EU to overhaul policy that props up despotic regimes

Stunned by the revolts against authoritarian rule in Arab countries, the European Union is carrying out an overhaul of its multibillion-dollar "neighbourhood" policy towards the southern Mediterranean.

The rethink has been prompted by anger that for years the EU has been lavishing money on development projects which have helped to prop up a string of Arab despots on its rim. Momentum is now building for change that will support fledgling democracies in Tunisia and Egypt and hike pressure on other regimes to respect free speech, elections and rule of law.

Champions of the reform say it is in the EU's interest to prevent political turbulence and economic migration from North Africa and the Middle East.

"We need to reinforce the reformers from Libya to Syria to Yemen, or they will lose their revolutions," said Edward McMillan-Scott, a Liberal MP in the European Parliament and also Parliamentary vice-president responsible for Democracy and Human Rights.

"If the EU can put up something like €800 billion ($14.5 trillion) for a stabilisation fund for its own economies we need to look beyond our borders to the regions we actually live in.

"The neighbourhood of Europe, east and south, is unstable, and the only way of making it stable is by assuring democracy."

The main vehicle for the EU's relations with the southern Mediterranean is called the European Neighbourhood Policy, or ENP. Launched in 2004, the programme covers 16 nations including Turkey, Israel, the Palestinian territories and five former Soviet republics.

It is luxuriously funded with a budget of €12 billion from 2007 to 2013. Even so, the ENP is promoted so poorly as to be almost invisible - both to people in the recipient countries and to the European taxpayer.

Its funds go on sectors such as transport, energy efficiency, scientific co-operation and security but are not conditional on political reform. The programme includes provisions for better "governance" but this is about making administration more efficient.

"The 'D' word [for democracy] had virtually disappeared from the lexicon of the EU in its dealings with the Arab world," said Michael Emerson of the Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels think-tank.

Emerson blamed EU "deference" to ousted Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, a close ally of France, and his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak.

"Now it is the demand of the peoples of almost all Arab states, including two post-revolutionary regimes in the making," he said. "And elsewhere in the Arab world the leaderships are being forced to make moves in the direction of democracy."

The EU is now taking the first steps of reform. In diplomacy, it has slapped a freeze on assets and travel to the EU by regime leaders in Libya, which it followed last week with a similar measure against top officials in Syria. Last month the 27-nation bloc also granted new preferential trade terms to Mediterranean countries, excluding Libya.

Longer-term changes are also in store. On March 8 the EU's executive arm, the European Commission, published a broad policy document.

It calls for linking the €4 billion in aid for the southern Mediterranean, due to be spent from 2011-13, to advances in judicial reform, human rights and fighting corruption. It would also place a special emphasis on civil society and small businesses.

Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said the approach would be "incentive-based". "Partners who move faster on political and economic reforms should be able to count on greater support from the EU."

The big questions, though, are what exactly the reforms would be and how they would be implemented.

The European Commission was scheduled to next week publish a review of the ENP and its suggestions for change. But publication has been delayed by what sources in Brussels say is a turf battle between the commission, in charge of "neighbourhood" policy, and Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief.

Other sticking points are over the boldness of the reforms themselves.

Six EU Mediterranean countries want a shift in ENP funds from former Soviet countries to the southern Mediterranean. Moldova, for instance, gets €25 of aid per head whereas Tunisia receives €7 and Egypt just €1.8 per person.

Fierce debate, too, is under way over how to monitor and encourage pro-democracy reforms, adds Emerson.

A Polish idea that has gained traction is to set up an autonomous foundation, modelled on the United States National Endowment for Democracy.

It would set up offices to promote democracy in these countries and disburse grants from the central EU budget.