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EU should offer more to woo Syria
The European Union wants Damascus to follow the example of Turkey and reform its domestic and foreign policies. If this is to be achieved, incentives must be offered
- By Marwan Kabalan, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:01 August 14, 2008
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Last week, Speaker of the European Union (EU) Parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering, paid a three-day visit to Damascus. The visit marked the end of a difficult era in the relationship between the EU and Syria. It also indicated that advocates of the engagement approach with Syria within the EU have won over isolationists.
Over the past few years, relations between Syria and the EU have been fraught with mistrust and animosity. In recent months, however, they have been improving at a steady pace. The EU appreciated Syria's role in solving the two-year-old constitutional crisis in Lebanon. It also welcomed the resumption of peace talks between Syria and Israel through Turkish mediation. As a gesture of goodwill, France, president of the EU, invited Syrian president, Bashar Assad, to the EU-Mediterranean summit in Paris in July. Bashar attended also the military parade held to mark the anniversary of the French Revolution.
By extending its hand to Damascus, the EU seems to be trying to bring about further change in Syria's regional policies; chiefly among them distancing it from Iran; the West's key foe in the region. The EU may have begun to realise that isolation and treating Syria as a pariah state has in fact produced the opposite effect. It brought Damascus closer to Iran and made it more dependent on Tehran's economic and political support.
Syria remains, however, the only long-standing partner out of the nine other Mediterranean countries under the Barcelona process, which hasn't signed an association agreement with the EU. Despite French pressure to ratify the agreement, Britain and Germany still hold out. London demands Damascus to take tougher measures on the borders with Iraq to prevent foreign fighters from pouring into the country and attack coalition forces. It also asks Damascus to normalise relations with the Nouri Al Maliki government in Iraq and break its alliance with Tehran.
Demanding
Germany, on the other hand, focuses more on Syrian domestic politics, demanding Damascus to improve its human rights record, release political prisoners and cease mistreatment of opposition groups as pre-conditions for full-fledged cooperation.
In fact, engagement, incentive-driven policy and temptation have always been Europe's foreign policy tools - which, despite being loathed by some in the continent as unacceptable appeasement, they did in fact paid back handsomely in most cases. In Turkey, for example, the EU did succeed in bringing about a major shift in Turkish domestic and foreign policy by wooing the Turkish government, through promises to be admitted to the EU, to undertake major reforms. Despite sporadic ill-treatment cases, torture, for instance, is no longer systematic in Turkish prisons, the military has, so far, respected the popular will, which put moderate Islamists in power, anti-corruption measures have been genuine and effective, and minorities - the Kurds in particular - enjoy more rights today than ever before. As far as foreign policy is concerned, the EU approach has made Turkey less inclined to use military force to solve problems with neighbours such as Greece and Armenia.
The EU's experience with Turkey and its relation to democracy and foreign policy must serve as a model in dealing with Syria and the wider Arab world. The Syrian government is eager to sign the association agreement with Europe in order to ease the American pressure. It is also pragmatic and willing to reach a reasonable settlement. The EU, on the other hand, wants Syria to follow the example of Turkey and reform its domestic and foreign policies. If this is to be achieved, incentives must be offered. They would help reintegrate Syria in the international community and abandon some of its controversial regional policies. Ratifying the association agreement should be the first step in the process of reviewing Europe's relationship with Damascus.
Dr Marwan Kabalan is a lecturer in media and international relations, Faculty of Political Science and Media, Damascus University, Syria.
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