The European Council on Foreign Relations

EU opportunity to press Jordan

Date: 19th April 2012 | Author: Julien Barnes-Dacey,

Categories: Middle East and North Africa,

The visit of the Jordanian monarch, King Abdullah, to Brussels and Strasbourg (a video of King Abdullah's speech in the European Parliament is available here) represents another opportunity for Europe to press the case for reform in the Hashemite Kingdom. As we argued in a recent report, the pace of political change in Jordan has slowed considerably, despite promises made by the King last year to open up the system.

New steps taken over the past week by the country’s parliament advancing an election law limiting the number of seats available to political parties in parliament, and banning parties founded on a religious basis, represent a considerable blow against any reform agenda. Moreover, they are clearly direct attacks on the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the country’s most popular party and would likely win any fair

Russia’s Syrian dilemma

Date: 2nd March 2012 | Author: Mikhail Troitskiy ,

Categories: Middle East and North Africa, Wider Europe, Security and Defence,

Dramatic developments in and increasingly active diplomacy around Syria over recent weeks have given rise, internationally, to several strings of heated debate. The projection of this debate on Russia, and Russia's contribution into it, has taken vivid forms because of the ongoing presidential campaign and Moscow's official decision to adopt a distinct position on Syria.

Within Russia, the 'Arab Spring' debate has focused on the internal, regional and global sources and security implications of sudden regime changes across the Arab world. The vast majority of Russian experts and officials have shared the widespread view that the revolutions in North Africa and Yemen opened the door to the forces of chaos and presented extremists of all stripes with new opportunities. Pointing to the victory of Islamist parties in Egypt’selections and continuing political uncertainty in Libya, these

Europe’s moral victory at the UN

Date: 15th February 2012 | Author: Richard Gowan,

Categories: Middle East and North Africa,

The last couple of weeks have been disorienting for veteran observers of the United Nations. The spectacle of the U.S. and Europeans lining up with the Arab bloc – and many developing countries – to put pressure on China and Russia over Syria upsets many assumptions about the balance of power in the UN system. Over the last decade the Chinese and Russians have been able to harness the majority of non-Western states to oppose Western initiatives in New York and Geneva. Their success in doing so was the theme of an ECFR report I wrote with Franziska Brantner in 2008: A Global Force for Human Rights?

Back then, we caused quite a rumpus with our argument that the Europeans - admittedly struggling to manage the Bush administration’s anti-multilateral tendencies - were having a rough time at the UN. But we also had two underlying strategic messages that seem relevant today. The first was

The Scorecard tour: Sofia

Date: 14th February 2012 | Author: Hans Kundnani,

Categories: Europe and the world, Middle East and North Africa, Scorecard,

Hans Kundnani is one of the lead authors of the ECFR's Foreign Policy Scorecard. He's writing this series of blog posts as he attends a series of Scorecard events across Europe and beyond.

The first stop of my Scorecard tour was Sofia. I'm writing this from the departure lounge at Sofia airport, which overlooks the snow-covered tarmac (it's been snowing here for three weeks and shows no signs of stopping). This afternoon, we had a very interesting discussion with a group of a dozen or so people that included a former foreign minister, parliamentarians, officials (including someone from the new president's office), journalists and think tankers.

There was an interesting discussion of the idea of the European interest on which the Scorecard is based. The participants suggested we should look more closely at how to define it: is it simply lowest common denominator? or something

Time to talk to Assad?

Date: 8th February 2012 | Author: Julien Barnes-Dacey,

Categories: Middle East and North Africa,

Syria is seeing a significant escalation in violence, and unfortunately much of it points to the military superiority of the Assad regime. Short of foreign military intervention or the arming of the opposition – both of which have significant dangers of their own - it is increasingly hard to see how Assad can be pulled from power any time soon.

As such perhaps it is time for a change in diplomatic tack on the part of the international community, which continues its diplomatic manoeuvrings with few tangible results on the ground. As distasteful as it might sound, it may be time to recognise the ongoing might (and some domestic support) of the Assad regime, and be prepared to enter into negotiation with him in the hope of ending the brutal violence now unfolding. This will be anathema to much of the opposition(which will understandably have to be pushed to the table), but with its

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