“Keeping NATO relevant” – should NATO go home? – ISIS Europe attends 8 May 2012 Carnegie Endowment event on “The Chicago Summit and NATO’s new Challenges”

by Myrto Hatzigeorgopoulos

ISIS Europe attended the event hosted by Carnegie Endowment on “The Chicago Summit and NATO’s new Challenges” on 8 May 2012. Peter Spiegel, from the Financial Times, moderated the discussion between Jamie Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges at NATO, Lisa Aronsson, Head of the Transatlantic Programme at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), and Jan Techau, Director of the European Centre of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In a context where the upcoming NATO Chicago Summit has produced sustained incentives for widespread literature production on the future of the Alliance, the event marked the launch of Jamie Shea’s Carnegie Europe policy outlook entitled “Keeping NATO Relevant”.

The 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan and the United States’ shift of interest towards Asia, coupled with the much-debated European economic and financial crisis and its impact on European defence and security capabilities, are currently identified as major challenges for NATO and its future. There is a dual concern over NATO’s capability to cope with the post-2014 international environment, but also over its existence in the absence of a defined enemy. As highlighted by Jamie Shea, there is a possibility for NATO to find itself with no major enemy to fight or operation to run, after having withdrawn from Afghanistan. In this event, would NATO get back to basics, would it widen its horizons and endorse new prerogatives, or would it undergo a period of strategic ‘soul searching’? Views diverge.

Will the new French President mean changes for CSDP?

by David Chuter

As expected, Socialist François Hollande beat the incumbent President, Nicolas Sarkozy, in the second round of the French presidential elections on 6 May. The margin was smaller than some had anticipated, but it was still decisive. What are the consequences of this victory for the European Common Security and Defence Policy? In the short term, not a lot. In the medium term, not a lot more. This is why.

It s quite true that, in the first round of the elections on 22 April, nearly a third of the electorate voted for parties of the Left and Right that made severe criticisms of Europe. This was more than voted for either of the two main candidates. But the criticisms – widely echoed across France – were almost exclusively about economic and industrial policy. They were criticisms of the neoliberal economic policies set by Brussels in general, and of the current obsession with self-defeating austerity in particular. On the irredeemable extreme Right, there is a degree of xenophobic anti-European sentiment, because, after all, other Europeans are actually foreigners. But beyond that constant of French politics, there was very little criticism of Europe as such.

Sudan and South Sudan’s Escalating Violence: Potential for Diplomatic Intervention

by Aoife Spengeman

What began a year ago as rumblings of discontent between the newly divorced states, has amounted to a formalised two-state brutal conflict. Marked by unresolved inter-state issues – territorial demarcation, sharing of oil, citizenship – Sudan and the newly established state of South Sudan are now faced with a fragile peace process that is soon expected to falter. The success of South Sudan gaining independence, based on an overwhelming democratic will to do so (99% of the population voted for a separation), is now overshadowed by the threat of war.

A strong point of contention for both Sudanese states is the economic issues of oil-sharing. The South has recently announced that they plan to build a pipeline to the Indian Ocean, through Kenya to the south-east, which would cut the north out of most of the oil trade. Such a plan has the potential to amount an unprecedented eruption of warfare between the two states.

Observers in Syria: Impotence of the United Nations

by Francois Ducrotté

In April 2012, the UN Security Council unanimously decided to send unarmed military observers to Syria in order to monitor a ceasefire between the Syrian government forces and armed opposition fighters.

The role of the UN observers is to break the growing cycle of violence and today, dozens of them are in Syria.

Their role is unquestionable but we can be pessimistic about their results. Robert Mood, the head of the U.N. mission in Syria, stated: “What I’ve seen since I’ve arrived on the ground is that my observers, where they are, have a calming effect”. But as soon as they leave, violence and scenes of devastation take place. The observers cannot be everywhere.

It took a year for the decision to send observers to be taken, and the overall situation is not evolving.

The UN needs to act in order to demonstrate to the world the power of the international community. However, it is not solving the political problems that exist between the members of the Security Council, and the pressure on the Syrian regime isn’t producing the expected results.

There is a need to see a political process begin. But, as violence is renewed, it is necessary to already plan the next step.

Climate-driven crises and natural disasters and Single European Sky legislation (Parliamentary Update – SEDE – 26 April 2012)

by Myrto Hatzigeorgopoulos

ISIS Europe has just published its Parliamentary Update for the Subcommittee on Security and Defence/SEDE meeting, which took place on 26 April 2012.

To read it, click here

European satellite navigation system and European Cybercrime Centre (Parliamentary Update – SEDE – 25 April 2012)

by François Ducrotté

ISIS Europe has just published its Parliamentary Update for the Subcommittee on Security and Defence/SEDE meeting, which took place on 25 April 2012.

To read it, click here

Parliamentary scrutiny of CSDP : creation of a new Inter-Parliamentary Conference

by Philip Worré

Following the decision by WEU Member States to denounce the Modified Brussels Treaty and the consequent dissolution of the WEU Assembly in 2011, the Conference of Speakers of the European Union Parliaments was tasked with establishing a new concept for inter-parliamentary scrutiny of CSDP.  Until then, the WEU Assembly had exercised de facto oversight on CSDP.

During discussions in 2011 on the best solution to ensure oversight for CSDP both at the Conference of Speakers and at the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC), it emerged that a major hurdle was the size of the European Parliament’s delegation in terms of percentage of seats.

The Conference of Speakers met in Warsaw on 20 and 21 April 2012 and reached an agreement on the creation of an Inter-Parliamentary Conference for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), composed of both EU national parliamentarians and MEPs. The main points are as follows: