nicu popescu

daca e cineva la londra si il/o intereseaza acest eveniment la london school of economics la care voi vorbi si eu – sunteti bineveniti.

European Foreign Policy Unit roundtable

Date: Thursday 2 February 2012

Time: 6.30-8pm

Venue: CLM.2.02, Clement House

Speakers: Professor Hiski Haukkala, Dr Petr Kratochwil, Dr Nicu Popescu, Professor Stefan Wolff

Chair: Dr Ulrich Sedelmeier

This roundtable on ‘EU Foreign Policy after Lisbon: The EU’s Influence in its Eastern Neighbourhood’ looks at the impact of the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership on the domestic politics of its partner countries, and how this has changed since the Lisbon Treaty. Professor Hiski Haukkala (University of Tampere, Finland); Dr Petr Kratochwil (Institute of International Relations, Prague); Dr Nicu Popescu (European Council on Foreign Relations); Professor Stefan Wolff (University of Birmingham). This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

fost la sfffarsit de noiembrie la o mica discutioe la paris despre politica externa a UE. iata si conference report-ul.

tocmai revenit din malaezia si indonesia. voi scrie si despre asta. intre timp a aparut si aceasta scrisoare deschisa din partea mai multor experti din UE adresata liderilor UE despre riscurile crizei din zona euro pentru politica externa a UE. am semnat, dar nu am participat la scrierea scrisorii dar se pare ca de aici porneste. cam nu prea cred eu in eficacitatea scrisorilor deschise decat in cazuri foarte rare. + iata si un articol din new york times despre incidentul de la parata…

EU foreign policy must not become a casualty of the euro crisis

OPEN LETTER

BRUSSELS – Dear EU leaders,

We are seriously concerned about the impact that the current eurozone debt crisis is having on the external relations of the Union.

The first casualty is the time available for foreign policy. We recognise and support your efforts to overcome the current crisis but it is important that our relations with third countries do not suffer as a consequence. Important summits have been postponed and there is less time to focus on priority issues such as supporting the transitions in North Africa.

A second problem is the resources available for foreign policy. The EU’s budget for external affairs is already small and any further cuts would seriously impact on the EU’s pretensions to play a global role. (more…)

pentru cunoscatorii de poloneza – iata sumarul discutiei pe care am avut-o la Fundatia Batory in Polonia la prezentarea studiului despre PEV: Turning Presence into Power

This is a continuation of the previous post on Morocco’s political system.

The 20 February movement

Speaking at an Italian restaurant in Rabat some early-twenties activists from the ’20 February movement’ are saying that ‘We do not feel represented by the existing political parties. We want a monarchy like in Holland. For now we are asking for reforms, not regime change.’ The movement is not a typical youth movement modelled on the type of Otpor in Serbia, Pora in Ukraine or Kefaya in Egypt. Actually the early-20s activists of the Moroccan movement have not even heard of Kefaya. Their movement brings together or is supported by a ragtag of young urban middle class ‘spoiled kids’, the outlawed Islamist movement Al-Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Spirituality) and leftists disappointed with the left-wing parties. (more…)

un policy brief scris impreuna cu Andrew Wilson publicat astazi la ECFR despre politica europeana de vecinatate: Turning Presence into Power: Lessons from the Eastern Neighbourhood

tocmai revenit din maroc. ECFR scrie mai multe studii despre intreaga vecinatate sudica. colegii mei au fost in egipt si libia, iar eu m-am ales cu cazurile mai usoare – tunisia si maroc. daca nu mergeam la chisinau as fi ajuns si eu in egipt si poate libia… in maroc ne-am intalnit si cu (r)evolutionari, si cu islamisti, si cu guvernul… islamistii sunt curiosi… partie de justice et development – partid islamist legal si oarecum loial regelui marocului (care e descedendent al profetului si ‘commander of the faithful’) cat si miscarea pentru justitie si binefacere – care e interzisa si mai putin loiala regelui. actualmente puterea curtii regale e contestata de o coalitie de islamisti, tineri/facebookeristi/bloggeri/si stangisti. islamistii ne-au povestit timp de 10 minute despre fratia religiilor si cum crestinii coptici ii protejau pe musulmani in timpul rugaciunilor in tahrir, si vice-versa. scriu mai multe bloguri despre asta. iata un prim blog. mai urmeaza altele.

