Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Sven Biscop
Started reading
September 21, 2019
universal values implies that we do not consider governments that do not respect them as fully legitimate. We act as if “a significant portion of the world lives under a kind of unsatisfactory, probationary agreement, and will one day be redeemed”. Until then, our relations with these states cannot but have an “adversarial element” to them (Kissinger, 2015, pp. 235–236).
Making democratisation our foreign policy objective thus implies high transaction costs, for it automatically leads to friction with every non-democratic government (and there are many). The obje...
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The lesson from past experience is rather that democracy just cannot be introduced from the outside, certainly not by force of arms, but has to grow organically, inside a country.
The EU maintains a critical human rights dialogue with all countries with which it maintains diplomatic relations, in order to point out problematic issues. Oftentimes that happens behind closed doors, but that can be the best way of having an impact. Regimes usually want to avoid losing face and will see a public condemnation as a provocation, but can be found willing to compromise as long as the case is not made public.
In practice, however, EU Member States often hesitate to be too critical if important economic interests are at stake.
At the same time, powerful countries, with which the EU has a relationship of mutual dependency (for example, because of the size of their market, or because of energy supplies), don’t hesitate to simply blackmail the EU. A typical example is China putting a European country before the choice: either cancel a visit by the Dalai Lama, or cancel a planned trade delegation.
Clinging to democratisation and respect for human rights as preconditions for cooperation can disadvantage
Other powers, in particular China, do not impose such “inconvenient” conditions and are therefore more attractive partners for regimes who disregard human rights. Certainly in Africa this has cost Europe a lot of influence,
From a purely pragmatic point of view, one could conclude from this analysis that for our foreign policy it would be a lot easier to simply abandon all talk about democracy and human rights. For the EU that is not an option, however.
Ignoring our own values in our foreign policy is equally absurd. Precisely because these are universal values, the EU must at all times avoid the impression
that it only respects them internally and does not cares when no Europeans are concerned. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
No single actor can long maintain a policy that is at odds with its fundamental values. Gradually, internal support will crumble and a reversal of policy will become inevitable. The reason why we feel ill at ease cooperating with repressive regimes is because that does not tally with our values. The same applies for waging wars at the expense of the local civilian population.
When terrorists challenge our identity as an open society, the answer cannot be to abandon our identity and create a police state. Exaggerated security measures quickly run into protest, and so they should.
Not respecting our values would do great damage to our legitimacy and credibility, and would thus immediately affect the success of our foreign policy. Moreover, it is also not in our interest to engage in cooperation with authoritarian states without maintaining a critical distance.
Dictatorship and an assertive or even aggressive foreign policy often go hand in hand, which demonstrably creates international tensions.
The answer to the second question, whether we should continue to promote universal values, is nuanced. On the one hand, the EU has clearly been overoptimistic. Where there are no well-governed democratic states it is beyond our power to create them.
existence. This is the welfare state or the Rhineland Model, the true heart of Europe,
His answer: “a sense . . . of the balance of social rights, civic solidarity and collective responsibility . . . a social consensus . . . regarded by many citizens as formally binding” (Judt, 2005).
And as stated in the Introduction: when one possesses soft power, one can hope to tempt rather than to force others into following a certain path.
Over the years I have seen my Chinese students grow more self-confident. They know that China has become a great power.
Europe’s foreign and security policy, in contrast, often appears to them as weak and naive.
Social security, which is much more comprehensive in Europe, is a case in point too. I always surprise my students with the same statement: in this regard Belgium is much more communist than the PRC.
It’s not the manner in which a country achieves equality, but the notion that equality should be the purpose that the EU should promote: the egalitarian aspiration.
unstable is because they offer their citizens neither equal security nor equal prosperity nor equal freedom. Inequality equals instability.
Equality is a multidimensional concept, and that offers a great advantage: flexibility. Europe does not have to work on every dimension of equality simultaneously with every partner, but can adopt a sequential approach.
