How to engage with the Arab world

Recently I am lucky in finding interesting suggestions for the future of the EU policy.

Here is an article that brings in some interesting comments. I quote the 6 points of Mr Abdulfattah Yaghi:

...'I propose six-point model to improve Europe-Arabs serious and lasting cooperation:

(1) Historical reconciliation. Europe must officially admit that colonization of Arab nations was wrong, immoral, and illegal.

(2) Europe should compensate all Arab nations it colonized through a special international court. (3) Europe should correct its mistakes and solve the cornerstone issue in the Arab World that is the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Europe should fully recognize the State of Palestine on all the lands occupied by Israel in June 1967, (b) recognize that East Jerusalem is the capital city of the State of Palestine.

(4) Turkey is the strategic ally to Arabs. Arabs look at Europe-Turkey relations as precedence. Denying Turkey from entering EU and insisting on keeping EU a Christian club does not help Europe sustain fruitful relations with the Arab World.

(5) A paradigm shift is needed in Europe to focus on cooperation rather than containment.

(6) Decent treatment of Arab immigrants in Europe is needed to curb Christian fascism and national racism. '...

If I can share my views, I believe Turkey is getting further and further from joining the EU. Not because of some underlying changes, it is just that the public opinion is now seriously taken into account in enlargement and this will not fly.
But I completely agree on the issue of Israel/Palestine and the point about the treatment of Arab/Muslem minorities. The incoming elections in Belgium and Holland will be important in this sphere.

Key recomendation for developement

Another article I found really inspiring gives 4 recomendations about the development funds and how to improve our 'donor' performance:
I quote:
...'
• Remove the disbursement pressure. I have worked with donors where it was in reality forbidden to discuss this – and most senior donor staff continue to pretend that the disbursement pressure is manageable. Yet I have never, over more than 20 years working of intensively with donors, met any field staff who did not complain about the disbursement pressure. It is there, it is real, and it is destructive. Spending big sums of money faster than it can be absorbed effectively can be outright harmful. Budget support modalities are not exempt from this curse – they just make it easier to spend the cash.

• Adapt business processes to country cycles. The TC reform argues for a mental shift in how we work. Donors have to focus on the partners’ programmes and help the partners in getting their programmes right. Then, they have to define their support to these programmes and not, (as implied in some donor-speak) see the partner as a ‘counterpart’ to the donor project. But this mental shift is hardly compatible with compressed identification and formulation procedures which, at fixed calendar times every year, have to produce identification and action fiches according to a Brussels-convenient calendar. The standard operating procedure of calling in consultants for three weeks to ‘do’ the identification and formulation is yet another mismatch: they do, nearly by default, end up being driven by the donor’s priorities and demands, not by the country partner’s.

• Recognise that field staff are doing development work, not (supposedly less worthwhile) administrative work. If staff have no time to get out of the office and engage in informal dialogue and networking, they cannot add the needed value to the money transfers. As said in Lusaka, we are in the relations-business – and that takes time.

• Spend small when opportunities are limited. Adapting to the heart beat of those we seek to assist implies sometimes spending very small catalytic money (and a lot of staff time). There must be room for that.

There is a lot of discussion about the Technical Cooperation and aid effectiveness. Very pertinent contribution.

Belgium outlines ideas on EU diplomatic appointments

Very interesting article scatching the Belgian philosophy.

EUobserver / Belgium outlines ideas on EU diplomatic appointments

Quotes:

Belgium's Mr De Ruyt aims to shift chairmanship of all EU Council working groups on foreign relations to the EAS by 2011, saying: "Our ambition is to make sure that the working presidency no longer has anything to do with external relations by the end of our term."
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy statements are to be made exclusively by Ms Ashton. "We will not publish any EU communiqués which bypass her office," Mr De Ruyt .....

I hope they succeed in building the External Action single voice.

EUrope is still alive!

You were wondering if this blog is still alive? Yeah... actually I was looking around trying to catch up with the recent developments on the global scene. I have an impression that the pace of global politics has accelerated since winter. And it was difficult to comment on the unfolding news:
1. The creation of the European External Action Service is rapidly progressing.
2. EUrozone at least has just affirmed a solidarity mechanism which was unthinkable even 3 months ago.
3. Poland lost part of its governing elites in a crash in Russia close the II world war crime place - Katyn with huge symbolism for the Polish nation.
4. UK has elected a hung parliament with big uncertainty about what will happen next.
5. Belgian federal government has exploded under the nationalistic pressures of Flamish liberal party.
6. The economic crisis is far from being over.
7. The digital revolution is taking place killing many of the foundations of the liberal democracy we know (newspapers).
8. The ash cloud reminds us how vulnerable our life style has become.

So what I would like to underline among all these important news/processes? I would say that Europa as a political project has just reached 60 anniversary (Schuman declaration) and the crisis shows that it will rather survive the turmoil.
And what is missing is a new narrative to justify its existance and competences. Probably this is the chapter to be written by our 'new' generation.

