Is Europe in crisis

Forecast

• In the coming years, national governments, opposition groups and civil society organizations will increasingly turn to popular votes to decide a broad range of EU-related debates.

• National governments will probably use referenda (or, more likely, the threat of them) to demand concessions from the European Union, to justify domestic decisions or to increase their own popularity.

• Votes will take place against a backdrop of growing nationalism and fear of globalization, and the results will likely freeze or reverse the process of EU integration.

Analysis

GPM Outlook 2017: A Make-or-Break Year for the EU

December 21, 2016

Geopolitical Monitor

 

Background

If 2016 was the year when cracks appeared in the foundation of the European Union, 2017 will tell the story of whether those cracks are patched up or if they expand and imperil the whole project of European integration.

Looking ahead to 2017, it’s hard to imagine a more daunting line-up of elections and Continental dramas. There’s the two main attractions of national elections in France and Germany, with the former almost sure to see a run-off showdown involving the populist Marine Le Pen of the National Front. There’s a general election in the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) is leading the polls (Mr. Wilders has seen a boost in popularity since being convicted of inciting discrimination in early December). There’s the fate of the Italian financial system and the weak caretaker government in Rome. And there’s also the overriding drama of Brexit, and how the United Kingdom’s relationship with the bloc will look once it triggers Article 50.

All this will play out with the sword of a fragile banking system hanging over European markets. Recall those three words that forestalled a new EU sovereign debt crisis: “whatever it takes.” It stands to reason that there’s a confidence firewall that, once breached, will call into question the European Central Bank guarantee and trigger a cascading financial crisis in the peripheral economies of the EU.

We could see that firewall breached in 2017.

Lithuania’s Security Policy Defies Common Sense

September 14, 2016

Adomas Abromaitis

 

To put it mildly, the current system of international security and European security in particular doesn’t work any longer.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier recently said that “European security is at risk unless a new arms control agreement is in force.” Almost every European country admits this fact. But it is far easier to admit a problem than to take real action on it, and international security will remain a dream unless a new system is actually developed.

It would seem there is nothing difficult in combining efforts and making a new, effective system of international security. The first important step for the European security system, for example, could be a new or reviewed Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe. It would be a logical and reasonable step to improve the situation in the region. But not all states are ready to agree with Steinmeier’s statement.

On September 5, in an interview with DPA, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Antanas Linkevičius declared publicly that Vilnius “found the arms proposal for eastern Europe made by Frank-Walter Steinmeier totally unacceptable.” Does this mean that Lithuania is not interested in peace in the region, and even more is going to increase its amount of weapons?

We have come to the disappointing conclusion: Lithuania relies on increasing its amount of weapons instead of improving their quality. Vilnius is not ready to pay for advanced weapons. It can only take the surplus of old equipment and armament for a symbolic price. Such a new offer as Frank-Walter Steinmeier has made doesn’t coincide with Lithuanian financial policy in the military sphere at all. Lithuanian authorities should realize that increasing the combat capability of Lithuanian armed forces via quantity is a dead-end road.

Linkevičius also noted that “Lithuania’s defense capabilities should be strengthened because there are gaps at certain positions.” He expressed doubt that “now is the right time to discuss the issue of arms reduction.” But it is the right time! It is always the right time to make our lives safer even if it is expensive for the country. Such tendencies in Lithuanian politics leads to three mistakes simultaneously. Firstly, Lithuania excludes itself from the circle of states participating in the development of a new and effective European security system. Secondly, Lithuania shows its inability to make right political choices. Thirdly, Vilnius acts illogically, rejecting the offers of key European political players.

But unfortunately, acting to its own detriment has long been the rule of Lithuanian foreign policy.

 

Brexit and the Future of the EU

September 13, 2016

Geopolitical Monitor

 

Geopoliticalmonitor.com sits down with Mark Leonard to discuss the repercussions of the Brexit. Mr. Leonard is the Director of the European Council of Foreign Relations.

 

What is a consequence of Brexit that might take UK Leave voters by surprise?

