthening or weakening governments,

4

Stathis N. Kalyvas, The logic of violence in civil war, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 5 “Intrastate Conflict: Data, Trends and Drivers”, http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/DigitalLibrary/Articles/SpecialFeature/Detail/?lng=en&id= 158597&contextid774=158597&contextid775=158596&tabid=1453496062, 4 February 2013.

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they create new leaders who sometimes find legitimacy in radicalism and violence.6 As the neighbouring states try to take advantage of the country on whose territory is developing a conflict and as they seek to prevent war from expanding beyond its borders, there is generally a tendency for civil wars to become “regional wars”.7 The ethnic/religious homogeneity of the populations, the favour to some groups by dictators at the expense of others, but also tribalism within societies, have either fuelled or inhibited the tendency that these socioeconomic and political conflicts escalate into civil wars. There is consistent specialised literature dedicated to civil wars, but it would fall beyond the scope of this article. Various authors have identified the "engines" of this phenomenon in the existence of ‘weak’ states, of resources that can be looted, of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious elements on a given territory, of negative mythologies and historic traumas, but also of persistent socio-economic inequalities affecting several groups, their resentments and the possession of small weapons by the population.8 It has been demonstrated that, sometimes, among rival ethnic communities sharing a territory or living in close proximity, there is a genuine risk of spiralling violence and even of civil war because of the mechanism called “societal security dilemma” (meaning ethnic-religious identity and the perceived fear of the other, pushing groups to arm themselves and engage in a zero-sum game).9 The mutual fear of annihilation, as a consequence of a surprise attack, is driving the hostile groups to strike first, in a pre-emptive movement similar to that of classic inter-state wars.10 This is the reason why the borders separating defensive and offensive wars often vanish and ethnic/religious cleansing may even be seen as a defensive strategy against a potential aggressor.11 6

Daniel L. Byman, “States in Civil War” in The Arab awakening. America and the transformation of the Middle East, Kenneth M. Pollack (ed.), Washington: The Brookings Institution, 2011, pp. 213-214. 7 Idem. 8 See Jack S. Levy, William R. Thompson, Causes of War, Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2010, pp. 186-204. 9 Stuart J. Kaufman, “Causes of Ethnic War. A Theoretical Synthesis”, paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, San Diego, April 1996. 10 For some historical examples in the post-Cold War Balkans see Tomislav Duliü, and Roland Kostiü, “Yugoslavs in arms: Guerrilla tradition, total defence and the ethnic security dilemma”, Europe-Asia Studies 62(7) 09 (2010), pp. 1051-72. 11 Barry Posen, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict”, Survival, 35 (1), 1993, pp. 27-47.

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In the Syrian case, the existence of separate religious and ethnic groups Alawites, Shias, Sunnis, Christians, Arabs, Circassians and Kurds - to the West and North, in the most populated areas, is aggravated by the fact that, geographically speaking, these communities are often intermingled without any area meant to act as a ‘buffer’ zone between them. This is why fear increases and collective hatred becomes a typical driving force behind civil wars originating in the mutual fear of annihilation.12 Stuart Kaufman’s theory relies on the existence of negative mythologies nurtured by historical hostility among identity groups, a mutual fear of destruction or of being banished from their living space, and on the mobilisation of the masses by the political factor, via the exploitation of fear and hatred.13 But why did Syria descend to civil war and domestic chaos while other states in MENA escaped this nightmare? As US Middle East expert Kenneth Pollack observes: “In retrospect, part of the reason the protests in Tunisia and Egypt resulted in relatively quick and clean revolutions that succeeded in overthrowing the leaders seems to be the relative homogeneity of their populations. While societal divisions certainly exist in Egypt and Tunisia (divisions that have, in some cases, been enflamed by the success of the revolutions), the protests actually brought disparate groups together in these states, while they tore people apart elsewhere in the region. This made Ben Ali’s and Mubarak’s regimes more vulnerable to a seemingly unified public outpouring against them: their security forces were less willing to fire on their own people, and the regimes did not have a significant section of the elite automatically behind them.”14

But in Syria and Libya, the deep pre-existing ethno-religious cleavages became the basic lines either for solidarity with the dictator or for hatred towards him. Dictatorial regimes mobilised their supporters by playing on their collective hostility and, for a while, they succeeded. This also led to the expectation that the victory of one faction would, in any case, result in the 12 Erik Melander, “The Geography of Fear: Regional Ethnic Diversity, the Security Dilemma and Ethnic War”, European Journal of International Relations, 15:95, 2009, pp. 95-123. The author thinks that only the existence of spaces separating hostile ethnic groups and their concentration in separate areas could ensure a certain diminishing of mutual fear. 13 Stuart J. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War, NY: Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2001. 14 K. Pollack, “Introduction”, in The Arab awakening. America and the transformation of the Middle East, Kenneth M. Pollack (ed.), Washington: The Brookings Institution, 2011, p. 5.

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ethno-religious cleansing of the controlled territory, as it occurred in Bosnia, The D.R. of Congo or Rwanda in the ‘90s. Therefore, one should wonder what kind of civil (domestic) war is being fought in Syria. Also, what are the other domestic wars in history that could be compared with this one? Of course, one may think about the BosniaHerzegovina war in the ‘90s, the Iraqi turbulences and civil war (2003-2007) and the war in Libya in 2011. But why not also include the Spanish civil war which took place more than 70 years ago or that in Russia in 1918-1922? Thus, one could identify some specific elements to account for this conflict: 1. the cleavage/division of the Syrian population into pro-Assad and anti-Assad, while ‘neutral’ Syrians are increasingly rare; 2. religion becomes vital in shaping identity - in the past, most Syrians used to be moderately religious and tolerant of differences, but now there is a tendency to have clear-cut religious communities with a high level of intolerance towards differences; Sunni insurgents fight to put an end to the political supremacy of the Alawites15 and the clashes have a sectarian aspect; 3. the opposition is far from being united and acting as a single player: there is no command centre, but merely independent groups based on local identities or on “secular-religious” differences; these groups may cooperate but sometimes they even fight one another for territories and resources; 4. nobody has the force and skills to decisively win the war which has lasted for three years; up to now, the rebels have not attracted enough

15

Alawites are a minority religious group, a branch of Shia Muslims (from which they separated in the 9th century) with which they have in common the veneration of AlƯ ibn AbƯ ৫Ɨlib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, and leader of the Islamic Caliphate between 656 and 661. They live mainly in Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. Alawites should not be mistakenly identified with “Alevis”, a religious sect in Turkey. Alawites worship Ali as a separate god, which is seen as heresy and an exaggeration (ghulat) by Sunni Muslims. “Other specific elements such as the belief in divine incarnation, permissibility of alcohol, celebration of Christmas and the Zoroastrian new year make Alawite Islam highly suspect in the eyes of many orthodox Sunnis and Shiites.” - http://middleeast.about.com/od/syria/tp/The-Difference-BetweenAlawites-And-Sunnis-In-Syria.htm, accessed on 3 July 2013. During the rule of Ali as caliph, a civil war broke out between adepts of former caliph Uthman and those of Ali. This period is called the “First Fitna”, meaning major schism. From this moment on, the Ummah (world Islamic community) was divided between Sunni and Shia. See Heinz Halm, Shi'ism, Columbia University Press, 2nd edition, 2004.

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soldiers, officers, government personnel or the majority of the population; 5. both sides (rebels and government) have committed atrocities, sectarian purges and random killings (chemical attacks included), especially against civilians, who are often hard to distinguish from fighters; 6. third states have intervened in the conflict (Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, Russia etc.), as well as transnational groups (Al Qaeda from Mesopotamia, other Sunni extremist groups such as the Al-Nusra Front, the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, the freedom fighters from Chechnya, Lebanon, Libya etc.) 7. a real “proxy war”, i.e. a war waged by a state using other states or entities, without participating directly in the conflict, is going on between the following two camps: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, one the one hand, Iran and Russia, on the other hand; 8. the export of instability to Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, countries which have Sunni and Shia populations (in various percentages) and are strategically ‘penetrated’ by the more assertive neighbouring states; 9. the huge number of Syrian refugees in neighbouring states, but also internally; 10. resorting to humanitarian intervention in the Libyan scenario is unlikely because of the opposition of both Russia and China to any reg ime change, in the UN Security Council, based on the rejection of Western domination on the international system and fear of economic and strategic losses16; however, it is not impossible that a US-led coalition will eventually act without a UN mandate, like in the Kosovo case, in order to protect civilians; 11. Israel is a key player, but for strategic reasons it maintains a passive stance (policy of non-intervention) and has closed its border with Syria with some exceptions pertaining to medical care for wounded civilians. Being in a state of conflict with Syria (no peace treaty), it also has no interest in helping the rebels because Sunni insurgents could not be sympathetic to Israeli interests in the region. Israeli armed forces occasionally hit ammunition depots in Syria, invoking the risk that they may be used against targets in Israel. Tel Aviv might eventually negotiate a secret modus vivendi with the rebels or opt for stabilisation around Assad. 16

Ralph Janik, “China, Russia, and the Failure of the Responsibility to Protect in Syria: does the Fear of Regime Change offer a Serviceable Explanation?”, Studia Universitatis Babeú-Bolyai - Studia Europaea, year LVIII, 2013, issue 1, March 2013, pp. 63-88.

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Except for the case of Lebanon, the situation in Syria resembles that of Iraq due to the ‘sectarian’ pattern of fights and the intervention of some Al Qaeda affiliates and neighbouring states which are religiously or ethnically linked to various groups in the target-country. There are similarities with the case of Libya which must be taken into account even though in Libya there is no place for the huge conflict between Sunni and Shia, which is typical of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The lack of Shia population is somewhat compensated in Libya by the division between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. It is obvious that insurgents heavily relied on foreign support (in the context of identity issues and the Arab Spring phenomenon) and on the existence of religious/ethnic cleavages which left Syria vulnerable in the domestic arena. It is not enough to have governments and transnational networks which provide funds and weapons or shelter across borders, in case of necessity. The mountains, forests, remote and desert areas and the weakness of governmental forces are factors which favour the rebels and help them succeed.17 Such examples as the PKK guerrillas from the Turkish mountains and hills, the Tamil Tigers from the jungles of Sri Lanka or the guerrilla groups from the deep forests of the DR of Congo are well known. The "choice" of a political analyst to deem a civil war one that is waged between the government’s forces and at least one group of ‘rebels’ hints at the difference between pure insurgency in an asymmetric conflict and a conventional symmetric war. In the spring of 2011, the fights in Dara’a began as a pure insurgency but in 2012-2013 at least part of the rebels trying to conquer Homs, Hama, Latakia and Aleppo tended to become organised as regular armed forces, especially the Free Syrian Army. Instead of a strikeand-hide strategy, they preferred to fight for territories and turn them into sanctuaries for training troops, protecting their families and resting.

From the Umayyad Caliphate to a ‘mosaicated’ (heterogeneous) weak state In the previous centuries, Syria was a glorious landmark for the Arab Muslim world. The Umayyad Caliphate had Damascus as its politicalreligious centre, while the armed forces, ahl al-Sham, formed the main basis for upholding the power of the caliphs. But in the middle of the 8th century, the new ruling group, the Abbasids, built a new capital in Kufa, then in 17

Sambanis, Nicholas, “A Review of Recent Advances and Future Directions in the Literature on Civil Wars”, Defense and Peace Economics, 13:2, pp. 215-43, 2002. Fearon, James D. and Laitin, David D., “Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War.”, American Political Science Review, 97, 2003, pp. 75-90.