By first focussing on other dimensions of equality in its relations with non-democratic regimes, the EU can avoid having its diplomacy perceived as a moral condemnation from the start.
The EU can cooperate with a country on a project that increases equality in one dimension without the obligation to work on all other dimensions as well. It is up to the EU and the other country to assess where win-win situations can emerge.
Democratisation no longer is a compulsory part of relations with the EU then.
Would it be nice if Egypt were a democracy? Yes, of course. Is the EU going to turn Egypt into a democracy? No, so let us not fool ourselves and pretend that we can. Only the Egyptians can democratise Egypt.
An area in which the EU can cooperate with most countries without any objections is social and economic equality:
Attracting investors implies respecting the rule of law, for example, as foreign partners will demand contracts to be upheld, and disputes to be settled by an independent court, without having to pay any bribes.
This directly contributes to the rule of law and the fight against corruption in the state as a whole.
In such a way European investment can create an upward spiral, from which gradually an ever greater part of society will benefit.
China, for example, has successfully lifted millions of people out of poverty, while maintaining internal regime security. As of yet, there are many protests against arbitrary government decisions,
Countries must clearly understand that the fact that they need not commit to democratic reforms in order to enter into close relations with the EU does not mean that the EU will no longer speak out about human rights (publicly or behind closed doors, whatever is most effective).
Human rights is the red line, therefore, which the EU can never cross. That red line must be drawn at the right place though. The EU can cooperate with undemocratic regimes. The EU can even cooperate with regimes that violate human rights. It has no choice, or it will never be able to achieve its objectives in areas in which those regimes have power. No one can end the war in Syria, for example, without sitting at the table with Iran and Saudi Arabia.
That is precisely the ignorance of the real world that we should leave behind
There are too many dictatorships in the world. The EU cannot afford to go back to square one, to politics as charity, in which the EU, as if it were a huge NGO, may preserve its virginity but will never maintain its interests. Poor but pure cannot be our strategic objective.
There will always be a grey zone, however, especially when it comes to security cooperation. In the fight against terrorism, for example, European intelligence services cooperate closely with the intelligence services of our southern neighbours. Moroccan and Turkish intelligence also keep a close eye on Moroccan and Turkish communities in Europe, even though most people concerned are (also) citizens of an EU Member State.
A state that seeks to create equality must first of all be sovereign. That means making its own decisions, in full independence and without any external pressure, and maintaining full territorial integrity.
I emphasise this because it is more important and less evident than it seems. Many other powers follow a very different strategy. Russia, for example, does not seek equal and sovereign partners at all. In what it considers to be its sphere of influence, it wants pliable protectorates, client states that align their foreign and security policies with Moscow and ensure that their economies serve Russia’s needs.
Brussels where the EU decided: Ukraine must be ours. To put it frankly: the EU does not need Ukraine. If Kiev, in all freedom, would have opted for closer relations with Moscow than with Brussels, that would not have been a problem for the
Our fundamental purpose is to maintain our equality-based model of society (and to improve it, for in Europe too there is a lot of inequality yet).
cooperating as equal partners with other countries, regardless of the political nature of their regime, on those dimensions of equality (security, economic, political) in which we and they both see a win-win situation.
Adopting a humble stance when one is a great power will either be seen as false modesty, or as another example of European otherworldliness – and we will still not be taken seriously. Whether we like it or not, the EU is a great power, because of its political, economic, and military weight. The question is whether we are willing to act like one: to use all instruments of power in order to shape the world,
Put sharply: those who just dream about liberal values will never achieve them.
This is exactly what the EU should do: bring into practice all dimensions of equality in a pragmatic manner. Since today the notion of realpolitik is mostly used in a different meaning though, we could call this realpolitik with European characteristics.
outlines the direction of EU external action for the next five to seven years.
The new strategy precisely tries to find the middle way between dreamy idealism and unprincipled power politics. It calls this middle way principled pragmatism.
for the first time ever defines the vital interests of the EU. As already mentioned, for a long time interests were simply not discussed in an EU context.
