EU can play a key role in Pakistan

The European Union (EU) is famous for its foreign policy failures, despite its surprising resilience in the face of persistent anti-Brussels sentiment in many EU member states. It has never succeeded in taking its place in the world's councils that its size would suggest it is entitled to. The main example was in the 1990s when the EU was given responsibility for the former Yugoslavia and thousands of people died in continuing violence till the US stepped in and forced a settlement on the warring militias.

This is why the forthcoming EU summit with Pak-istan has to be taken more seriously, or abandoned as pointless. EU member states certainly have important skills that the Pakistanis could well use to their advantage and they have some aid money that could be well placed. But the EU needs to generate a clear European direction on how to fight terrorism in Pakistan, and get buy-in from its many friends in the region including the Gulf, on how to make this work. With this wider support, the EU will find the essential regional backing for a strategy that cannot be a simple EU-Pakistan bilateral issue. Fighting terrorism is not like negotiating free trade agreements. It needs everyone to help.