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Baghdad and Samara, and overthrew the Umayyads all over, except for the Al Andalus region and parts of the Maghreb. The Caliphs’ wars against the Byzantine Empire in the 10th century led to a de facto split with Syria. The name “Syria” is of Hellenistic origin, dating back to the Antiquity, but it was given new vitality by the Ottoman Empire, which created the Vilayet of Syria. After WWI, France sent its troops and defeated at Maysaloun the Arabs’ efforts to create a united kingdom there. During the interwar period, Arab nationalists were considering a "Greater Syria" (Biladash Sham), a territory consisting of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party was founded in 1932 in Lebanon by Antun Saadeh (Sa’ada), then once again in the ‘50s in Syria and nowadays it remains the biggest party in Syria after the ruling Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party. Its adherents argue for a Great Syria comprising the lands which once belonged to the ‘Assyrians’, the ancestors of the Syrians, who built the Mesopotamian civilizations. But contemporary Assyrians are a distinct ethnic group living in Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey and they are mostly Christian. Syrian nationalists nurtured the dream of a big country encompassing also Lebanon, Palestine and possibly even Cyprus, which had been under Assyrian rule for a time.18 It seems that in the ‘40s even Great Britain thought about creating a Greater Syria to counter the hegemonic aspirations of other powers in the Gulf area and to keep Jewish immigration to Palestine under control.19 Syrian nationalists feel frustrated because their country de facto lost the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967 and colonised by Israeli settlers20, and also because Lebanon did not unite with Syria. In fact, in April 2005, after a 29-year long deployment, Syrian troops had to withdraw from Lebanon, under Western and Lebanese pressure (after the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri by unknown assailants, which Syria was accused of by various journalists and politicians). Syria still has border disputes with Turkey as interwar Turkey seized a piece of land (Hatay or Alexandretta) which had belonged to the Ottoman Empire’s Vilayet of Syria. This Vilayet comprised Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Gaza and Alexandretta. The adepts of a Greater Syria are called “pan-Syrianists” by Daniel Pipes; they are active not only in the SSNP, but also in the Ba’athist movement.21 Even Hafez al Assad, the former president, based his foreign 18

François Massoulié, Conflictele din Orientul Mijlociu, Bucharest: Ed. All, 2003, p. 43. 19 Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria: the History of an Ambition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. 20 Israel also occupied Upper Mount Harmon and controls all the Upper Jordan River. 21 D. Pipes, “Introduction: a neglected story”, http://www.danielpipes.org/books/greaterchap.php, accessed on 27 May 2013.

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policy on the myth of Greater Syria. Not only the Arabs but also some minorities such as the Greek Orthodox heavily supported pan-Arabism and voted for the SSNP. Ever since the `70s, the Ba’ath Socialist Party has failed to take over the SSNP inheritance and has instead began to rely on the Alawites, giving them a privileged position within Syria. The failure of Nasserist pan-Arabism and the inability of the Arab states to militarily defeat Israel in the MENA led to a deeper sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia within the Arab states.22 Instead of feeling mainly ‘Arab’, more and more inhabitants began to claim local and sectarian identities and rejected westernstyle modernity. Hence, the “Syrian identity” vanished as a political project.23 The Arab Spring did not produce a revival of pan-Arabism; in fact, it was perceived as a conflict between nationalists, western-style liberals and Islamists, even if there is a possibility for a pan-Arabic revival at some point in the future.24 It is well-known that Syria’s borders have been set, in keeping with the general rule in the Middle East, by former colonial powers. The 1916 Sykes Picot secret agreement between France and Great Britain established a partition of their spheres of interests and put Syria in the area of France (on paper, it was to receive Northern Iraq as well but in reality it did not), ignoring the promises made by the British government to the Arabs, via colonel T.E. Lawrence, to allow them to have independent states. In the interwar era, France controlled the fate and configuration of Syria (up to its independence gained in 1946) and Lebanon, using the mandate system and the League of Nations. It is France that split Syria and created Lebanon.25 Between 1958 and 1961, Syria was part of a unified political entity with Egypt: the United Arab Republic. Hafez al Assad became president in 1971 as leader of the Ba’ath Arab Socialist Party and defender of the religious group of the Alawites (a branch of Shia, also called Nusayris by other Muslims)26. His son, Bashar, took over the presidential mandate in 2000, 22

Nadia Anghelescu, Identitatea araba. Istorie, limba si cultura, Iasi: Editura Polirom, 2009, p. 33. 23 Idem. See also Robert de Beauplan, Où va la Syrie: Le Mandat sous les Cèdres, Paris: Editions Jules Tallandier, 1929, p. 32, quoted by Pipes. Beauplan thought that the Syrian “nation” was only a political myth, not a reality. 24 Eugen Lungu, “Pan-Arabism and the Arab Spring”, http://www.mapn.ro/smg/gmr/Engleza/Ultimul_nr/lungu,gokcel-p.120-137.pdf, accessed on 20 July 2013. 25 Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, 5th edition, pp. 192-194. 26 “Alawis/Alawites” means “followers of Ali”, while “Nusayris” comes from the name of Ibn Nusayr, considered to be the founder of this sect in the 8th century.

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then, in 2007, he was re-elected and his mandate was to end in 2014. The civil war put the political and physical survival of Bashar and of his Ba’ath Party (after the Iraqi branch, dominated by Sunnis, was eliminated in 2003), as well as the fate of the Alawite community, at risk. One should take a look at the structure of the Syrian population. According to the CIA Factbook, of the 22,457,336 inhabitants before the civil war, the Arabs represented 90.3% and the Kurds, Armenians, Circassians, Turkomans, Assyrians etc. only 9.7%. Among the Arabs, the Bedouins make up a special group of people. 74% are Sunni Muslims (of which 8% are Kurds), Alawites, Ismaili and Druze form 16%, Christians 10%, and 1% are Jews. Most of the Jews emigrated two decades ago. The Alawites are the biggest non-Sunni group, accounting for 11-12% of the total population.27 The median age of the Syrians is 22.7 and the population aged between 0 and 24 makes up 54%.28 The Alawites occupy the northern and central part of the maritime rim, the ‘triangle’ Latakia-Hama-Tartrus. There, one may encounter massive Sunni enclaves, such as the Banyas. The Sunni are a majority is the East and South of this area, having some ‘pockets’ of Christians, Alawites and Ismailis in their midst. The Christians (Orthodox, Latin and Protestants) make up a maximum of 10% of the population. The country is, thus, very heterogeneous; together with Lebanon and Iraq, these are the most ethnically and religiously heterogeneous Arab states.

Proxy wars and the rivalry for regional hegemony Syria’s upsurge began in March 2011 around the city of Dara’a, on the Yarmouk River, near the border with Jordan. The country is led by President Bashar al Assad, who succeeded his father, Hafiz al Assad, and continued to govern in a despotic manner a country which is relatively small and poor, and which has been criticised by the USA for its alleged support for terrorist groups and the repression of various ethno-religious forces.29 According to some testimonies, 15 boys aged 10-15 were arrested for street protests, badly tortured then killed by law enforcement troops. Young Hamza Ali al-Khateeb was murdered and his body dismembered in March 2011.

27

F. Leverett, Inheriting Syria, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, 2005, pp. XI-XII (Preface) and p. 2. 28 Sirya, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sy.html, accessed on 20 May 2013. 29 Flynt Leverett, Inheriting Syria, Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2005, XIXII (Preface).

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Then, thousands of people took to the streets of Dara’a and the army shot at the protesters, turning this event into a revolution. The fact that the fighting still continues nearly three years after the beginning of the revolt is due not only to the religious and ethnic heterogeneity of this country, but also - or mainly - to the third countries which are more or less involved in the conflict: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Russia (directly, by providing weapons and/or safe havens), France, Great Britain, the USA (indirectly, at the diplomatic level, but soon possibly with weapons and instructors). Washington still hesitates to support the rebels, despite recognising them as the only legitimate dialogue partners in Syria30, because of the fear that weapons might end up in the hands of Al Qaeda-linked jihadists. It is likely that the US, France and the UK have already sent agents and instructors to support some of the rebels.31 Barack Obama has strongly condemned the atrocities committed by Bashar’s forces and stated that there is no place in Syria for such a president, but of course he does not want a new regime in Damascus, dominated by radical Islamists.32 The US president set up some sort of ‘red line’, whose violation may trigger a US intervention: the use of chemical weapons. Then, several US, British and Israeli sources accused governmental forces of using chemical bombs. In turn, the rebels were accused of using the terrible sarin gas in at least one combat. The Syrian opposition is divided according to religious criteria, but also on ethnic and political grounds. The existence of the Syrian National Council as a coalition of opposition groups, based in Istanbul, Turkey, may in theory be a positive element for unifying the opposition forces and preparing the post-Assad transition. The problem is that the local fighters often regard the rebels returning from exile, whom they have often accused of having cowardly fled the persecutions and crimes of the regime, with mistrust. Kurdish academic Abdul BƗsit SƯda, who earlier went into exile to Sweden, 30

“Clinton meets with Syria opposition”, Washington Post, 6 December 2011. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton labelled the Syrian National Council a “leading and legitimate representative of Syrians seeking a peaceful democratic transition.” 31 “US and Europe in major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels through Zagreb”, The Telegraph, 8 March 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9918785/US-andEurope-in-major-airlift-of-arms-to-Syrian-rebels-through-Zagreb.html, accessed on 17 March 2013. 32 Asli Aydintasbas, “Washington Playing a Waiting Game on Syria”, 23 April 2013, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/04/washington-turkey-syria-policyassad.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=7020, accessed on 25 April 2013.

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was appointed chairman of the SNC in 2012. Nevertheless, only few Kurds are members of the small “Kurdish Future Movement”, while the others prefer to fight for autonomy or independence on their own. Even though the SNC pretends to speak on behalf of 60% of the opposition, it is marred by internal conflicts and lack of consensus. Among the external players, Israel has the most sensitive situation, because it is perceived as an enemy by both the Assad regime and the Islamists of the opposition. Firstly, because it still holds the Golan Heights, captured during the 1967 war; secondly, because of the Palestinian issue and the fact that the Greater Syria myth considers all the territories of historical Palestine (the Israeli land included) to be part of this entity. By using preemptive strikes, Israel is trying to diminish the power capabilities of the Syrian regime, a traditional supporter of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran. Certainly, neither the Syrian rebels nor their main supporters, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, will ever want to be credited for the Israeli military strikes on Bashar’s capabilities because they do not want to drive away the Islamists in the region. The same holds true for Turkey, which, since at least December 2008 (during the Israeli offensive in Gaza Strip and even more after the Mavi Marmara/Flotilla incident of May 2010), has often exhibited a traditional anti-Israeli rhetoric and would not change its stand without losing face at the domestic level. One should mention that Turkey was the first Muslim state to recognise Israel as a new country in 1948 and the two armed forces signed a technical agreement in 1996.33 The AKP (Justice and Development Party), i.e. the ruling party in Ankara, also relies on a conservative Islamist electorate that has been accustomed to an anti-Israeli stance; thus, in spite of the Syrian high stakes, one could not image a Turkish-Israeli open partnership favouring the SNC or the Syrian Free Army in the foreseeable future. Anyway, between May and December 2008, Turkey served as a mediator for Israel and Syria, in their ‘indirect talks’ over the fate of the Golan Heights via Turkish diplomats, in Ankara.34 Now, Ankara and Tel Aviv see each other as “inconvenient and untrustworthy partners”35 and it will be very difficult to cooperate in such a sensitive issue as Syria, as the two players cannot envisage a win-win game. Moreover, Ankara could not agree to Assad’s staying in power after the Turkish armed forces engaged in military exchanges with the Syrian army in 2012 and clearly have a stake in supporting some rebels there. But Israel may agree 33 Binnur Özkeçeci-Taner, “From Allies to Frenemies and Inconvenient Partners. Image Theory and Turkish-Israeli Relations”, Perceptions, Autumn 2012, Vol. XVII, No. 3, pp. 105-129. 34 Idem, p. 118. 35 Idem, p. 124.