Revolutions and youth movements

One of the main stories of the 2000-2005 wave of revolutions – successful in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and failed in Belarus, Azerbaijan and Egypt – were the existence of organised youth movements with names which were variations on the idea ‘enough is enough’. Otpor in Serbia, Pora in Ukraine, Kmara in Georgia, Kefaya in Egypt, Zubr in Belarus), and Mjaft in Albania became almost household names. However, I have not heard of anything ressembling Kefaya in the recent Egyptian or Tunisian revolutions. These recent revolutions were conspicuous by the absence of well-organised and well-branded youth movements. The revolutions seem to have done well enough without them. (more…)

The revolutionary upheaval in the Southern neighbourhood and the failures of reforms in most of the Eastern neighbourhood are begging for a revised EU approach to the neighbourhood policy (ENP). In March the EU presented some ideas on ‘a partnership for democracy and shared prosperity’ with the Southern Mediterranean. Some time in May the EU will present also a full review of the ENP. A central concept of the updated ENP is the idea of ‘more for more’ – the EU should give more political and financial support to those neighbourhood countries that implement more reforms and are more democratic.

‘More for more’ stands for a more meritocratic ENP. It should lay the basis for proper differentiation between neighbours, not based on geographic criteria, but based on their performance. The concept is also supposed to change the way the EU is spending its money. Currently the EU pre-allocates most of its assistance to specific neighbourhood states (almost irrespective of their reform performance) in 7-years budgetary cycles. ‘More for more’ is supposed to make it easier to shift its more EU assistance from one neighbourhood state to another depending on their reform performance. Overall, the concept the concept of ‘more for more’ is laudable and fair, but also quite slippery. (more…)

As the ‘post-Cold War era’ turned into the ‘multipolar world’ era, the notion of Western democracy promotion underwent similarly dramatic changes. The West became too weak to pursue democracy-promotion head-on and was seen as being forced to fall back on old-school realist approaches to democracy. But just when this realist approach to democracy-promotion seemed to almost finally become dominant, the popular wave of protests in EU’s southern neighbourhod changed everything again. Now the question is what will come next.

The Realist Consensus

For the few couple of years the realist consensus on democracy promotion seemed to be on a seemigly unstoppable (repeated) rise. It marked the end of two decades of noisy, often arrogant, but equally often concerned tough talk and action to promote human rights and democracy. The idea was that time has come to focus on achieving certain, rather quantifiable interests, such as ensuring security, fighting terrorism, expanding trade or managing migration, rather than adopting vague goals like promoting human rights and improving governance. (more…)

Having spent most of the week in Tunisia, here are some thoughts and observations.

The mood

… is very positive. It is not the end of a president (like Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004), but the end of an era. Since independence in 1956, Tunisia had only two presidents – Bourghiba and Ben Ali who ruled for 30 and 23 years respectively. In this sense Tunisia feels a bit like Central and Eastern Europe in late 80s-early 90s.

Confusion

There is a lot of optimism, but even more short term confusion. There is no clear understanding, nor agreement on what to do the following weeks and months. There are no institutions, no leaders and no united platform of dissidents, NGOs or oppositionists (like Solidarnosc in Poland or Saakshvili in Georgia) to stir the country through the next months. The interim president is unelected with little legitimacy, there is no parliament, the interim government is very weak politically, and under constant assault from protesters who want jobs, salary raises etc. So far the government had to accede to most of the demands of the protesters, since it has little power to say no. With such tempo the country can easily go bankrupt (add the outflow of tourists, uncertainties of the investors etc).

The starting point of post-revolutionary transitions in Serbia, Georgia or Ukraine were much better, and even there many of the results are mixed. (more…)