Leave voters will be surprised by rising levels of immigration, at least until Britain has actually left the EU, and new immigration rules may be in place. Many will take the opportunity to come to Britain before the rules change.

More importantly, it is already becoming clear that a large part of Leave voters – probably about half – will be disappointed with the result of the negotiations no matter what is being agreed on. Leave voters voted for the black box of ‘Out’ without knowing what out meant. Every voter hence imagined his or her own ideal of Brexit, which cannot possibly come true.

 

What might take Remain voters by surprise?

Remainers will be surprised that Britain may in fact leave the single market. Most Remain voters thought that no matter the rest of the negotiations, Britain would at least remain part of the single market. However, after the campaign many officials and politicians think it will be politically impossible to stay in the single market for three reasons.  Firstly, because it would involve free movement.  Secondly, because it would involve making a contribution to the EU budget. Thirdly, because of the supremacy of EU law.  If this happens, it will be surprising to many Remainers that the Conservatives are willing to be so business unfriendly.

 

Care to venture an educated guess as to when Theresa May will trigger Article 50?  

Two scenarios appear possible. In the first scenario, Theresa May will invoke Article 50 in May as she won’t want to have the prospects of European elections looming over her head – which take place in May 2019.

The second scenario – which I consider slightly more likely – would be to hold general elections in spring, consolidate her majority, and trigger Article 50 after the German elections in November.

 

What kind of negotiating stance will Brussels adopt once Article 50 is triggered and formal talks begin? 

Brussels will delay all formal talks and taking strong stances on anything until the German government is in place. Even then, it may want to not engage very much, waiting for the French to cast their votes in May 2017.

What Brussels offers will mainly depend on what May will ask for. It is important to note that Brussels, although officially the negotiation partner, is after all only moderating the ideas of 27 nations. Interestingly, the biggest headache for Brussels won’t be those advocating a harsh Brexit, but rather the pro-Europeans that are likely to suggest complicated special forms of cooperation with the UK in order to keep Britain as close as possible. But for Brussels, there needs to be a palpable difference between being in the club and being outside. The deal can’t be too good.

 

Do you think that the Brexit vote is indicative of a trend of growing anti-EU sentiment around the continent? If so, how does this trend measure up to historical precedent?  

Yes. The EU is well into an era of disintegration. The fragility and disunity of the remaining 27 states is in fact more troubling than Britain’s departure. In many countries the domestic consensus for Europe has all but evaporated. All member states are subject to the same feelings of economic insecurity, cultural anxiety, and political alienation.

And all over Europe, new political forces are exploiting these feelings by using referenda to recast politics as a fight between the people and self-serving elites. Across Europe, there are 47 insurgent parties that have already gained control of the political agenda of their countries. According to our research, 32 referenda are being demanded in 18 countries across the EU. We are experiencing a counterrevolution against the revolution that the establishment of the European Union was.

The EU has driven a revolution in how countries live together – advancing individual rights, international law, and the pooling of sovereignty. It had transformative power over the whole continent, exported European values, and shaped international institutions which adopted its model of shared sovereignty.

 

How will Brexit impact security policy in the European Union? Is it a net positive or negative for NATO’s relevance?

Britain will remain a security power in Europe despite Brexit. It is likely to stay engaged in the continent’s security. But increasingly, actions will be negotiated and taken through other, more flexible fora such as the G7, or EU 3+3. NATO is unlikely to become more than the toolbox that it is at the moment, because it is difficult to use it as a forum for negotiations. This means that smaller EU member states and EU institutions will lose in the realm of security policy.

 

The Brexit is often painted in negative terms for both Britain and the Union. Yet are there any positives, any new opportunities for Brussels following Britain’s decision? 

People are right to assume that the Brexit is in fact bad for both Britain and the EU. Still there may be a few, small tactical changes that could be positive, such as the lifting of the British vetoes on the Operational Headquarters, increased spending on the European Defence Agency, or Elmar Brok’s participation in the informal meeting of EU foreign ministers (Gymnich).