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with both scenarios: Assad remaining in power or the SNC taking over, but it will not agree to a scenario in which Al Qaeda groups take control of Syria. Israeli public opinion is afraid of a post-Mubarak/post-Morsi Egypt reentering an alliance with Syria as they did before and during the Yom Kippur war of October 1973.36 This time, Iran may also join this partnership. Anyway, Tel Aviv received with relief the news that control of the Egyptian Army had been taken away from the Muslim Brotherhood and its leaders had been arrested. Thus, they made it clear that they favoured the pre-Arab Spring situation, when Mubarak and Assad were the pillars of the dictatorial republican regimes. These regimes were the “natural” enemies of the Islamists in their countries and even Bashar Assad was not a mortal enemy of Israel despite the support given to Hezbollah on numerous occasions. Another thing that is worth emphasising is that, for historical reasons, some circles in Israel are sensitive to the fate of the Druze minority in Syria. The Hezbollah, a strong transnational non-state actor, became a major enemy not only of Israel (they had been fighting each other for more than 30 years), but also of the Sunni rebels in Syria.37 This Shia militant group was created in 1982, with massive Iranian support, to fight back the Israeli invasion of Lebanon38, but now its fighters are helping Bashar Assad’s regime to survive and even retake some strategic towns (such as Qusair) from the rebels. Ironically, some Sunni insurgents who praised Hezbollah for its fight against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006 are now extremely disappointed with and angry at Shia’s role in consolidating the Assad regime. Hezbollah has also been called the Islamic Jihad and it activates in Southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and the southern periphery of Beirut, but its militants are present in Europe as well. They attacked Israeli targets in Egypt, Bulgaria and Azerbaijan, especially after the killing of Imad Mughniyah, the military leader of the group, in February 2008, by unknown assailants. The civilian wing of Hezbollah had two ministry portfolios in Najib Mikati’s cabinet, 12 MPs in the Parliament of Lebanon, a TV channel, Al Manar, a radio station, at least four hospitals and 12 schools. On July 22nd, the foreign 36

Daniel Byman, “Israel's Pessimistic View of the Arab Spring”, The Washington Quarterly , 34/3, 2011, pp. 123-136. Byman quotes high-rank Egyptian politicians who militated for the change or even the abolition of the Egypt-Israel peace agreement. Reformers Amr Moussa, Ayman Nour, but also Mahomed El Baradei, declared that the treaty should be at least revised. Pp. 125-126. 37 Anne Barnard, “Hezbollah Takes Risks by Fighting Rebels in Syria”, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/world/middleeast/hezbollah-takes-risks-byfighting-rebels-in-syria.html?pagewanted=2&src=recg&pagewanted=print, 7 May 2013. 38 Hizballah, http://www.nctc.gov/site/map/, accessed on 4 June 2013.

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affairs ministers of the EU Member States agreed to include the military wing of Hezbollah on the list of terrorist organisations, despite the fact that, at first, several member states, e.g. Malta, Austria, the Czech Republic and Spain, were against this idea, while the Netherlands and Great Britain favoured it and came in with proof to back up their decision. During the civil war in Lebanon, Hezbollah played a central role, but Syria, Iran and Israel were also massively involved in it. Thus, the tradition of the ‘proxy-war’ in this region is confirmed. Some analysts have showed that, sentimentally/on an affective level, many Shia Lebanese are strongly attached to Assad’s Syria and are likely to answer Hezbollah’s appeals: “With or without a direct presence in Lebanon, however, Syria will likely continue to enjoy the support of a considerable swath of Lebanese society for its foreign policy prerogatives. The counterdemonstration on March 8, 2005, called for by Nasrallah and attended by an estimated half a million people, provides evidence for the demographic weight of Syria’s supporters in Lebanon, especially among the Shia community.”39

Of course, supporting the pro-Assad camp and fighting against Sunni insurgents will make Hezbollah very unpopular in the eyes of the Sunni Arabs in the Gulf region and Maghreb. They will see it as the armed hand of Iran, sent by Tehran to save the Alawites-dominated regime from collapse. The Alawites are a branch of Shia, regarded as heretics by most Sunni Muslims. The Hezbollah leader, Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, seems to have paid for the Iranian and Syrian support he received in his ‘wars’ against Israel, by providing support to the Alawites/Shia to hold power in Damascus. He claimed that a Sunni victory (he and his fellows refer to Sunnis as ‘takfiris’, meaning Salafi or extremists) would be profitable to Israel and the USA, which are deemed to want a general decline of the global Shia power. As a consequence, in Lebanon there were troubles in the city of Tripoli, between the Sunni and Shia, as the two groups had both sent fighters to Syria. From the Syrian territory, in a retaliatory move, rebels launched mortars for Lebanon, hitting targets in the Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah’s traditional stronghold. Furthermore, the main enemies of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the “March 14” coalition movement, organised protest actions and asked the Sunni Lebanese to fight in Syria. The Sunni Future Movement represents the main party of this coalition. Some of these jihadists have already fought in Iraq against the US forces, and after acquiring experience in the Syrian theatre, one can imagine that they will be more able to fight 39 Flynt Leverett, Inheriting Syria, Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2005, p. 111.

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against Hezbollah at home. The mutual demonization of the contending forces is already obvious: pro-Assad Alawites call the rebels “extremists”, Sunni jihadists, or “Al Qaeda pawns”, while rebels call the Alawites “sectarians”, servants of Iran etc. Famous Egyptian Sunni theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi (considered by some to be the most famous Sunni cleric in the world, author of more than 100 religious books), who is close to the Muslim Brotherhood, pushed the Egyptians to go and fight in Syria against Iran and Hezbollah, which he labelled as “the party of Satan”.40 Similar calls to foreign Sunni jihadists were made by other clerics, such as the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, or Saudi cleric Saud al-Shuraim. Normally, respected and moderate clerics like Qaradawi do not make appeals to foreign Islamists to come and fight in other states, but only call it a “collective duty” and a moral obligation which does not apply to all Sunni Muslims, but only to those who are able to fight. But radical clerics claim that any Muslim ought to fight for his faith, as this is his individual duty.41 This explains why thousands of jihadists have come to Syria, a fact which will prolong the war and make it much more difficult to come to an armistice and reach a peace agreement. It is possible that 5,000-6,000 foreign fighters are already present in this country. “This makes Syria the second-largest foreign-fighter destination in the history of modern Islamism. (In the 1980s, the Afghan jihad drew approximately 10,000 volunteers, but over a period of ten years.)”42

Nevertheless, Ibrahim Talib, deputy director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Damascus, believes that there are 130,000 jihadists in other states and even computes some statistics: “Tunisians come first, with about 15,000 fighters, then Libyans, then Saudis, then Egyptians and Palestinians, followed by Lebanese. After that come the [fighters] from outside the region. There are estimations of more than 40 countries that have citizens fighting in Syria."43 40

Thomas Hegghammer, Aaron Y. Zelin, “How Syria's Civil War Became a Holy Crusade”, 7 July 2013, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139557/thomashegghammer-aaron-y-zelin/how-syrias-civil-war-became-a-holy-crusade?page=show. 41 Idem. 42 Idem. 43 Frud Bezhan, “The Rise of Al-Qaeda 2.0”, 23 July 2013, http://www.rferl.org/content/qaeda-qaida-new-syria-pakistan islamists/25054545.html. After the EU’s decision to blacklist Hezbollah, the Lebanese President, Michel Sleiman, told the media: "We hope the EU reconsiders its decision... to preserve Lebanon's stability.”

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Of course, the number is greatly exaggerated, but it is a fact that Syria tends to become a safe haven for extremists from various countries and continents (Asia, Africa and Europe), a fact which goes against the traditional religious tolerance within this country. For the Americans and the British, which would prefer to support only the secular and moderates, “such cooperation has complicated efforts to isolate the jihadists within the insurgency, where commanders of all political stripes realise they have little choice but to collaborate with any ally available.”44

Islamists and secular rebels It is a fact that, on the battlefield, the fight brings together in opposite camps the most violent and dangerous extremists: the al Qaeda ‘warriors’ from Iraq and those from the Al Nusra Front (Jabha al-Nusra) are the backbone of the rebel camp, while Hezbollah and the Iranians are the ultimate support of Assad’s regime. It became obvious that the warriors coming to Syria from the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia-Caucasus or Western Europe had an increasingly acute feeling that they were involved in a religious war, a fight between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, a war before doomsday. The main cleavage line is between Sunni and Shia, depicting fourteen century-old inter-confessional hatred. Thus, the so-called Arab Spring has played, until now, a capital role in increasing the identity conflict in the Middle East - Persian Gulf, with a tendency to achieve homogeneity through violence and sectarian strife. Syrian Alawites, fearing the violence they had been subjected to by extremist Sunnis (either Syrians or foreigners), tend to unite around President Assad. Even though they represent only about 12% of the population, Alawites are dominant in the Army, the Special Forces and the intelligence staff, and they are the backbone of the pro-Assad units that their enemies call “phantoms” (shabiha).45 As far as the war in Syria is concerned, the tendency is towards radicalisation and extreme measures, even if this may imply using weapons of mass destruction and committing genuine massacres to allow for the groups’ survival. Radical Sunnis from Syria and others from Lebanon and Iraq etc. view this war as a unique chance to definitively ‘solve’ the big religious conflict between Sunni and Shia, which 44

Anne Bernard, Eric Schmitt, “As Foreign Fighters Flood Syria, Fears of a New Extremist Haven”, 8 August 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/09/world/middleeast/as-foreign-fighters-floodsyria-fears-of-a-new-extremist-haven.html?ref=world&_r=0&pagewanted=print. 45 Leon Goldsmith, “Alawites for Assad”, 16 April 2012, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137407/leon-goldsmith/alawites-for-assad.

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is more than 1300 years old. Similarly, the Shia in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran are desperate to “do their duty”, i.e. to defend their religious fellows in Syria and several sacred places such as the Sayyida Zeinab Mosque in Damascus, where certain traditions claim that one of Prophet Muhammad’s granddaughters (Ali’s daughter) is buried. Sunnis believe she is buried in Cairo, Egypt. In Syria, the Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade (AFAB), consisting of Syrians, Shia Iraqis (affiliated to the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah groups) and Shia Lebanese (Hezbollah) invoke religious duty to protect the area of this mosque, while many Iraqi refugees inhabit this very part of Damascus. This explains why rebels attacked the city of Latakia: not only was Assad born there, but this city had been converted in 1032 to Alawism by al-Tabarani, Ibn Nusayr’s grandson, one of the most important historic figures of this cult. Nowadays, this forms a majority-Alawite area. There is a risk of sectarian-guided cleansing against Alawite civilians, especially by Islamist groups such as the Al Nusra Front. Once conquered, rebels would gain access to the Mediterranean coast. In fact, the government and the rebels are fighting for two kinds of territories: those with strategic value (passing corridors, buffer zones, safe havens, border areas) and the ones having symbolic value (famous mosques, tombs of religious/ethnic heroes, allied or kin groups based on religion/ethnicity). This is why rebels paid a heavy price in blood for dominating the corridor between Hama and Homs, which is considered by everybody to be vital for the access to the Mediterranean rimland of Syria, still under governmental control. The same holds true for the AleppoDamascus corridor. If rebels were ever able to control the vast field around Homs, they would break off communications in Aleppo-Damascus and force loyalist troops to use only planes and helicopters, which could be destroyed with ground-to-air missiles. In the summer of 2013, the governmental forces, heavily supported by Hezbollah fighters, managed to retake the city of Qusair, the cradle of the Shia militant group, vital for the connection with Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. Thus, Western Syria and several Northern regions seem to be the areas of most intense battles near the Mediterranean rim and the border with Lebanon. The North has become the place of confrontation between the Kurdish guerrillas (with cross-border connections in Turkey) and the Sunni rebel groups, after government forces left this area and went to the West to organise the defence of the Damascus-Aleppo corridor. It is worth mentioning that Aleppo, the second largest and most famous Syrian city, is the place of one of the biggest battles since July 19th, 2012, when the Free Syrian Army (FSA or Al-jaysh as-snjrƯ al-hurr) and the loyalist troops regularly won and lost some districts, with heavy casualties on both sides.

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The FSA is a rebel force consisting mainly of deserters from the regular army, totalling about 40,000 people. They represent a secular-minded force which does not have good relations with anti-western jihadists groups like the al-Tawhid Brigade and the al-Nusra Front. There have been reports of incidents such as the one on July 9th, 2013, when one of the FSA leaders (Kamal Hamami) was killed in an armed incident by the group called The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, led by sheik Abu Ayman al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi free-fighter.46 The FSA is led by general Salim Idriss, Chief of Staff of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) of the Syrian armed opposition. Idriss, a top-level defector from the Syrian Army, is appreciated in the US and Europe because he agreed to sign the prodemocracy Proclamation of Principles and promised to protect all the Alawites which stay neutral in this war.47 As a general rule, the Islamists are more disciplined and benefit from strong foreign support (from Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc.) while the FSA is less disciplined, more poorly armed, composed of heterogeneous elements and logistically supported mainly from Turkey. The various armed groups which rose against Assad’s regime are not “natural allies”; on the contrary, some of them tend to see each other as rivals to sharing power and resources in a postAssad Syria. The secularists from the FSA, but also the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham, or those belonging to Jaish al-Muhajireen wal Ansar (the “Army of Emigrants and Supporters” - a group formed of Chechens and other Northern Caucasians) are probably expecting to become rivals for power after the possible fall of the dictator. But they could be forced to make certain alliances against other groups. All things considered, most of the rebels do not want to use too much of their forces and weapons/ammunition in the struggle against Assad’s armed loyalists. To some of them, the most likely scenario would be the buck-passing, i.e. letting other groups/wings carry the most resource-consuming battles against the regime, while they maintain a pool of forces ready for the final battle, which will take place between the belligerent victors.48 The disappearance of the 46

“New front opens in Syria as rebels say al Qaeda attack means war”, 12 July 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/12/us-syria-crisisidUSBRE96B08A20130712. 47 “FSA says regime, not Alawites, targeted in Latakia”, 13 August 2013, http://www.albawaba.com/news/fsa-says-regime-not-alawites-targeted-latakia513356. 48 The Buck-passing strategy is typical of the International Relations Theory, the offensive neorealist branch. It is about a state trying to avoid fighting against a rival/foe, by pushing another state to do it and “paying” for this service. The strategy could lead to loss if the ally is quickly defeated and the aggressor turns against the

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dual structure friend vs. enemy (pro/against Assad) and the multiplication of enemies (making it difficult for the rebels to assess threat) constitute additional sources of complexity in this civil war. Moreover, this will certainly render the success of the peace negotiations and the post-conflict power-sharing agreement extremely difficult. The problem is that nobody is able to accurately predict the fall of Assad’s regime because his supporters still benefit from consistent domestic assistance and external aid from Russia and Iran. The rebels’ lack of coherence and unity may play in favour of the current regime. One should remember that in the Libyan war of 2011, in Somalia’s internal war or during the recent civil war in Mali, the “rebel camps” were plagued by deep divisions and mistrust, caused by conflicts over resources, territories and power. There is a proliferation of militias and sectarian groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham, the Al Tawhid brigade or various wings of the Al Nusra Front. Undoubtedly, rebels greatly lack a single command centre. Western states, mainly France, the UK and the USA, still hesitate to give large amounts of weapons to the rebels, because they are not sure whether these weapons will end up in the hands of anti-Western jihadists. Rebel groups are known to often sell or exchange guns and ammunition, and these transactions hardly fall under any control from the outside. The situation of Libya during the civil war is the easiest comparison to make to what happens in present-day Syria. Massive street protests caused by socio-economic issues and the persecutions against several tribal/religious groups ended in bloodshed because, in both cases, the armed forces opened fire on civilians. Both states have been republican dictatorships for a long period of time. Symbolically, Libya was divided between the advocates of a strong state governed from Tripoli and those who supported the autonomy of Cyrenaica (the Eastern region of the country; the city of Benghazi, its wouldbe capital, was depicted as the main ‘victim’ of the dictator). But then, many local groups of rebels emerged, each with various grievances. Likewise, in Syria, the hegemonic Damascus and the "victimized" cities of Dara’a, Homs or Hama were said to be constantly at odds. Both Gaddafi, in Libya, and Assad (Hafiz, then Bashar), in Syria, managed to bring stability to countries which had experienced ethnic/religious turbulences and even military coups in the past. Another similarity is the following: in both cases, there were deserters who abandoned their armies to fight on the rebels’ side; even ministers and state that tried to avoid balancing it in the initial phases. See John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001, pp. 157-158.

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other state officials “changed sides”, more frequently in the Libyan case. The excess of violence committed by the regime in Libya made the situation so critical that only a foreign intervention managed to bring a quick end to the civil war.49 At this point, the NATO military campaign in Libya made a big difference50 when compared to the Syrian case. In Syria, the foreign fighters from Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and even from Europe and Central Asia, the money and instructors from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Turkey, Russia etc. cannot have the same impact and effects as the fully-fledged NATO bombing campaign in Libya. In Libya, the repression against any kind of opposition was conducted to protect the personal power and ‘glory’ of President Gaddafi, who saw himself as the “king of kings” in Africa, a potential unifier of North Africa, and of his family. Conversely, in Syria, the bloodbath of Hama (1982) was aimed preserving power in the hands of the Alawites, maintaining the rule of Hafiz Assad and his family. The Ba’athist ideology (a branch of Socialism) played for the Assads (father and son) the same role as the “Jamahiriya” (literally “the state of the masses”, also a pretended socialist construction) did for Gaddafi and his sons; it was a source of legitimacy and symbolic power shared with the people, in fact a mask for brutal dictatorships. In both countries, the state apparatus was in fact the expression of personalised (“sultanistic” according to Max Weber and his later disciples51) power. Wide corruption, top-down violence and the total absence of the rule of law are points of similitude. Moreover, both dictators had to cope with unhappy tribes/ethnic groups/religious groups, albeit on different scales, as Syria tends to be more heterogeneous. Anyway, in present-day Syria, the opposing camps seem to have reached a point when they reject even the idea of a general armistice, seeking only to achieve total victory and the physical expulsion/elimination of the opponent. According to UN statistics, about 100,000 people have already died in this conflict and millions more have fled to neighbouring states. No happy ending seems likely, only a long and exhausting war of attrition. Many archaeological sites of universal cultural value have been destroyed during the fighting, especially Greco-Roman and Byzantine vestiges, but also Islamic monuments. As far as the probable duration of this war is concerned, 49

D. Byman, op. cit., p. 215. George Friedman, “From Gadhafi to Benghazi”, Stratfor, 18 September 2012, http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/gadhafi-benghazi?utm_source=freelistf&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120918&utm_term=gweekly&utm_conten t=readmore&elq=1d04e4ea572e4610b486c57c746e7a3c. 51 Houchang E. Chehabi, Juan J. Linz (eds.), Sultanistic regimes, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, First edition, 30 May 1998. 50

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we should take a look at neighbouring Lebanon, where the confrontations began in 1975 and ended in 1990, causing more than 120,000 victims. It is true that this small state is perhaps more heterogeneous than Syria, from a religious and ethnic point of view. While 10% of the Lebanese population consisted of Palestinian refugees, the Iraqi refugees from Syria (since the 2003 war in Iraq), i.e. 1,2 million for a population of 18 million in 2007, according to UNHCR, seem to have contributed to the increasing antagonism between the ‘privileged’ Alawites and the ‘disenfranchised’ Sunnis. These Arab refugees have indirectly produced a spectacular increase in the cost of living in Syria, and the pressure on the government is running higher. Of course, the spark of the Arab spring was the final element which precipitated a street revolt against the regime and the beginning of a new wave of violence in a decades-old confessional strife. Apart from Sunnis and Shia/Alawites, other minorities such as Christians, Ismaili and Druze have tried to avoid being engulfed in a bloodbath and have managed to keep some areas safe and calm. The Christians and Kurds are afraid of a Sunni victory, fearing ethnic/religious cleansing or persecutions. The Kurds have already organised their militias and are determined to fight against both Assad and the rebels. Tribalism is a very important factor: Arabs, especially those from rural areas, are organised and affiliated to several tribes and clans, whose alliances have often functioned as an element of cohesion for the formation of fighting groups in the civil war. “Tribalism is a socio-cultural fact throughout Syria, not just in the less developed eastern governorates of the country. It is an important form of traditional civil society that will help determine the success of local or foreign-supported security arrangements, affect good governance and impact the sustainability of long-term stability operations and economic development throughout the country.”52

As for the effect on combating forces, experts believe that: “Syrian Arab tribes are divided into qabila (national and trans-national tribal confederations) and ‘ashira (individual tribes). ‘Ashira are further divided into fukhud (clans), khums or ibn ‘amm (lineages) and, at the lowest level, albayt or aa’ila (extended families). Due to the geographically dispersed and localised nature of the Syrian conflict, Syrian tribal armed groups, like other

52

Nicholas A. Heras, Carole A. O’Leary, “The Tribal Factor in Syria’s Rebellion: A Survey of Armed Tribal Groups in Syria”, Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 11, Issue 13, 27 June 2013, www.jamestown.org.

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Civil War and Proxy War in Syria: The Ugly Face of the Arab Spring participants in the civil war, generally participate in fighting near their home areas.”53

Concluding remarks According to some interesting scenarios, the current fighting is likely to have different outcomes. It might end in Assad’s victory and the restoration of the state’s control over all the national territory, while the Alawites would keep their privileged position in the state apparatus. Or, the war could bring an end to Assad’s Ba’athist power and result in the victory of a large coalition of insurgents. But, as the insurgents are almost all Sunni, they may resort, in extreme cases, to acts of religious cleansing, purges and crimes against the Alawites and other Shias. Of course, even though the ‘cohabitation’ between Assad and the rebels seems very unlikely, nobody can say for sure that, in the future, the contending camps will fail to reach an agreement, with the aid of their foreign supporters. If Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar continue to put pressure on the two camps, there will be a chance of reaching a peace agreement. However, at present, this seems highly unlikely. Certainly, there is a possibility that Syria will turn into a completely failed state like Somalia, where gangs and warlords have power over pieces of territory and prevent the state from regaining full control. The split of Syria is another possible scenario, and it would create at least two small Syrian territories (two "Syrias"): one populated by Sunnis and the other by Alawites, Shias, Druze, Christians etc. Not to mention the Kurds who would try either to negotiate with one of this sides or set up their own small state in the North, in spite of the strong opposition of Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Such a fragmentation of Syria would be a messy scenario, a humanitarian disaster due to the fact that it might imply forced migrations, ethnic-religious purges, humanitarian crimes etc. Anyway, taking shelter in some region of the country and calling for secession is not an uncommon situation in the case of civil wars. One example is Taiwan, occupied by the remaining army of Chiang Kai-Shek, after its defeat by the Chinese communist forces in 1949. A defeated Assad may establish a small state near the border with Lebanon and officially split Syria. Of course, a small state led by Sunni extremists and by Assad’s family could not be considered a democracy and would be marginalised by the western world. But it is likely that it would have active local protectors like Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Qatar. We do not know at present how long the war will last and who the victor will be. Like in Lebanon, the war may last for more than 10 years. Certainly, 53

Idem.

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a massive military intervention by a foreign power or a coalition like NATO could bring a rapid end to the fighting and save thousands of lives. Nevertheless, after the war, instability would continue and claim other lives, as in the case of Libya and Iraq. The best way is to negotiate a peace treaty with guarantees given to all ethnic and religious communities that their lives and goods will be protected. Otherwise, they will not be ready to truly negotiate and acknowledge a compromise and may prefer to keep fighting. Moreover, a democratic means of sharing political power within the state must be envisaged and agreed on by the main armed factions.

