Peacebuilding in the MENA region and the necessity of a new EU’s leading role

author: Giulia Semeghini

A common denominator from worldwide news reports is the situation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region which appears totally un-resolved and highly problematic. The war in Syria, the last year Gaza's crisis, the threaten Tunisia's stability and the migration and refugees emergency are just few examples that demonstrate the fragility and critical situation of the region. This awareness leads to the conclusion that the European foreign policy instruments were not so effective and even failed many of their purposes. In this context the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) plays a key role.

Since its conception in 2003, this policy should have been a relevant part of the EU Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa region, with the aim of improving democracy, human rights, sustainable development and economic integration with all the partner countries of the Action Plan. Due to the necessity to reformulate this European approach, on the 17th of November 2015 it took place at the European Parliament a round table to start a discussion on the EU role as a peace promoter in the MENA region.

Organized by the non-governmental actors EuroMed Non-Governmental Platform, Arab NGO Network for Development and SOLIDAR, who have monitored the implementation of the ENP during the last years, the debate was focused in particular on the consideration of a comprehensive EU approach to peacebuilding and State-building including the promotion of human rights and security. “What can the EU do to concretely promote human security?”, “How can the EU work with local, regional and international actors to advance peace in the region?”; these are just some of the questions that started this debate.

During the first panel, Pier Antonio Panzeri, Member of the European Parliament (S&D) and Chair of the Delegation for the relations with the Maghreb Countries and Arab Maghreb Union, affirmed that today Europe appears more than ever in need of a global strategy and a new leading role in helping to reach a dialogue with Middle East, and this necessity is even more clear after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. This assertion was shared by Ziad Abdel Samad, Director of the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), who strongly affirmed that in the MENA region nothing changed in the last two decades. He invited all the European partners to put more efforts in a new common strategy, starting from the refuse of having relationships with regional dictators. The same invitation came out loudly from Lobna Jeribi, representative of the SOLIDAR Tunisia initiative, who highlighted the immobility of the situation in Tunisia from a political point of view and the lack of support from the European Union.

A stronger commitment to face the refugee crisis was asked by Rashid Al Mansi, the Programme Coordinator for the Popular Aid for Relief and Development, a Lebanese NGO, since in the last years many Syrians have been joining the refugees camps placed in Lebanon where already many Palestinian refugees were living below the poverty line. During the third panel, attentions were focused on the EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy (2015/2019), a new plan pursued by the European Commission and the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Cornelia Kratochvil and Eldridge Adolfo from the Security Policy Department of the European External Action Service (EEAS), particularly highlighted the importance of promoting an effective “early warning” in the region. In fact, the strength of this risk and conflict reduction system consist in gaining specific local information in order to evaluate and keep the situation controlled in advance, trying to find different solutions depending on the contexts and to use the opportunities and instruments that are already present at a local level.

The entire round table focused on the importance of local involvement which was asserted by almost every speaker. In fact, as human rights and social development concern directly the populations and are at the base of a peace process, all the participants agreed that civil society must be included in any step of European future plans or decisions. This statement was particularly supported by Lobna Jeribi and strengthen by the words of Stine Nicoline Horn, Lebanon Director for Norwegian People’s Aid, who focused her speech on the importance of the concept of resilience in cooperation and the participation of the society in peacebuilding processes.

As concluded in this discussion by the moderator of the round table, Conny Reuter, Secretary General at SOLIDAR, what is fundamental now is the involvement of every social actor in the peace promotion and stability of the MENA region. That means that it is not possible to create a new EU strategy only from a European point of view. It is necessary, indeed, to make proposals considering the Mediterranean region as a whole since Europe makes part of it, as it is clear from its actual strong involvement in the instability of the region.