The Brexit vote may also have nudged the remaining EU member states to begin reforming their immigration systems – harmonizing for instance issues such as the payment of benefits to European migrants.

 

In your opinion, what was the most decisive factor in swinging the vote to the Leave side? 

The most important issue from the beginning was clearly immigration. That the Remain side was unable to provide a positive vision of Europe did not help either.

 

What would be your advice to officials in Brussels who want to close the rift opened by Brexit? Is ‘more Europe’ the answer, or ‘less Europe’? 

The answer is not more or less Europe, but a flexible solution which protects citizens from interdependence. The EU will have to change – over the last few decades, it proved that it could be a force for globalization, tearing down barriers between peoples and nations. But today its survival depends on showing that it can protect citizens from these very forces. That will mean improving protection of the EU’s external borders, compensating domestic losers from migration and free trade, and soothing public fears about terrorism.

The EU has to work out what really matters to it, in which areas unity is crucial, and where it can agree to compromises and be flexible.

 

How will Brexit impact the GBP in the medium to long term?  

After the initial shock, the pound appears stable although at a lower level. We may expect a similar drop immediately after or in the run up to the leaving date. However, Brexit is unlikely to have a long-term impact on the currency, unless the British economy suffers substantially and continuously.

 

Will global banks and financial firms in the City of London relocate on a mass scale?

Several cities have portrayed themselves as alternative to London, from Amsterdam to Paris, Frankfurt to Dublin. However, a relocalisation of the City on a mass scale appears unlikely, given the many advantages London continues to hold, from the English language, low taxes, established infrastructures and the relative availability of money. The city will fight hard to retain passporting rights, if it fails to do so, we can expect some relocalisation, but even in this case many financial firms will continue to operate from London.

 

Will Brexit trigger another referendum on Scottish independence?

Scottish independence, or another referendum, is not an automatic result of the Brexit vote. Over 1 million Scots voted to leave, more than the number who voted for Nicola Sturgeon. And although immediately after the referendum many called for another independence vote, the situation has cooled since then with polls suggesting that not significantly more people would vote for Scottish independence than did in 2014.

As Scotland, even more than the rest of the country, is suffering from acute referendum fatigue, calling for another independence referendum is by no means the automatic consequence of the EU referendum result.

Le Luxembourg demande l'exclusion de la Hongrie de l'UE

Par RFI

Publié le 13-09-2016 Modifié le 13-09-2016 à 16:49

La Hongrie de Viktor Orban, qui tient un virulent discours anti-migrants, doit quitter l'UE estime le Luxembourg.REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

La crise des réfugiés continue de montrer les profondes divisions internes au sein de l'Union européenne, particulièrement entre les pays d'Europe centrale et orientale et les autres. Le dernier en date à s'ériger lui-même en héraut des valeurs fondamentales de l'UE est Jean Asselborn, le ministre luxembourgeois des Affaires étrangères, qui demande dans une interview au quotidien allemand Die Welt l'exclusion de la Hongrie de l'UE.

De notre bureau de Bruxelles,

La Hongrie devrait être exclue de l'Union européenne de manière temporaire, voire définitive, voici ce que déclare Jean Asselborn. Le ministre des Affaires étrangères luxembourgeois estime que la Hongrie traite les migrants presque aussi mal que des animaux. Pour lui, la barrière à la frontière hungaro-serbe est de plus en plus haute et de plus en plus longue et le gouvernement magyar n'est plus très loin d'ordonner de tirer sur les réfugiés.

Jean Asselborn juge inacceptable ce qu'il voit comme une violation des valeurs fondamentales de l'Union européenne et il y ajoute la liberté de la presse et l'indépendance de la justice hongroise qui sont déjà au centre de bisbilles entre le gouvernement de Viktor Orban et plusieurs pays européens.

L'homologue allemand de Jean Asselborn, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, comprend que des pays « s'impatientent » face à la Hongrie, mais ne veut montrer la porte à personne.

De son côté, la Commission européenne se refuse à toute réaction, mais on peut rappeler que les tensions ne manquent pas avec les Magyars. Il y a déjà eu des heurts au sujet de la construction du mur ou bien au moment du refus par la Hongrie et d'autres pays d'Europe centrale du projet de répartition des réfugiés par quotas. Le président de la Commission avait aussi l'an dernier promis de livrer bataille contre Viktor Orban s'il maintenait son idée de rétablir la peine de mort. Bref, l'ambiance risque fort d'être délétère au sommet de Presbourg.

Europe seems to be in a referendum frenzy these days. In early May, the Hungarian government confirmed its decision to hold a referendum on the European Commission's plan to distribute asylum seekers among member states. In April, Dutch citizens voted against the European Union Association Agreement with Ukraine in a referendum organized by a Euroskeptic organization. In June, the United Kingdom will hold a crucial vote on whether to leave the European Union altogether. The three votes have a common denominator: EU citizens are essentially being asked to decide on issues connected to the process of Continental integration.

Considering the European Union's political and economic predicament, referenda are a very attractive tool to win the loyalty of voters. The democratic legitimacy of the European Union is being questioned, and moderate governments and their Euroskeptic opposition alike are turning to the voters for their own political gain. In the coming years, referenda will be proposed by three main sources — national governments, opposition groups and civil society organizations — and they will touch upon a broad range of EU-related questions.

An Interesting Paradox

The European Union has a tempestuous history with referenda. European governments have made many crucial decisions affecting national sovereignty without consulting the populace. The founding members of the European Economic Community (the European Union's predecessor) did not hold referenda when the supranational organization was created in 1957. Four decades later, the initial members of the eurozone did not ask voters their opinion before creating the currency union. Only Denmark and Sweden held referenda on whether to enter the eurozone, and people voted not to join it. The United Kingdom, in turn, negotiated an opt-out with its EU peers.

When nations have consulted their citizens, the results have many times tended against European integration. The Irish initially voted against the treaties of Nice (2001) and Lisbon (2008), which transferred more power from the national government to EU institutions. In both cases, Dublin negotiated concessions from the European Union before holding second referenda, which resulted in favorable votes for the treaties. In Denmark the treaty of Maastricht, which created the European Union, required a second referendum to pass in 1993 after people voted against it a year earlier. Perhaps the most notorious EU referenda were held in France and the Netherlands in 2005, when people voted against a plan to establish an EU constitution. Such strong popular rejection in two founding EU members caused the bloc to abort the project.

Whether the European Union is democratically legitimate has been a matter of debate for decades. Aware that transferring national sovereignty to unelected technocrats in Brussels could alienate voters, national governments decided to enhance the role of the EU Parliament, the only international organization whose members are elected by universal suffrage. The idea was that, by giving the European Parliament a greater participation in the Continent's decision-making process, the European Union would become more democratic.

But Europe's economic and political crises have exacerbated the debate over the bloc's democratic legitimacy, and governments are becoming increasingly nationalistic in response. With its impending referendum on whether to stay in the union, the United Kingdom is the most extreme example of this trend. But other countries are likely to make similar demands in the future. The referendum issue poses an interesting paradox: Asking voters to weigh in on European issues seems to be the most democratic way to reform the European Union — an arguably undemocratic institution. But as is usually the case, things are not as simple as they initially seem, and the practice could in fact weaken the bloc beyond repair.

Layers of Complexity

On the surface, referenda are the most formidable tool of democracy, giving voters a direct say on political, economic and social issues. They allow people to re-engage with the political process and give governments a popular mandate for major decisions that require a broad consensus. This explains why referenda are often used to reform constitutions or to make decisions on socially and politically sensitive issues (such as abortion or the death penalty).

But critics of referenda argue that they force voters to make decisions on complex issues about which they may not have complete knowledge. Referenda tend to create the illusion that complex issues can be presented in simple terms; the vote is often reduced to a binary "yes" or "no" answer. Referenda are also intimately linked to domestic political situations. Many citizens and political parties tend to see referenda as a vote on the government rather than on the issue under discussion, and the outcome is often determined by the economic situation or the popularity of the government at the time.

The European supranational government creates an additional layer of complexity. EU-related issues tend to be harder for voters to understand than national issues, and voters tend to more closely identify with and care about national rather than supranational issues. This means that voters often decide on EU referenda according to domestic political and economic conditions. Many of the French votes against the European Constitution, for example, were actually a vote against former President Jacques Chirac. The same happens with elections for the EU parliament; most political parties tend to campaign on domestic issues rather than on European issues. Thus, European Parliament election results are widely perceived as a barometer of the popularity of national governments.

EU-related referenda are also complex because of their impact on decision-making in Europe. Treaties need to be ratified by all member states before they become take effect, which means that in those countries where referenda are needed to ratify a treaty (such as in Ireland and Denmark), the entire process could be stalled because of the decision of voters in a single country. This creates enormous uncertainty about the feasibility of passing treaties, but it also gives countries temporary albeit notable leverage to negotiate concessions when voters vote no. Denmark, for example, received several exemptions from EU requirements after people initially voted against the Maastricht Treaty.

A Powerful Negotiating Tool

To a large extent, the current spate of referenda in Europe is a result of the upcoming British vote. London proved that referenda can be used to extract concessions from Brussels, but it also showed that the process of Continental integration can be frozen or even reversed with a popular vote. In the coming years, governments will probably use referenda (or, more likely, the threat of referenda) to demand concessions from the European Union, to justify domestic decisions, or to increase their own popularity. The net result of this situation will be to further distance EU member states from the centralized core in Brussels.

Naturally, not every country is in the same position to make demands. In 2015 the Greek government used a referendum against austerity to pressure its lenders to soften the terms of its bailout agreement with little success. In Hungary's case, the government will use popular opposition to the relocation scheme to justify its rejection of the plan in Brussels and to improve its popularity at home. But Hungary's position will be stronger if it coordinates its actions with other like-minded countries in the region. Larger EU members may feel more tempted than their smaller peers to threaten referenda, since they can inflict more damage on the European Union.

Euroskeptic political parties will also use referenda as a part of their electoral campaigns. The leader of the nationalist Freedom Party of Austria recently said Austria should be "governed via referenda" as Switzerland is. France's National Front has promised to hold a vote on the country's EU membership if it wins the presidential election in 2017. Italy's Five Star Movement has said it would hold a referendum on the country's membership in the eurozone if elected. Considering that France and Italy are the second- and third-largest economies in the eurozone, respectively, such referenda could finally doom the European Union. Promising to put EU-related issues to a vote helps these parties to soften their image, because a referendum looks less threatening (and more democratic) than the promise of unilateral action. Finally, interest groups or nongovernmental organizations may try to push their agendas in a similar way. But their options are more limited; only a handful of EU members have mechanisms that allow for citizens to organize referenda.

In Italy, referenda organized by citizens are binding, but only if voter turnout is above 50 percent. Most of the citizen-backed referenda in the past two decades were declared void because of low voter turnout. In the Netherlands, the threshold for voter turnout is much lower (30 percent), but the referenda organized by the public are not binding. However, even non-binding votes can put governments in awkward situations. The Dutch government is currently looking for ways to honor its promise to respect the result of a referendum in which people asked The Hague not to sign an association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine. Countries such as Croatia, Lithuania and Hungary also have mechanisms that enable citizens to propose a referendum.

Some countries have other mechanisms of direct democracy. In Austria and Finland, for example, people can force their parliaments to discuss a certain topic if they collect enough signatures. In late April, the Finnish parliament held a debate on the country's membership in the eurozone after a group of citizens collected signatures to force the topic. While the debate was not binding, citizens sent their government a clear signal that they are worried about the effect of the common currency on the Finnish economy. These discussions can be particularly awkward when, like in Finland, a Euroskeptic party is actually a member of the government and has to find a balance between its political manifesto and its coalition commitments.