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Heras, Nicholas A., O'Leary, Carole A., “The Tribal Factor in Syria’s Rebellion: A Survey of Armed Tribal Groups in Syria”, Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 11, Issue 13, 27 June 2013, www.jamestown.org. Janik, Ralph, “China, Russia, and the Failure of the Responsibility to Protect in Syria: does the Fear of Regime Change offer a Serviceable Explanation?”, Studia Universitatis Babeú-Bolyai - Studia Europaea, year LVIII, 2013, issue 1, March 2013, pp. 63-88. Kalyvas, Stathis N., The logic of violence in civil war, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006. Kaufman, Stuart J., “Causes of Ethnic War. A Theoretical Synthesis, paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, April 1996, San Diego. —. Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War, Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, 2001. Leverett, Flynt, Inheriting Syria, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, 2005. Lewis, Bernard, The Arabs in History, Oxford University Press, 1993. Lungu, Eugen, “Pan-Arabism and the Arab Spring”, http://www.mapn.ro/smg/gmr/Engleza/Ultimul_nr/lungu,gokcel-p.120137.pdf, accessed on 20 July 2013. Massoulié, François, Conflictele din Orientul Mijlociu, Ed. All, Bucharest, 2003, p. 43. Levy, Jack S., Thompson, William R., Causes of War, Wiley Blackwell, 2010. Mearsheimer, John J., The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. Melander, Erik, “The Geography of Fear: Regional Ethnic Diversity, the Security Dilemma and Ethnic War”, European Journal of International Relations, 15:95, 2009, pp. 95-123. Pipes, Daniel, Greater Syria: the History of an Ambition, New York, Oxford University Press, 1990. Pollack, Kenneth M. (ed.), The Arab awakening. America and the transformation of the Middle East, The Brookings Institution, Washington, 2011. Posen, Barry, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict”, Survival, 35 (1), 1993, pp. 27-47. Sambanis, Nicholas “A Review of Recent Advances and Future Directions in the Literature on Civil Wars”, Defense and Peace Economics, 2002, 13:2, pp. 215-43.

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Sitaru, Laura, “Siria, un caz particular al Primăverii arabe”, 21 February 2013, http://www.revista22.ro/siria-un-caz-particular-al-primaverii-arabe15599.html. Slackman, E. Bronner, M., “Saudi Troops Enter Bahrain to Help Put Down Unrest”, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/middleeast/15bahrain.html?p agewanted=all, 14 March 2011.

THE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN ROMANIA AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CURRENT DYNAMIC OF THE TRANS-ATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP BOGDAN AURESCU Abstract The strategic relationship between Romania and the US was reconfirmed on September 13, 2011, when the Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership for the 21st Century between the United States of America and Romania was adopted, in Washington. It marked the culmination of a long and arduous process started immediately after 1990, when Romania began its journey of reintegration with the Euro-Atlantic community. By adopting the Declaration, Romania and the United States of America have articulated the general framework of their bilateral relation, as well as prioritizing the domains of future cooperation. Another very important document was also signed on September 13, 2011 – the Agreement on the Deployment of the US Ballistic Missile Defense System in Romania. It also marked the culmination of an extraordinary level of military cooperation, especially after September 11, 2001 and landmarked by Romania’s accession to NATO, in 2004 and the signing of the Agreement between the United States of America and Romania regarding the Activities of the United States Forces located on the Territory of Romania, on November 6, 2005. Going beyond the political and security dimensions of cooperation, the Strategic Partnership between Romania and the US aims to develop cooperation in all domains. There are ten areas of cooperation explicitly mentioned in the Joint Declaration, and a bilateral Task Force has been established, on October 31, 2012, tasked with their implementation. An area where both partners need to work closer and aim for better results relates to the free movement of our citizens. Romania’s accession to the Visa Waiver program would celebrate another landmark in our bilateral Strategic Partnership with the United States of America.

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Keywords Strategic Partnership, Trans-Atlantic Partnership, Missile Defense, EPAA, Task Force, Visa Waiver

The Current Dynamic of the Trans-Atlantic Partnership: Europe is Still Important to US In a world strongly marked by globalization, the proliferation of media communication and the rise of new risks and challenges, asymmetric and trans-national, the trans-Atlantic partnership will certainly remain the cornerstone of the global security architecture, a catalyst of global cooperation and a global stabilizing factor. The US – EU relationship represents the strongest partnership in the international arena, essentially a strategic partnership, with the essence of interaction lying not just in shared common values such as peace, democracy or human rights, but also in economic compatibility and shared perspectives on local, regional and international security. The trans-Atlantic partnership must remain the fundamental pointer for EU’s approach of the international system and the engine for the promotion of peace, stability and democracy in the world, as well as one of the most effective instruments to assert the Union’s role as a global actor. Of special concern among the European partners was the recently announced US “pivot to Asia”, often interpreted in the extreme as an American “withdrawal” from Europe. Such an interpretation creates a false dilemma as the US focus on Asia-Pacific should not be considered from a negative perspective, as a declining US commitment towards Europe (“leaving Europe behind”), but rather a realignment of the trans-Atlantic relationship in tune with recent global evolutions. The decision announced on March 15, 2013 by the Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to update and adjust the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) missile defense system, as a response to a potential North Korean ballistic missile threat against the US territory, is a good illustration in this sense. Essentially, the increased US focus on Asia-Pacific is the response to a current necessity explained, inter alia, by the strong emergence of Asian economies, the major security concerns in the area and, finally, by the US natural desire to strengthen its profile as a Pacific power. An increased US involvement in Asia-Pacific and its European commitments are not parts of a zero sum game. The arguments supporting this perspective are concrete, consistent and varied, and go beyond the shared common desire to increase cooperation in managing the global challenges. In the realm of security, the

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latest US Defense Strategy clearly states that the US will endeavor to remain equally a Pacific, as well as an Atlantic power.1 With respect to economic cooperation, the recent launch of US – EU negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership reveals the desire to move beyond a classic free trade agreement and lead the way in global commercial relations. Both US and EU are faced with a challenging global agenda that requires their continued cooperation on issues such as the situation in the Middle East, the evolutions in North Africa and Sahel, nuclear nonproliferation, climate change or the emergence of new actors on the international arena. In tackling each of these challenges Romania is willing and ready to bring a distinct contribution. Romania has a triple status, as a NATO and EU member state and a strategic partner of the United States and from this position it is a natural supporter of the trans-Atlantic partnership.

The Romanian-US Strategic Partnership – a Dynamic Reality At the basis of the strategic relationship between Romania and the United States stands the Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership for the 21st Century between Romania and the United States of America,2adopted at the highest political level on September 13, 2011 in Washington DC. From a general perspective, the Declaration articulated, in an official and explicit manner, the evolution of a lengthy and pragmatic cooperation. Romania and the United States uphold a set of common principles and values centered on the promotion of democracy, market economy and human rights. The two countries also share strong and profound connections with regards to history, culture, science and human bonds, which are the basic fundamentals of the Romanian – American strategic partnership. As defined by the Declaration the partnership also offers a projection and prescriptions for future action as guarantees for its persistence. The adoption of the Declaration also marks the culmination of a comprehensive process of Romanian reintegration with the Euro-Atlantic community initiated immediately after 1990. The accession to NATO in 1 US Department of Defense, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, January 2012, http://www.defense.gov/news/defense_strategic_guidance.pdf (accessed August 7, 2013). 2 For the English version see US Department of State, Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership for the 21st Century between the United States of America and Romania, http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/or/172241.htm(accessed August 7, 2013).

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2004, becoming an EU member state in 2007 and the confirmation of the strategic relationship with the US in 2011 are the main landmarks on Romania’s path towards becoming an active and respected promoter of the trans-Atlantic partnership. From a historical standpoint, the 1997 visit to Bucharest of the US President Bill Clinton, the first visit of an American president to postcommunist Romania, was a decisive moment for the development of the bilateral US-Romanian relationship. There was a high level of emotion and expectation surrounding the visit as the Romanian society received confirmation that its future rested on the consolidation of democracy and the rule of law, as expected from a future member of the Euro-Atlantic community. Since that momentous event the relations between Romania and the United States evolved constantly, stimulated by an ever increasing spectrum of shared interests and concerns. The adoption of the Joint Declaration as the first political bilateral document to consecrate the Strategic Partnership marks the beginning of a new chapter, based on a more settled and formalized relationship. According to the Declaration the development of the strategic partnership will concentrate on the following priority components: political; military and security; economic; science and technology; research, education and cultural; and people-to-people contacts. Both parties are currently in the process of implementing the provisions of the Declaration as the joint efforts are coordinated through a bilateral Task Force. This institutional mechanism started its activity on October 31, 2012, holds its meetings, in principle, every semester and its responsibilities are to monitor, manage and guide the activities circumscribed to the Strategic Partnership. As such, it will supervise the development of the ten areas of cooperation explicitly mentioned in the Declaration, making it a dynamic, consistent, efficient and balanced Strategic Partnership. The strong commitment to promote values such as democracy and rule of law represent the guiding line for both EU and US foreign action, for the trans-Atlantic community as a whole and, implicitly, for Romania. Having been subjected to the oppressions of a tyrannical regime in its recent history, Romania is both willing and able to share its experience of a democratic transition to other countries from Eastern Europe and North Africa. The Joint Declaration contains clear references to RomaniaAmerican cooperation aiming to assure regional stability in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans by means of improving NATO-EU cooperation, strengthening Euro-Atlantic institutions and promoting solutions for the frozen conflicts in this area. Romania will continue to commit by offering expertise and resources to promote democracy and prosperity in our vicinity

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and beyond. We will share our successes with our neighbours and caution them about our failures.

The Security Component of the Romanian-US Strategic Partnership The military component is a main pillar supporting the Strategic Partnership with the United States. It intensified and diversified significantly following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Romania has lent a strong support to the international coalition led by the US against terrorism and the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also intensified bilateral cooperation with the United States on specific counter-terrorism activities. In the end, the success of the domestic reform process and Romania’s contribution to the international efforts to combat terrorism were the main arguments for the US support for Romania’s accession to NATO. On December 23, 2012 we celebrated one year since the entry into force of the Agreement between Romania and the United States of America on the Deployment of the United States Ballistic Missile Defense System in Romania,3 signed on September 13, 2011 in Washington DC, on the same day that the Joint Declaration was signed. The Agreement marks a significant step forward in the implementation process of the Strategic Partnership since it is also the first bilateral legal instrument including references to the Romanian-American Strategic Partnership. The Agreement regulates all aspects pertaining to the deployment and operation of the US missile defense system in Romania. A remarkable attribute of the Agreement is that it represents the first juridical instrument negotiated and concluded by the United States under the framework of the Phased Adaptive Approach on Missile Defense, launched by President Obama in September 2009.4 It was developed as an improvement of the initial missile defense system with the aim of offering protection to all territory, population and Allied forces in Europe. Romania is a forerunner in the development of the new system as the facility on the Romanian territory shall become operational as early as 2015 as part of the second phase of the project. Furthermore, the Agreement enhances Romania’s overall security to 3

For the English version see US Department of State, The Agreement between Romania and the United States of America on the Deployment of the United States Ballistic Missile Defense System in Romania, http://www.state.gov/t/avc/trty/172915.htm(accessed August 7, 2013). 4 The White House, President Obama Speaks on Missile Defense in Europe, September 17, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/video/President-Obama-Speaks-onMissile-Defense-in-Europe#transcript (accessed August 7, 2013).

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an unprecedented level in its modern history, as Article III of the Agreement stipulates that “the United States is firmly committed to Romania’s security”. Since the entry into force of the Agreement the two sides engaged in a dynamic dialogue regarding the means – especially the legal instruments – of its implementation. The negotiations on the implementing arrangements were carried through the Executive Committee and the Joint Committee, which were previously established to support the implementation of the Agreement between the United States of America and Romania regarding the activities of United States forces located on the territory of Romania, another crucially important bilateral document, signed on December 6, 2005 in Bucharest. Through the joint efforts of the Romanian and American experts, during 2012 two sets of implementing arrangements were convened and signed, 8 documents in total, and in 2013 another 3 were finalized and signed. Another 3 documents are presently under negotiations and the expectation is that they will be concluded by the end of this year. The successful conclusion of the negotiations, on schedule, is indicative of the excellent bilateral cooperation and communication in the political-military field and represents a confirmation of the two sides’ commitment to ensuring all necessary requirements for an efficient implementation of the Agreement. The Romanian site and its interceptors are a component of the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) missile defense system. The EPAA is the US and, consequently, Romania’s contribution – through the Deveselu base – to NATO’s missile defense architecture, in line with the decision adopted at the Chicago Summit (20-21 May 2012).5 It is important to underline that Romania’s cooperation with the United States results in an increased level of security not only for the two states but also for the entire European Allied territory and populations. When it will achieve operational status, the defense system will be an important deterrent and defense capability. Finally, the increased level of regional security will bring significant additional benefits for the development of NATO’s relations with its neighbours, highlighting Romania’s commitment to a safer future for this region. The Alliance has repeatedly expressed its desire to engage in open discussions with third countries interested in the development of this project based on shared security concerns. If NATO’s Chicago Summit marked the launch of the interim Allied missile defense system, the next step in its development is the operationalization of the

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Chicago Summit Declaration, issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Chicago on 20 May 2012, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-C5895414-2E163C19/natolive/official_texts_87593.htm (accessed August 7, 2013).