Let's go East... Middle East

Having spent around 10 years studying European integration, witnessing the Convention process and elections of Ms Ashton I grew a bit disenchanted. EU does not seem to be an independant entity with its own political forces. It is rather like a big Titanic which is being pushed from all sides (mostly by nationally thinking politicians) and thus far it has escaped the biggest ice bergs. It is more or less business as usual, money being spend, agriculture subsidized, some merger cases making the waves but not many new ideas... think about flexicurity...
The discussion about Turkey has not really started. Anyway Bosfor seems the upper limit of European ambitions and interests. But what I will claim in this blog is that this big ship is heading for a crash with one big iceberg- and this is precisely the issue of East... Middle East in fact.
Being Polish I should concentrate more on the intrinsic danger coming from our Russian imperialist friends. But I do not know why I grow more relaxed with Mr Putin embrace of the ex-empire.
What troubles me more and more is our Southern, East-Southern neighbours. And I mean is not any particular nation, state, but rather the whole puzzle surrounding Europe. The complex relations between the Palestinian political movements, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia. The only big plan that the West seemed to have is failing right now. If we do not buy into the mercantilist explanations for the Iraq intervention (petrol) there is a political one, which seems more convincing to me. Since most of the suicide bombers on 11/9 were Saudis, the US understood it cannot sustain its regional politics on the basis of the Saudi regime. And in order to unfreeze the stuck situation, they attacked Saddam Hussein who was the apparent threat to the whole region. Sadam out of the playing field, the situation does not look better, despite claims of Tony Blair.

I remember also one cartoon in the Economist: the solution to the Middle East conflicts cannot go without resolving the Palestinian question. But since whenever you speak about Hamas, Hesbollah or PLO you cannot just avoid listing the interests of the neighbours. So a global solution is needed. A global regional solution starting from Egypt and finishing in Iran.

And in my view EU does not have such. It perceives the region as a mix of ex-colonial interests, servitude to Uncle Sam and integration of immigrants within the western societies. The furthest east Europeans dare to look in a strategic way is the bridge over Bosfor. Istamboul seems like a European Muslem town, Ankara is somewhere deep in Asia. Yet it is Ankara who seems play a role of negotiator and power broker in the region. Turkey is both European (legacy of Ataturk) and part of Middle East. So definitely Turkish politicians have a much better understanding of the Middle East then our European ex-colonies. France and UK never recovered after the Suez crisis.
So what is at stake in the whole dossier? Nobody seems to have found the golden solution. Well Germans supported Polish accession to the EU precisely in order to stabilise their neighbourhood. EU should do the same but not by building new spectacular Mediterainean Unions but rather producing a coherent, pragmatic vision which goes beyond the sense of guilt towards Israel and pity for the suffering Palestinians.
Mercosur and Asean are important political blocs, but EU should rather concentrate on stabilising its south-east flank. Once the Americans are out of oil and Iraq we shall have a terrible mess to sort out. Better start now. Ms Ashton, the floor is yours.
In the meantime, in case Europe needs another 20 years to make up its mind, let's start learning Arabic...

So Minister Jeleva is gone

It seemed so boring... Dozens of Commissioners appeared in front of the parliamentary committees and were repeating nice briefings prepared by the Commission staff. Some had even some charisma: I mean Mr Oettinger, Ms Hedegaard. But still after the nomination of Ms Ashton everything seemed set for a safe intronisation. And then we hear that the pressure from EP made one of the weakest abandon her dreams. She was so close of getting to the European Versailles and yet she renounced.
I do not know how serious were the charges against her but still I was happy to hear about her decision. First, because all that shows that EU is not puppet show is good for its life. And second because it seems that EP takes its job seriously.

But this all is a bit like a fog. It covers the interregnum in the EU. Some authors ask themselves who is ruling the EU now. Mr Rompuy, Mr Zapatero, or the golden trio (Sarkozy, Brown and Merkel). What went rather unnoticed is that Mr Juncker has been reelected as the chair of the Eurogroup for another 2.5 years. He might make a come-back one day, like a Batman ressurected.
The EU is almost invisible but it is growing like a tree with the roots deeper in the soil. One day we shall see better the real face of it. Maybe it will look more German than we think...
I was impressed by Mr Oettinger: good German product which is reliable, has his convictions and know how to speak to people and not between them. Same Ms Hedegaard: she started her speech by answering the question why we do politics. Greece will have to be put under stronger control. Spain is realising it is not such a tiger. Maybe the heart of EU will move closer to Berlin. I hope they will be ready to assume the responsibility.

The new media, social games and politics

For some time now I have been reading the British monthly: Prospect Magazine. It brings insightful articles written by interesting authors. Recently I came by an article about the new internet social gaming industry. The title of the piece is 'All the world is play' and it describes how the approach taken by game producers might show the pattern to be explored by politicians and reformers. I advice you to read it however it is not available in the internet version (as far as I see).
The key passage from the article is the age of ideologies and grand social schemes is over. Now we enter an evolutive, iterational world were you can test ideas by the use of social networks, internet feedback tools etc.
Indeed I think that we have not yet grasped the influence of facebooks, blogs and twitters on the future generations. Probably in 2010 we do not know yet the 10 best paid jobs of 2025. Maybe sooner than we think the PR agancies will transform in producing fake internet records.
Another aspect of the article is that social games explore are most precious wants of being challenged, acquiring new skills and being rewarded. These rules from the world of game shall come to the adult society from which they were expelled long ago. So collective power points or money, learning how to jump to the next level etc. need to be introduced into our professional lives. Nothing new, you say...
Still for me it's revealing. The next generation might not want to pass huge bar exams knowing that this is mostly a useless experience. If you can google everything easily it is the putting together of information that really counts.
I still have not thought it over but I think this shall have huge implications for the new jobs, valuable skills etc. For example: a chief product placement officer who will test which websites are used by the youth we are trying to target. And since they will be changing the sites, escaping the traps, we need seduce them into our games, into a jungle of challenges, skill development and rewarding.
So maybe the future society will be one of multiple levels of internet identity. Who knows.
ps. Sorry for being silent for so long but I was either too busy or too clueless. Wish all of you a pieceful and inspiring 2010.