The Upcoming Votes

There are plenty of issues in Europe that could be decided by a referendum in the coming years. Though a new EU treaty is very unlikely in the current political environment, any attempts to modify the bloc's legal framework would trigger an avalanche of referenda across the Continent. Euroskeptic political parties and organizations in Southern Europe, as well as more moderate governments, could threaten to put their membership in the European Union or the eurozone to a vote so as to demand concessions from Brussels on varied topics, including fiscal targets and debt restructuring. Euroskeptic forces in Northern Europe could push for referenda to resist measures that undermine their national wealth.

Separatist movements in places such as Catalonia, Scotland and Flanders will continue to push for referenda for more autonomy or for outright independence. Regional or municipal governments can resist EU plans to allocate asylum seekers in their territories by putting the issue to a vote. Cyprus' Greek south and its Turkish north are once again negotiating to reunify the island, but any agreement will have to be ratified by both sides in a referendum. (In 2004, Greek Cypriots rejected a U.N.-backed plan in a referendum.)

Referenda can also affect international affairs beyond the European Union. Popular pressure could force governments in several EU nations to hold a referendum on trade agreements such as the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Countries like Finland and Sweden are unlikely to join NATO without a referendum, and Austria and Ireland are not planning to join the military alliance any time soon, but if they did, a referendum would be difficult to avoid.

These votes will probably be held against the backdrop of growing nationalism and fear of globalization. They will almost certainly be influenced by the political and economic situation at the time of the vote and will be subject to populist manipulation from both the organizers and their opponents (something true of most elections). The alleged attempts to solve the European Union's crisis of representation could therefore contribute to the bloc's weakening.

Refugee Crisis Reminds Europe There is a Real War in Syria

September 13, 2015

Alessandro Bruno

Refugees are not the problem; war is. If the war in Syria doesn’t stop, the flow of refugees will only continue. The refugee wave, marked by the dramatic image of tens of thousands of Syrians trying to reach Germany from Hungary, is a phenomenon that until very recently has been confused, perhaps deliberately, with mass migration. There is an important difference: migrations are frequently driven by financial or social exclusion. What is happening now in Europe is the inevitable consequence of unresolved crises in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Afghanistan – all related to the collapse of these countries’ respective states, the result of wars for which the West bears much responsibility.

Many of the Syrian refugees are ethnic Kurds. Most are escaping from Ayn al-Arab, located near the Syria-Turkey border. Kobane is another popular source. Both have been under attack or siege by Islamic State as the group tries to secure a ‘corridor’ between the area it controls and Turkish territory, which provides a source of fresh recruits and an outlet for oil extracted from Syrian fields. Recently, Turkey has changed its refugee strategy, now preferring to turn them away. Turkey has even blocked Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who want to assist Kobane’s residents in defending the city, implying a de-facto, if not de-jure, collusion between Ankara and the Islamic State. Meanwhile, the majority of refugees stranded in Hungary are Syrians and while the Islamic State’s brutality has forced them to seek refuge in Europe, Western governments’ insistence on refusing to deal with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, instead demanding its collapse, has prolonged the Syrian crisis.

Just as the European Union confronts the Syrian influx and the related problem of quotas for its member states, many of which have already absorbed tens of thousands of refugees from other wars and troubled regions, it seems to be ignoring the root causes of their suffering. Bluntly, the cause is a Middle East in disarray, a state for which the West has its own share of responsibility (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria), contributing to the rise of groups fighting proxy battles for regional players such as Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates. The latter have sponsored rebels in various guises with weapons and money rather than encouraging peace building and some kind of a negotiated peace in Syria, one that includes rather than excludes the current government. The images of Aylan, the little boy who was found dead on a Turkish beach, seem to have suddenly woken up the world, as if tens of thousands of children had not already died in Syria during these four and a half years of war. And what to make of the many deaths in Iraq since 2003? Meanwhile, the Middle East threatens to explode, producing refugees not in the hundreds of thousands but in the tens of millions, threatening Europe’s own survival – and the world’s.