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Deveselu base, programmed for 2015. Thus, Deveselu will represent the initial capability of NATO missile defense system. The US commitment to this project remains steadfast. The decision announced by the US on March 15, 2013 to adjust EPAA has no effect on either Phase II (which involves Romania) or Phase III (which involves Poland) of this project. The work on Deveselu base, in preparation for the deployment of missile defense capabilities, is planned to start in the autumn of 2013. For this purpose the US Congress has already approved the allocation of some 265 million US dollars for the fiscal year 2013. Another aspect worth mentioning relates to the direct economic impact of the Romanian – US cooperation in developing Deveselu since Romanian companies will be actively involved. As a recent example, a contract worth 3.3 million US dollars has been already won by a Romanian company. We expect many more Romanian subcontractors to secure lucrative arrangements. At the same time, we regard the development of the missile defense project as an encouragement for foreign investors to do business in a secure environment. The Romanian authorities maintained a transparent approach with respect to the development of this important project in order to ensure the widest possible political and public support. The Romanian Government will continue to foster national consensus with respect to the development of this strategic defense project. We should also recognize the fact that the NATO missile defense architecture will be one of the main strategic projects for the future that will sustain the trans-Atlantic bond. The United States will maintain their commitment to the security of the European allies and the development of joint defense technologies and capabilities.

Economy is Strategic as well in the Romanian-US Partnership Although the political and security dimensions will continue to remain fundamental for the Strategic Partnership between Romania and the United States, the other areas of cooperation included in the Joint Declaration will benefit from increased relevance and visibility. Strengthening economic bilateral cooperation will remain a priority for Romania’s relations with the United State. We are witnessing a significant increase in our bilateral economic exchanges in recent years, as revealed by economic indicators and an increasingly visible presence of renowned US companies in Romania.

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However, the level of bilateral economic exchange is still lagging behind the excellent dialogue and cooperation in the political and military areas. In order to support the development of joint, strategic projects we are establishing two new working groups under the umbrella of the bilateral Task Force for the implementation of the Joint Declaration, in the fields of energy security and strategic infrastructure. We are also working closely with the non-governmental sector, especially with the American-Romanian Business Council (AMRO) and Romania-American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham). The development of the bilateral economic cooperation is part and parcel of the general dynamic of the trans-Atlantic economic relation. Europe is American’s most important commercial partner, with annual economic exchanges exceeding 600 billion US dollars, which generate millions of jobs both in Europe and the US. Even so, the trans-Atlantic economic relations witness areas of cooperation that are yet to be expanded to their full potential. From this perspective, Romania already expressed its support for the initiation of bilateral US – EU negotiations to convene the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Both partners assumed a level of ambition that would move the TTIP beyond a standard free trade agreement to include regulations and technical standards, which currently represent the main barrier to trans-Atlantic trade. This, we believe, will be a partnership for the 21st century that will spearhead the global negotiations on free trade. Romania will also benefit from a less restricted trans-Atlantic market as it will foster increased investments from both Europe and the United States. Beyond the negotiations for TTIP we are currently benefitting from a number of relevant instruments that promote economic cooperation. One that is highly relevant for Romania is the EU – US Energy Council, given the American commitment to the energy security of its European Allies. The US supports the development of strategic energy infrastructure projects that diversify the energy sources and increases energy exports to Europe, especially innovative resources such as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). From this perspective, Romania is highly committed to the development of EU’s Southern Corridor for gas supply.

Freedom of Movement is deserved by the Citizens of Romania, as a strong ally of the US Romania’s Strategic Partnership with the United States focuses not just on political, military and economic areas of cooperation; in its essence, our partnership is developed for the benefit of our citizens. More and more young Romanians travel to study in American universities; many research

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partnerships have been concluded lately; there is increasing bilateral cooperation in science and technology; there are intense cultural exchanges and more and more Americans choose to visit Romania. All these elements and more have been included in the Joint Declaration and will thus benefit from increased attention from the two Governments. Some of the recently developed programs are: Romanian language departments with prestigious American universities; the launch of on-line training programs; developing MBA programs with Romanian universities; developing a network of public libraries with internet access etc. The American - Romanian cultural, educational and human exchanges will greatly benefit from a more open Visa regime. Romania’s inclusion in the Visa Waiver program represents a priority in our bilateral dialogue with American officials and we have high expectations for a positive decision that would confirm our special relation. We also acknowledge with satisfaction the relaunch of Congressional debates concerning the criteria for accession to Visa Waiver program, in support of the bid of America’s close allies. To speed up the process a working group on consular issues was established (on January 31, 2013) as part of the bilateral Task Force for the implementation of the Joint Declaration. Its main objective is to identify solutions to overcome the visa refusal rate. As a result of common efforts, the visa refusal rate for the American fiscal year 2012 dropped to 17% from 22.4% (the previous year). One important factor contributing to this decrease is the series of public awareness campaigns launched in the last three years by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in partnership with the US Embassy in Bucharest. Only four EU member states are currently not part of the Visa Waiver program – Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Cypress. Therefore, the expansion of the program to all EU member states is in line with the announced desire to advance the trans-Atlantic partnership, supporting the excellent political dialogue and the future liberalization of economic cooperation.

Conclusions This blueprint of the Strategic Partnership between Romania and the United States shows a quite dynamic and vivid relationship in progress, which no doubt is wider and more complex. It evolves in the context of the trans-Atlantic partnership, which is dynamic and evolutionary as well. There is a lot of interaction, a lot of joint challenges and common objectives. Only one aspect is for sure immutable: the development of our bilateral Strategic Partnership with US – defined as “durable and long term”, “resilient and dynamic” by the Joint Declaration of September 2011 and “broader and

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deeper” by the Ballistic Missile Defense Agreement of September 2011 – is in Romania’s interests and for the benefit of the Romanian people. Romania is firmly committed to pursue this goal, together with our American partners.

Bibliography Chicago Summit Declaration, issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Chicago on 20 May 2012, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-C58954142E163C19/natolive/official_texts_87593.htm(accessed August 7, 2013). The White House, President Obama Speaks on Missile Defense in Europe, September 17, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/video/President-ObamaSpeaks-on-Missile-Defense-in-Europe#transcript(accessed August 7, 2013). US Department of Defense, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, January 2012, http://www.defense.gov/news/defense_strategic_guidance.pdf (accessed August 7, 2013). US Department of State, Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership for the 21st Century between the United States of America and Romania, http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/or/172241.htm(accessed August 7, 2013). US Department of State, The Agreement between Romania and the United States of America on the Deployment of the United States Ballistic Missile Defense System in Romania, http://www.state.gov/t/avc/trty/172915.htm(accessed August 7, 2013).

CONTRIBUTORS

Diana-Ionela Anche‫܈‬, Lecturer univ. PhD. Since 2010 is teaching at the Faculty of Legal Sciences – `Vasile Goldis` Western University, Arad, Romania, and is a member of the European Law Institute, Vienna, Austria. Bogdan Lucian Aurescu, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer of International Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest, Secretary of State for Strategic Affairs in the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, former Romanian Agent in the case “Maritime Delimitation in the Black Sea (Romania v. Ukraine)”, between 2004 and 2009, and former Government Agent for the European Court of Human Rights (2003-2004). He is a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and substitute member (on behalf of Romania) of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission) of the Council of Europe. Between 2010 and 2011 he was chief-negotiator of the Agreement between Romania and the United States of America on the Deployment of the US Missile Defense System in Romania, signed in Washington, on September 13, 2011, and of the Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership for the 21st Century between Romania and the United States of America, adopted on the same date. Claudiu Bolcu is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Babeú-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. Mr. Bolcu holds a Master’s Degree in Global Studies obtained from Lund University (Sweden), and a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from the West University of Timiúoara (Romania). Aurel Braun is Visiting Professor of Government at Harvard University and a Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the University of Toronto. He received his Ph.D. in international relations from the London School of Economics. He has twice been appointed a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. In March 2009, the Government of Canada, via a Governor-in-Council appointment, made Professor Braun the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (“Rights & Democracy”) of Canada, for a three-year term.His latest book is NATO-Russia Relations in the TwentyFirst Century.

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Ecaterina Cepoi is a Ph.D. candidate in Information and National Security at Carol I National Defense University of Bucharest. Georgiana Ciceo PhD Associate Professor on European Studies with the Faculty of European Studies of the Babeú-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.She is the Director of the Department of European Studies and Governance. Sanda Cincă is a researcher at the Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations of the Romanian Academy and a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of Bucharest. Her current research interests are: theory of international relations, European Security and Defense Policy, security studies, Romania's political history. She is the author and co-author of several articles and studies published in books and journals such as: PostLisbon NATO and regional challenges (2011), the EU after the Lisbon Treaty (2012), International relations reflected in Romania's Parliament debates (two volumes, 2011, 2012) along with articles in Romanian Journal of Political Sciences and International Relations. ùerban Filip Cioculescu, Ph.D. in Political Science (University of Bucharest) is a scientific researcher in security studies with the Institute for Political Studies of Defense and Military History in Bucharest and a guest professor (lecturer) at the University of Bucharest, Department of Political Sciences. His areas of interest are: International Relations Theory, security/strategic studies, international organizations, diplomacy.He published three books as single author: Introduction into the International Relations Theory (2007), PostCommunist Romania in the strategic pattern of the neighborhoods: the Balkans, the Black Sea and the Greater Middle East (2009) and Terra incognita? Elements for mapping the chaos in international relations (2010), and also co-edited the volume Handbook of Foreign Policy Analysis (2010). Cristian ConĠan: During the 10 years of his diplomatic career, he has held various diplomatic positions, including Head of the Office for Relations with the Republic of Moldova. He also served as advisor to the Deputy-ministers of Foreign Affairs in charge of Public Diplomacy and Strategic Affairs. Mr. ConĠan has various post-graduate specializations in international relations, including a Master of Advanced Studies at the European Institute of the University of Geneva.

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Adrian-Gabriel Corpădean, PhD, is a Lecturer at the Faculty of European Studies, Babeú-Bolyai University. His research priorities include EU Institutions and Policies, European Communication and the Management of European Projects. He is also professionally active in the areas of European Documentation and Publications. Cristina-Maria Dogot is senior lecturer Ph.D. at the University of Oradea, Faculty of History, International Relations, Political Science and Sciences of Communication. Among her writings: Le fédéralisme, fondement intellectuel de la construction européenne. Le fédéralisme personnaliste de Denis de Rougemont, Saarbrucken, Editions universitaires européennes, 2011, 456p. Laura M. Her‫܊‬a holds a Ph.D. in History and is currently Lecturer in International Relations within the Department of International Relations and American Studies, Babeú-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She is conducting lectures and seminars on Introduction to the Study of International Relations, Analysis of International Relations and Internationalization of Ethnic Conflicts. Ioana-Cristina HriĠcu is Ph.D. student in political science at the Faculty of European Studies (Babeú-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania). Her main current interest is related to discourse theory and analysis and their applications in political science. Marius Lazăr, Ph.D. in International Relationsis Lecturer in International Relations at Babeú-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. Lucian Leuútean is associate professor, Ph.D., at the Faculty of History, AlexandruIoanCuza University of Iasi, Romania. He is lecturing on the history of international relations during the twentieth century, especially in East Central Europe, the history of the Cold War and European Integration. He used to be state secretary for European Affairs within the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2005-2006), secretary general of M.F.A. (20062008), and consul general of Romania in Chicago (2008-2012). His publications contain several books and articles on the Hungarian-Romanian relations in the inter-war years, the new international order appeared in the aftermath of the First World War, the commencement of the cold war and others.

