The two European giants, Germany and France, have recently warned that Europe is facing a serious split over Syria, as both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have called on the 28 countries comprising the European Union (EU) for unity. Standing side-by-side addressing the EU parliament last Wednesday in Strasbourg, they jointly tried to persuade member states that are inward-looking that they will be better off if they remain in the European bloc. The appearance of both the leaders in the European parliament is the first since former chancellor Helmut Kohl, the architect of Germany reunification, and former French president Francois Mitterrand, the architects of the Maastricht Treaty that established the EU, appeared together on the same platform in 1989, also stressing the strategic significance of Europe.
Undoubtedly, the EU of 2015 has obviously become more difficult to run than the EU of 1989. Then, member states were limited to 11 countries and Germany itself was still in two parts, East and West, and the Europeans genuinely felt for the first time since the Second World War that what was then West Germany, has adopted Europe and become an integral part of the new Europe. That was greatly reconfirmed after the German reunification in 1990, following the collapse of the Berlin Wall on October 3, 1989. The EU has, since then, gone through at least four stages of expansion before its membership finally reached 28 countries, the latest of which was Croatia, which joined in July 2013.
The process of enlargement itself has had its own consequences on Europe’s politics and on European life, particularly the gradual rise of right-wing and nationalist trends. But the EU countries seemed to have been able, by and large, to overcome these difficulties. Most of these difficulties were overcome by some adjustments made by the richer EU countries to accommodate the poorer ones, particularly the countries of former Eastern Europe. But the issues that are currently facing the European countries are largely acute and obviously different in nature and scope. In the aftermath of the Greek financial disaster, which has deeply touched Europe’s economic prosperity, the war in Syria for instance, which is clearly leaving its mark on almost every major European city, is threatening Europe’s unity. Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees are fleeing their disintegrating country for Europe’s capitals, while the EU dangerously lacks a strategy to end the war in Syria. Unlike Russia, which is aggressively leading a charge to shore up Bashar Al Assad’s regime in Damascus, and unlike the United States, which is limiting its action to only aerial attacks against Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), the European bloc seems to be, up till now, absent from the battlefield. The Liberal group’s leader in the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, accused Europe of “absence of political will” in Syria.
With the war in Syria now in its fifth year and with more than 250,000 dead — and an estimated 12 million of its population having been rendered refugees — Europe has not yet taken any meaningful step to influence events in Syria. This absence and inaction has largely helped extremist groups such as Daesh, Jabhat Al Nusra and multiple other local gangs to spring up and establish power in large sections of the country. Turkey had earlier urged Europe and the US to provide safe havens to those fleeing the war and to protect them with ‘no-fly’ zones. These were possibly feasible early on, but the recent escalation in view of Russian involvement has made such zones almost impossible to have.
To be fair, Europe is not the only reluctant party in the conflict, but it is also the administration of US President Barack Obama that has so far shown an unwillingness to commit its troops. Even after Al Assad crossed an American red line earlier in the year, when his forces used chlorine gas on opponent targets in Kfar Zita — a small town in the Hama province in central Syria, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians, including children — there was no reaction of any significance. With the West lacking in a will to act, Moscow has found enough elbow room to intervene.
Russian intervention will not only strengthen the Al Assad regime, but will also provide Moscow with a powerful card to ensure its presence at any future international conference to sort out the bloody mess in Syria. In Moscow’s calculations, this will eventually lead to international approval of its intention to maintain its military presence in the warm waters of the Mediterranean. The current naval base in the north-western city of Latakia is Russia’s only naval base outside its own territories.
Although the current Syrian crisis may rekindle memories of the Cold War, it is unlikely to develop into a military one. Yes, misunderstandings may occur, as American and Russian fighter jets are operating in the same airspace. But it is believed that both sides will do its utmost not to bump onto each other. In their meeting on Thursday, Nato miserably failed to come up with a solid warning to Moscow on its policy in Syria. Additionally, Europe is not speaking in one voice to deal with the Syrian issue. Merkel surprised many of her European colleagues when she recently suggested that Al Assad was one of “many actors whom we should be talking to”. Meanwhile, the French pledged not to support any deal that would prolong the regime of the Syrian dictator. All of this, unfortunately, reflects a stark reality in Europe: A total absence of a comprehensive European foreign policy on Syria.
Mustapha Karkouti is a former president of the Foreign Press Association, London.