A colder and more analytical approach to the Syrian refugee crisis reveals that the Balkan route, leading to its Hungarian critical point, is no more than a year old. Like the African route that has Libya as its final destination before the sea trek toward Malta and Italy, the Balkan route has become well frequented over a relatively short period. The war in Syria broke out in 2011 and turned almost immediately into a proxy war between states in the region. The West has encouraged the influx of foreign fighters from the Turkish border, in apparent agreement with its Sunni allies – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar – to overthrow the Assad government, only to later be reminded of the folly of this policy by the rise of Islamic State. The deliberate destabilization of the Assad regime has produced a boomerang effect, creating radicals and refugees – and it does not take many radicals, posing as refugees, to cross borders and bring a little taste of that destabilization to Europe. The West has learned little from the experience with the Mujahedeen, which the United States armed and organized to fight the Red Army in Afghanistan. The rise of Islamic State has generated over 200,000 refugees, including Christians and Yazidis, in northern Iraq alone. Now there are two million Syrian refugees in Turkey, and one million in Lebanon – which was already dealing with its own delicate political and ethnic balance. A million Syrians have crossed the border into Jordan – not a country with many resources – adding considerable political pressure on the Kingdom. Europe has started to absorb more refugees as Turkey’s initial generous hospitality proved a strategic move to facilitate the elimination of Assad and his allies. Yet, Assad and the Alawi dominated Ba’ath Party are still there and thanks to the Iran nuclear deal, the regime’s demise looks rather unlikely. Turkey’s primary interest now is less stopping the Caliphate and more slowing the rising Kurdish tide just outside borders, which threatens to incite Kurdish nationalism within them.

Indeed, Ankara’s policy on Islamic State has been ambiguous at best. It was reluctant to challenge the self-proclaimed jihadists from Islamic State, facilitating its growth by encouraging – or willfully ignoring – the entry of fighters into Syria and Iraq through its borders. This has certainly allowed the war to continue and flourish. Moreover, President Erdogan and the AKP Party, which has already suffered a blow losing its parliamentary majority, face an uncertain political future as Turks prepare to vote again this fall with the Kurdish parties expected to win even more votes than last spring’s election. Therefore, Turkey has many problems at home and does not intend to confront Islamic State in the interests of stopping the war in Syria, except where it can defeat its real enemy, which is the Kurdish PKK, the paramilitary organization which aspires to an independent state of Kurdistan.

The sudden flow of refugees to Europe could be considered as Turkey’s retribution for having been ‘persuaded’ to accommodate US drones and fighter jets at its Incirlik air base – even if Turkey is an important NATO member. Up until this past year, Turkey had managed to keep its borders sealed to prevent the very wave of migration to Europe which has allowed the refugee crisis to reach its current point point. Because Turkey no longer needs the Syrians, they have been allowed to proceed to Greece. New refugees from Syria are avoiding the Turkish borders altogether, preferring to make the short crossing to the Greek island of Kos, in what has been a very recent phenomenon. This has perhaps started to persuade some in the Obama administration – Obama himself may have reached this conclusion earlier – that Syria cannot be stabilized, which means breaking the jihadist tide – without the support of the very regime which has ruled the country for decades. Among evaluation errors, ambiguities, contradictions, and sudden policy changes, European leaders must now explain an emergency in which migrants are the last link in a chain of high-profile geopolitical mistakes made since the very start of the Syrian revolt in March 2011.

Europe - analysis

Europe Rethinks the Schengen Agreement

When France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the Schengen Agreement in 1985, they envisioned a system in which people and goods could move from one country to another without barriers. This vision was largely realized: Since its implementation in 1995, the Schengen Agreement eliminated border controls between its signatories and created a common visa policy for 26 countries.

The treaty was a key step in the creation of a federal Europe. By eliminating border controls, member states gave up a basic element of national sovereignty. The agreement also required a significant degree of trust among its signatories, because it put the responsibility for checking foreigners' identities and baggage on the country of first entry into the Schengen area. Once people have entered a Schengen country, they can move freely across most of Europe without facing any additional controls.