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Octavian Manea is a Fulbright student, pursuing an M.A. degree in International Relations with a focus on global security, the US defense strategy, counterinsurgency and post-conflict reconstruction at Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He is the recipient of the 2011 Freedom House Romania award for Young Journalist of the Year (for the Foreign Policy Section). He has written extensively on Euro-Atlantic security affairs and conducted numerous interviews with key academics, military practitioners and former decision makers. He has published articles and interviews in Magazine 22 and Foreign Policy Romania. He is also a contributor to Small Wars Journal platform. He has a B.A. in political sciences and an M.A. in international relations from University of Bucharest. Viorella Manolache, Ph.D., is a scientific researcher at the Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations within the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. She is also an editor and coordinator of the Romanian Review of Political Sciences and International Relations, published by the Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations within the Romanian Academy, and is amember of the Advisory Board of the international journalMaghreb Journal of Cultural Studies and Translation, Morocco.She is the author of ten books of political philosophy, published between 2004 and 2012, and coordinated two collective volumes. Sergiu Miúcoiu is Habilitated Ph.D. Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of European Studies, Babeú-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, where he chairs the Department of International Relations and American Studies. His main current research interests concern the dynamics of populism in comparative perspective. Editor: Valentin Naumescu is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, Foreign Policy and Diplomacy, and Security Studies at the Faculty of European Studies, Department of International Relations and American Studies at Babeú-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. He obtained his Ph.D. in political science from the same university, in 2000. Among his books: Issues of International Politics: Conflicts, Tensions, Debates (2014), Social Policy in Post-War Europe (2000), Comparative Political Systems (2003), Security Studies (2005, co-author), and Politics and Government in Canada: An Introduction (2010). Dr Naumescu has also a substantial diplomatic experience, serving as Consul General of Romania in Toronto (2008-2012) and Secretary of State with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest (2005-2007), having the diplomatic rank of minister-counsellor.

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Rareú Pateanu holds a M.Sc. Summa Cum Laudae in Mathematics and Computer Science, from the University of Cluj, Romania and his IT career spans 35 years working for major corporations such as Reuters, IBM, Bank of Montreal, Rogers Communications and Morgan Stanley, in a progression from developer to senior executive.He is an Adjunct Professor at York University in Toronto, Canada, and an award winning frequent speaker at computer science conferences all over the world. His articles have appeared in many reputable computer industry publications. Mihaela Vasiu is an EU nuclear expert with the European External Action Service, where she started working in April 2011. She has been a Romanian career diplomat since 1998, having served at the Permanent Delegation of Romania to NATO and the Permanent Representation of Romania to the EU (where she held the position of Deputy Representative to the Political and Security Committee). She holds a PhD in Political Sciences, an MA in International Politics and an MA in International Relations and European Integration. Cristina Vohn, scientific researcher at the Romanian Academy, Institute of Political Science and International Relation, Ph.D. student in sociology, University of Bucharest. She is the authoror coordinator of several books. Among them: Uniunea Europeană după Tratatul de la Lisabona. EvoluĠii úi tendinĠe, 2012 (with Dan Dungaciu), and România úi Uniunea Europeană. Cronologie istorică, 2004. Liviu-Petru ZăpârĠan is Professor Dr. at the Institute of Doctoral Studies, Doctoral School of International Relations and European Studies at “BabeúBolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca. Professor ZăpârĠan served as Ambassador of Romania to Luxembourg in 1996-2000.

INDEX

A AAs, Association Agreements 8, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 177, 178, 179, 180 Abu Laith al-Libi 412 Abu ObeidaIbn al-Jarrah412 Abu Slim Martyr Brigade 412 Abu Yahia al-Libi 412 Afghanistan 8, 319, 331, 332, 333, 335, 338, 412, 462 Africa, Northern 11, 12, 20, 406, 416, 428, 429, 430, 431, 432, 448, 452, 460, 461 AFRICOM, 337 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud 77 AK Partisi 422, 423, 433, 444 Alawites 12, 436, 437, 441, 442, 446, 447, 448, 450, 452, 453, 454 Albescu, Oana 227, 245 Algeria 300, 415, 416, 418, 421 Ali Sallabi 411 Ali Zeidan 410, 413 Aliyev, Iiham 167, 169 Alliance of National Forces - Libya 410 Al-Mawdudi 417 al-Qaida 412, 447 al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb 412 Altman, David 244, 245 America 3, 192 American World, post- 4 Amsterdam Treaty 70 Ancheú, Diana-Ionela, vi, 9, 10 Ansar al-Sharia – Libya 412 Arab Spring 3, 11, 12, 286, 288, 408, 428, 429, 431, 432, 439, 441, 445, 448, 453 Arend Lijphart 505

Asabiyya 407, 411 ASEAN 189, 193, 276 Ashton, Catherine 8, 39, 138, 140, 169, 170 Asia-Pacific 1, 4, 5, 459 Assad, Bashar al 392, 431, 442, 443, 444, 445, 451 Assad, Hafez al 440, 441 AtiyahAbd al-Rahman 412 Atlantic order, post- 1 Aurescu, Bogdan 11, 458 Australia 334 Austria 240 Avery, Graham 73, 84 B Bădescu, Ilie 57, 63 Bahrain 333 Banchoff, Thomas 94, 98, 230, 247, Bărbulescu, Iordan Gheorghe 69, 70, 84 Barnett, Thomas P. M. 3 Barroso, Manuel 144, 176 Barry, Keith 402 BƗsit SƯda, Abdul 443 Beck, Ulrich 57, 63, 257, 264 Belarus 165, 166, 167, 170, 173, 176 Belgium 240 Belhadj, Abdel Hakim 412 Ben Ali 418, 419, 420, 421, 423, 428, 429, 436 Benghazi 410, 411, 412, 413, 451, 452, 455 Bevin, Ernst 322 Bildt, Carl 151 Bluestein, Adam 403 Boari, Vasile 84 Bolcu, Claudiu-Alexandru 11

474 Boomberg, Elizabeth 59, 63 Booth, Ken 89, 98, 361, 368, 369, 376 Bosnia 71, 81, 327, 328, 338 BRICS 2 Brumfiel, Geoff 399, 403 Buchanan, Allen 352, 353 Bulgaria 17, 18, 19, 23, 25, 27, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 240, 333, 466 Burchell, G. 92, 98 Bush, George 3, 138, 296, 332 Buzan, Barry 94, 95, 98, 317, 364, 369, 371, 372, 377, 378, 379, 380 Bylica, Jacek 141 C Cairo 3, 17, 449 Cameron, Frasner 82, 84 Carbone, Maurizion 227, 246, Carlsnaes, Walter 82, 84 Casablanca Conference 20 Castex, Christoph 98 Central and Eastern Europe 291, 325, 326 Central Asia 5, 6, 9, 187, 213 Cepoi, Ecaterina 404 CFSP, Common Foreign and Security Policy 6, 7, 65, 66, 68, 79, 81, 85, 96 Check Republic 54, 59 China 4, 5, 8, 9, 189, 438 Chirac, Jacques 57 Chokri Belaïd 426 Christensen, Clayton M. 384, 402 Christians 12 Christiansen, Thomas 227, 246 Chryssochoou, D.N. 262, 263, 264 Churchill, Sir Winston 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 383 Ciceo, Georgiana 7 Cincă, Sanda 7, 65 Cioculescu, ùerban Filip VII, 12, 431, 469 Cité Soleil 304

Index Clapié, Michel 226, 246 Club of Rome 5 Cohesion Policy 272, 273, 279 Cold War 2, 5, 11, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 31, 72, 186, 321, 323, 324, 325, 329, 331, 429, 431, 434 Cold War era, post- 3 College of Commissioners 243 Committee of the Regions 279, 280 Common Agricultural Policy 272, 276 Common Security and Defence Policy 65, 71, 73, 80 Congress for the Republic Tunisia 424 Constitutional Treaty 235 ConĠan, Cristian 8 Cooper, C. L. 88, 98 Copenhagen School 7, 358, 359, 360, 361, 364, 371, 377, 379 Corbett, Richard 59, 63 Corpădean, Adrian-Gabriel 10 Corrigan, J.M. 388, 402 Council of Europe 232 Council of Ministers / Council of the European Union: 226, 229, 232, 233, 278, 279 Court of Auditors of the European Union 226, 228, 229 Court of Justice of the European Union 226, 228, 229 Cox, Pat 177 Creighton, C.L. 319 Cyprus 240 Czech Republic 240 D Damascus 12, 439, 443, 446, 447, 449, 451 Dara’a 439, 442, 443, 451 Darfur 334 Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties (Ettakatol) – Tunisia 424 Denmark 240

Democracy and Security in the 21st Century Derian, J. Der 93, 98 Derrida, Jacques 258, 264 Destour 414, 415 Deveselu 463, 464 Diez, Thomas 67, 85 Dijk, T.A.Van 94, 98 Dillon, M. 96, 98 Dogot, Maria-Cristina 8 Donaldson, M.S. 388, 402 Druze 12, 442, 445, 453, 454 Dryzek, J. S. 234, 246 Duffield, J. S. 91, 98 Duffield, Mark 347, 351, 377 Duke, Simon 36, 37, 41, 46 Dumitraúcu, Veronica 57, 63 Dumitrescu, Lucian 57, 63 Dungaciu, Dan 62, 63 E EaP, Eastern Partnership 6, 8, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 179, 180 East 5, 12 East Asia 4, 5 Eastern Europe 3, 6, 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 27, 29, 32, 50, 291, 461 Eastern European countries 62, 63 ECI 225, 238, 239, 241, 245 Economic and Social Committee 233, 279 ECSC 95 Edelman, M. 93, 98 EEAS, European External Action Service 7 Egypt 12, 288, 404, 405, 408, 409, 415, 416, 417, 422, 423, 427, 431, 432, 436, 441, 445, 449 Einstein, Albert 382, 402 Enderlein, Henrik 227, 246 Endy, Drew 401 Ennahda 12, 418, 419, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427 Erasmus 272 Eriksen, E.O. 262, 264 Estlund, David 249, 250, 264 Estonia 240

475

Estonia 333 Euro Plus Pact 277 Euro-Atlantic 2, 12, 169, 320, 460, 461 Europe 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 224, 225, 229, 248, 249, 252, 253, 255, 256, 257, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 321, 322, 324, 325, 326, 328, 331, 332, 405, 407, 434, 445, 448, 450, 452 Europe 2020 6, 10, 248, 260, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281 European Central Bank 228, 229 European Commission 74, 225, 229, 231, 233, 235, 243, 245, 267, 273, 274, 276, 277, 278, 279, 281 European Community 226, 248, 256, 257 European construction 95, 226, 230, 234 European Council 52, 58, 60, 74, 75, 226, 228, 229, 231, 233, 268, 277, 278, 281 European Defence Community 95 European External Action Service/EEAS 74, 76 European Global Strategy 75, 76, 85 European Neighbourhood Policy 8, 97, 98, 166, 170, 172, 179, 206 European Parliament 227, 233, 236, 239, 241, 243, 246, 247, 278 European Phased Adaptive Approach / EPAA 459, 462, 463, 464 European Political Community 95 European Semester 278, 279, 280, 281 European Union / EU 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 84, 87, 95, 98, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 224, 230, 232, 234, 239, 241,

Index

476 243, 246, 247, 248, 256, 257, 260, 261, 262, 263, 406 F Fall, Bernard 300 Faruq brigade 412 Ferrero-Waldner, Benita 39 Feynman, Richard P. 398, 402 Finland 17, 23, 54, 240 Fischer, Joschka 57, 62 Follesdal, Andreas 9, 50, 51, 64 Foucault, M. 92, 98 France 5, 10, 49, 54, 58, 60, 61, 62, 76, 80, 82, 240, 252, 256, 319, 331, 337, 415, 419, 440, 441, 443, 451 Francis Fukuyama, 330 François the 1st, King of France 95 Fudulu, Paul 50 Füle, Stefan 169, 170, 171, 172, 177 G G20 276 Gaffney, J. 94, 98 Gariup, Monica 90, 92, 94, 98 Gates, Bill 383 Georgia 8, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 172, 179, 335 Germany 5, 6, 16, 20, 54, 55, 58, 62, 76, 78, 80, 81, 83, 172, 177, 179, 240, 252, 331 Ghica, Luciana-Alexandra 64, 91, 98 Giandomenico, Majone 9 Giannella, Annalisa 141 Ginsberg, Roy 81, 84 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry 73 Gordon, C. 92, 98 Great Britain 322 Great Depression 3 Greece 17, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 54, 57, 240 H Habermas, Jürgen 250, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 260, 264

Habib Bourguiba 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 420, 428 Habib Mokni 417 Hafsids 414 Hagel, Chuck 459 Hamadi, Jebali 422, 424 Hansen, Lene, 353, 354, 356, 358, 359, 361, 362, 369, 377, 378, 379, 380 Hegel 92 Held, David 317 HerĠa, Laura M. 347 Hezbollah 438, 444, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 455 High Representative, EU 74, 76, 78, 79, 169, 170, 179 Hill, Christopher 36, 37, 45, 46, 81, 84 Hiller, Daniel 98 Hix, Simon 9, 50, 51, 64, 81, 84, 230, 246, Hollande, François 10 Hollerith, Herman 390 HriĠcu, Ioana 10 Hungary 17, 18, 19, 23, 28, 54, 240, 414, 415 I Ian Brzezinski 337 Independent International Commission on Kosovo (IICK) 328 India 4, 5 Indian Ocean 4 Information Technology 13 International Committee of the Red Cross 375 International Nuclear Energy Authority 76 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) 333 Iran 7, 8, 9, 76, 77, 198, 417, 418, 432, 438, 440, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 449, 451, 452, 454, Iraq 71, 73, 81, 406, 407, 409, 415, 416, 433, 434, 437, 438, 439,

Democracy and Security in the 21st Century 440, 441, 442, 446, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452, 453, 462 Ireland 240 Iron Curtain, 63 Islam 12, 188, 404, 405, 411, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 421, 422, 423, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 437 Islamic Tendency Movement 417 Islamism 11, 411, 412, 417, 419, 429 Italy 240 J Jachtenfuchs, Markus, 227, 246 Japan 5, 9, 22, 274, 334 Johnson, Collin R. 399, 402 Jospin, Lionel 57 K Kaldor, Mary 347, 348, 350, 351, 378 Kant, Immanuel 253, 255, 259 Kasparov, Garry 385 Kaufmann, Bruno 236, 243, 246, 247 Kissinger, Henry 3, 7, 73 Kitson, Frank 302, 309, 311 Knight, Tom 400 Koehler, Kateryna 84 Kohn, L.T. 388, 402 Koomay, Jonathan 402 Kosovo 70, 72, 76, 78, 81328, 329, 332, 333, 338 Kuwait 333 L Latin America 287, 293, 295 Latin American countries 293 Latvia 240, 333 Lazăr, Marius 12, 404 Lee, Yew 4 Lelieveldt, Herman 228, 246 Lellouche, Pierre 61 Leuútean, Lucian v, 5, 6, 16, 470

477

Libya 12, 76, 79, 80, 85, 288, 336, 337, 338, 404, 405, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 420, 421, 422, 427, 428, 429, 431, 433, 434, 436, 437, 438, 439, 451, 452, 455 Libyan Islamic Fighting Group 412, 428 Liem, Khoen 98 Linz Juan 405, 406, 429 Lipschutz, R. 93, 98 Lisbon Strategy 267, 268, 270, 275, 277, 281 Lisbon Treaty 6, 7, 52, 58, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 72-74, 78, 97, 224227, 229-232, 235, 245, 246, 252, 268, 276 Lithuania 240, 333 London 17, 23, 26, 194 Luxembourg 212, 240 M Maastricht Treaty 49, 51, 69, 186 Mackinlay, John 288, 289 Maghreb 408, 412, 414, 415, 427, 428, 429, 440, 446 Mahmoud Jibril 410 Majlisal-shura (consultative assembly) 422 Majone, Giandomenico, 50, 51, 55, 64 Maleševiü, Siniša 345, 379 Maliki School 415 Malta 240 Manea, Octavian 12, 290, 296, 299, 314 Manin, Yuri 398, 402 Maniu, Iuliu 25 Manners, Ian 36, 41, 46 Manolache, Viorella 9, 264 Marxer, Wilfried 243, 244, 246, 247 Marzouki, Moncef 424 McGiffen, Steven 84 McSweeney, Bill, 361, 364, 365, 379 Mediterranean Dialogue 326, 333

478 Membership Action Plan, 327 Mercosur 276 Merkel, Angela 56, 57 Michnik, Adam 291 Middle East 5, 11, 12, 333, 334, 405, 406, 407, 409, 416, 417, 428, 429, 431, 432, 433, 434, 436, 460 Mikati, Najib 445 Milosevic 328 Miúcoiu, Sergiu 10 Misrata 412, 413 Missfeldt, Martin 388, 402 Mitzen, Jennifer 362, 363, 379 Mohamed Brahmi 426 Mohammed Magariaf 410 Moldova, Republic of 8, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 172, 173, 179 Molotov, Vyaceslav 17, 19, 20, 23, 25 Monnet, Jean 95 Moore, Gordon E. 384, 402 Moravcsik, Andrew 9, 50, 51, 52, 53, 64, 67, 71, 84 Morocco 415, 421, 433 Moscow 8, 16, 17, 19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31 Mourou, Abdelfattah 417 Munich International Security Conference 5 Murph, Darren 402 Murphy, Laura 56, 64 Muslim Brotherhood 408, 410, 411, 412, 419, 422, 423, 445, 447 Mustapha Ben Jaafar 424 N NAFTA 276 National Constituent Assembly of Tunisia 415, 424 National General Congress 410 National Transition Council 410 NATO 5, 11, 72, 79, 80, 82, 83, 96, 169, 314, 317, 318, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333,

Index 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 452, 455, 460, 463 NATO Response Force (NRF) 331 NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council 326 Naumescu, Valentin viii, x, xi, 4, 14, 55, 64, 471 Neo-Destour 414, 415 Netherlands 240 New Zeeland 334 Newman, Edward 365, 366, 367, 368, 379, 380 Newton Dunn, William 49 Nice Treaty 71 Norris, Pippa 229, 247 North Africa 416, 428, 429, 460, 461 North America 321, 324 North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) 325, 326 North Korea 76 North-Atlantic Alliance 2, 6, 11 Norway 335 Nouri Abusahmain 410 Nuttal, Simon 35, 37, 47 O Obama, Barack 3, 139, 149, 249, 392, 443 Ogola, Leandro Oduor 367, 368, 379 Olson, Rick 334 OSCE, 169, 170, 171, 174 Osica, Olaf 74, 84 P Pakistan 334, 447 Pantel, M. 230, 247 Paris 10 Partnership for Peace 327, 326 Pateanu, Rareú 13, 75, 84, 382 Peterson, John 59, 63, 85 Petraeus, David 12, 298, 299, 302, 303, 312 Philippines 298 Pichler, Johannes W. 236, 244, 247

Democracy and Security in the 21st Century Piris, Jean-Claude 55, 58, 64 Poland 48, 54, 68, 85, 240, 328, 335, 466 Pop, Flore 227, 245 Popular Front – Tunisia 426 Portugal 240 Princen, Sebastiaan 228, 246 Putin, Vladimir 8, 9, 178 Q Qadhafi 12, 79, 337, 408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 428, 451, 452 Qatar 333, 411, 438, 443, 444, 451, 452, 454 R Rabi’ al-Madkhali 412 Rached Ghannouchi 417, 418, 419, 421, 422, 429 Rancière, Jacques 249, 250, 264 Reding, Viviane 61 Renout, H. 226, 247 Ricker, Pernille 98 Romania vii, 11, 17, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, 48, 54, 57, 59, 60, 61, 68, 78, 85, 173, 240, 333, 340, 385, 458, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 470, 471, 472 Rompuy, Herman van 44, 45, 144 Roosevelt, F. D. 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27 Russia 6, 8, 9, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 187, 432, 434, 437, 438, 443, 451, 452, 454 S Sadeq al-Ghariani 411 Sahel 460 Salafi 12, 421, 422, 425, 426, 446 Salafism 422, 429 Santer, J. 227 Sarin 12, 443 Sarkozy, Nicolas 10 Sauron, Jean-Luc 225, 227, 247 Sayyid Qutb 417, 418

479

Schiller, Theo 234, 247 Schimmelfennig, Frank 67, 84, 85 Second World War 322, 323 Security Strategy, EU 71, 85 Serbia 78 Service, Robert 403 Setala, Maija 234, 247 Shari’a 417, 419, 423, 424, 425 Shias 12 Shinzo, Abe 5 Sierra Leone Police 312 Sikorski, Radosáaw Sjursen, Helene 82, 84, 85 Sloterdijk, Peter 259, 264 Slovakia 240, 333 Slovenia, 240, 333 Smith, Graham 235, 247 Smith, M. P. 230, 247 Solana, Javier 39, 77, 133, 141 Solar, Igor 403 Somalia 286, 334, 451, 454 South Asia 4, 5 South Korea 334 Soviet Union 2, 3, 5, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 321, 324 Spain 240 Spengler, Oswald 2 Spiegel, Der 5 Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe 72 Stalin, Joseph 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Stepan Alfred 429 Sternhell, Zeev 266 Stevens, Christophen 413 Strategic Concept 321, 324, 330, 336 Strategic Defense Review 4 Stratfor 8 Sunnis 12 Sweden 240 Syria 12, 407, 413, 416, 431, 432, 433-457

480 T Thibaud, Paul 255, 266 Thoma, Klaus 98 Thomson, William, 1st Baron Kelvin, 383 Tivoli Gardens 286, 295, 313 Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership / TTIP 460, 465 Transnistria 171 Treaty on European Union 96, 225, 226, 228, 230-232, 235-237 Treaty on the European Community 225 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union 231, 232, 237, 246 Tripoli 408, 411, 412, 413 Troika 208, 424, 425, 427 Tunisia 12, 288, 404, 405, 408, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 431, 432, 436 Tunisian League of Human Rights 416 Turkey 9, 422, 433, 437, 438, 440, 443, 444, 449, 450, 452, 454 Tymoshenko, Yulia 175, 177, 179

Index V Vachudova, Anna Milada 84 Varela, Diego 49, 64 Vasiu, Mihaela 7 Vietnam 286, 298, 300, 301 Vilnius Summit 8 Vohn, Cristina 9, 48-64 W Waever, Ole 353, 358, 359, 360, 372, 377, 380 Wallace, Helen 68, 71, 83, 85 Wallace, William 68, 85 Wälti, Sonja 227, 246 Washington Treaty 322, 330 Watanabe, Lisa 98 Wendt, Alexander 3, 357, 362, 381 West 2, 12, 286, 287, 421, 423 Western Balkans 461 Western order 1, 4, 11 White, Brian 82, 84 Wiener Antje 67, 85 Wolfers, A. 90, 98 World Trade Centre 330 World Trade Organisation 276 World War II 5, 6, 48, 63 X

U UN 5, 96, 232 UK, the 5, 76, 78-80, 82, 83, 240, 314, 337 Ukraine 8, 165, 166, 168, 170, 171, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179 UN Security Council 78, 79, 337 Union for Tunisia 426 Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail 416 United Arab Emirates 333 United States, the 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28, 30, 31, 49, 68, 71, 76, 77, 80, 83, 93, 215, 274, 314, 322, 331, 334, 429, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465 USSR 323

Y Yalta Conference 6 Yemen 407, 409, 422, 431, 433, 434 York University, Toronto 13 Youssuf al-Qaradawi 411 Yugoslavia 81 Z Zakaria, Fareed 3, 4 ZăpârĠan, Liviu-Petru, v, 6, 7, 87, 227, 230, 232, 247, 472 Zartman, William 348, 374, 381 Zibechi, Raul 293, 307 Zintan 413 Zitouna 415 Zulean, Marian 91, 98 Zürn, Michael 227, 246