The Schengen Agreement was implemented in the 1990s, when the end of the Cold War and the prospect of permanent economic prosperity led EU members to give up national sovereignty in many sensitive areas. The creation of the eurozone is probably the most representative agreement of the period. But several things have changed in Europe since then, and member states are beginning to question many of the decisions that were made during the preceding years of optimism.

Europe’s greatest crisis isn’t Greece or Ukraine, and it may have no solution

The migrants streaming across the Mediterranean to Italy, who buy their freedom from war and hunger from traffickers and die by the thousands doing so, confront Europe with its most hideous dilemma. The issue is sharper than the Greek crisis, the euro crisis or even the Ukraine crisis. Sharper because it is measured in a daily toll of corpses, most never found. It is palpable, human, pitiful.

And estimated 800 migrants died last weekend when a boat transporting them capsized. Most of the people, who came largely from Africa and Bangladesh, were locked in the boat’s hold by the traffickers.

The dilemma faced by Western Europe’s liberal democracies is that there are no good choices, no intervention of any kind that can staunch the conflicts and brutalities from which these migrants flee.

The truth is, all options have been tried before.

Those who supported the British-American intervention in Iraq in 2003, including myself, did so because of the horror of Saddam Hussein. His record of oppression of his own people, of rapacity toward his neighbors and encouragement of terrorists was unparalleled.

Much the same rationale was mobilized in a less contentious (and much less extensive) intervention by the British and French in Libya, giving air and logistic support to rebels fighting to oust Moammar Gadhafi.

In both cases, the dictator was found and killed. In both cases, the hell that was unleashed against the dictators has been magnified and prolonged after the “mission accomplished” message went out on Western TV screens.

In both cases, too, the promoters and supporters of intervention were assailed for their bellicosity, their ignorance and their neo-imperialism. This despite the fact that a majority of lawmakers in the countries approved the moves and had majorities of their populations behind them.

Then came Syria, and no outside power intervened in its civil war. The killing has gone on, remorselessly, for four years, with a death toll estimated at some quarter of a million and with millions of Syrians now refugees. Some of them fled to the people smugglers in North Africa; some are now drowned.

This dilemma certainly has horns, and the West is impaled on them. On the one side, intervention unleashes horror. On the other, nonintervention permits it. In both cases, the winners have been the most extreme jihadists, Islamic State metastasizing from al Qaeda into a multinational army that rules part of Libya and advertises its barbarity on social media — medieval cruelty on iPhone 6s. And the consequences — the men and women who would risk drowning rather than stay in place — are the bitter liquor distilled from the grapes of wrath of the past decade.

Europe remains transfixed before the issue. The solutions mooted to date have been themselves cruel. One was to scale back the “Mare Nostrum” exercise — under which the Italian navy and coast guard patrolled the stretch of sea between Libya and the first Italian landfall — on the ground that the more dangerous the crossing became, the fewer migrants would cross. Ignorant of this, or uncaring, the migrants increased. The present plan,  under consideration  by European Union ministers, is to destroy the traffickers’ boats and detain the traffickers themselves, as Italian police have already begun to do.

Europe is, grudgingly, beginning to accept some of the thousands of migrants who flood into Italy, with large differences in generosity. Germany has specified 30,000; Britain — its Conservative-led government facing an election in early May in which immigration fears are a large issue — a few hundred.

Libya, where migrants and traffickers meet, is now a site of warring groups. The elected government has fled Tripoli and is huddled in the eastern city of Tobruk. The traffickers negotiate their way across this landscape, paying off the warlords as they go with the migrants’ money.

Mohamed Mahdi Hoderi, a member of Libya’s powerless parliament, said: “They [traffickers] are a network of armed gangs, not militias. They take people from one border to another and then to the Libyan coast and then across the sea. We can’t stop this because authorities are weaker than those gangs.” Italy, which has the most to lose from an extremist-governed Libya, will not intervene militarily.

But even if the West chooses to intervene, the recent past offers clear evidence that the outcome may be no better than the current circumstances.